Amazon 7″ Fire Tablet Review

Fire Tablet

The Fire Tablet is great for eBooks and Prime subscriptions.

I recently received an Amazon 7″ Fire Tablet (5th Generation version) for review. As I love reading and watching television shows, I love that I can use this as a Kindle eBook reader and to watch video using my Amazon Prime subscription.

The 7” Fire Tablet comes in a range of colours (black, blue, orange or purple) and is equipped with a 1.3Ghz Quad-Core processor and 1GB RAM. The 7” touchscreen has a resolution of 1024 x 600 with an IPS display (171 ppi for a bright display with vivid colours and whiter whites). It comes with 8GB/16GB of storage but is expandable up to 200GB by adding a microSD card. It also has FREE UNLIMITED cloud storage for Amazon content. Wifi and Bluetooth wireless connections for access to the internet and other devices. It features 2 cameras; a front-facing VGA camera and a 2MP rear-facing camera for taking photos, video and video chat. It also has a built-in microphone, mono speaker, micro USB port and a 3.5mm headphone socket. It is also supplied with a 5w power adapter and USB cable.

amazonfire

Battery life is around 7 hours of mixed usage; internet, games, apps etc. and takes approx. 6 hours to fully charge.

Measuring 191 x 115 x 10.6 mm (7.5″ x 4.5″ x 0.4″) and weighing only 313g it is quite a nice size to fit in your pocket or bag and carry around with you.

Once taken out of the box and fully charged up I found it very easy to setup; just requires wifi settings, backup settings, social media settings (if you want to use with Facebook, Twitter and Goodreads) and of course Amazon account details.

It comes with pre-installed apps such as;

Shop Amazon – for shopping on the Amazon website
Silk Browser – for surfing the web
Appstore – for purchasing more apps
Amazon Video – for purchasing videos (films or television shows) or use your Prime membership to watch
Books – for reading Kindle books
Music – for purchasing and listening to music
Audiobooks – for purchasing and listening to audiobooks
Newsstand – for reading magazines/newspapers
Photos – share photos and videos from all of your devices here
Games – your games library for your favourite games to play with friends
Goodreads – read and leave reviews of your favourite books
Email – add your email account to send and receive emails

Plus other apps such as; Calendar, Camera, Docs, Contacts, Calculator, Clock, Weather, Help, Settings, My Videos, Photo Importer. it also comes with a Fire for Kids app so you can set up profiles for up to four children (each one can be customised for each child. You can also set time limits on each child’s usage/screen time).

As it is a touchscreen tablet using it is very easy, just touch whatever icon you want to use, swipe left or right to scroll through the different app pages (video, book, games, etc.).

I use it mostly as a Kindle and watching videos on Amazon Prime and think it excellent. The text on the ebooks is very smooth and clear, and video quality is good. Although it only has a mono speaker the sound is good but you can always plug in speakers or connect wirelessly to Bluetooth speakers for better sound (or opt for the Fire HD 8 or HD 10 for Dolby Stereo sound).

The build quality is good as is reported to 1.8x more durable than an Apple iPad Air 2, although I haven’t felt the need to drop it test this out.

Overall, as entry level tablets go, the Amazon 7″ Fire Tablet is excellent. It easy to use, fast with a very responsive touchscreen. Storage can be expanded easily and you do have access to Amazon’s cloud storage for Amazon content. The cameras aren’t the best but adequate for video chat and general photo taking.

To get it at under £50 it comes with “special offers” which is basically adverts when powering on/waking from sleep. This isn’t really that intrusive (they don’t pop up while you are actually using the tablet) but if you don’t like the sound of that you can purchase ad free for an extra £12.50.

A good budget tablet for general use, especially if you buy Kindle ebooks and/or have a Prime subscription to watch video. I liked it so much I have since bought another for a Christmas present for someone!

Rating: 4/5

RRP: from £49.99

Available to buy from Amazon here.

4 Star

Disclosure: I was provided with a free Fire Tablet for the purposes of writing an honest and impartial review.
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