
Amazon’s $50 Fire tablet reviewed - ingve
http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/10/amazons-50-fire-tablet-review-suprisingly-it-doesnt-suck/
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IkmoIkmo
$50 is absolutely insane. Still very excited about the thought of getting
these devices to places like rural India, combined with things like Khan
Academy Lite [0]

I don't want to be too optimistic about some inevitable miracle once you
supply hardware and content, but in general these price levels are indications
for what we can expect by 2020. Dirt cheap, ubiquitous devices capable of
handling virtually all computing tasks you'd like say a 14 year old to do,
with a rich second-hand market of devices pushing the price even lower.

And the energy requirements are ridiculously low. We've seen the latest iPads
around 30 watthours, that's about 0.3 cents for a full (10 hour) charge at
typical retail electricity prices, and this fire tablet looks to be about
1/3rd the battery size but more than 2/3rd the battery life, we're probably
looking at about 0.015 cents ($0.00015) per hour of use. Tiny solar
installations can be sufficient for this level of energy use. I'm hoping
global, low-bandwidth internet that some have proposed in various forms (e.g.
Google, FB) will not trail behind much.

I mean really, let's think about it. It's a quad core device with 1 gig of ram
and gigabytes of storage (and SD-capable), with a screen, 7 hour battery,
keyboard, speaker and connectivity... and with say a 3 year lifetime, it costs
you 4 cents per day. In a few years, this level of tech becomes accessible to
virtually everyone. We all expected it to happen of course, but still, think
back to 2010 when the iPad was introduced at 10x the price ($500+), with a
quarter the ram, a lower resolution and slower cpu. Yes it's subsidised a bit
by the fact it tries to drive Amazon sales after purchase, but still. Who
knows where we'll be in another five years.

[0] [https://learningequality.org/ka-lite/](https://learningequality.org/ka-
lite/)

~~~
bad_user
Not to be cynical, but doesn't matter how awesome and cheap these devices get
as long as they are locked down and designed for consumption.

~~~
mcintyre1994
It looks like you can install custom android roms (eg cyanogenmod) on Amazon
tablets (eg
[https://download.cyanogenmod.org/?device=otterx](https://download.cyanogenmod.org/?device=otterx)
\- see other Amazon devices in the sidebar too)

~~~
swiley
Any android ROM is still primarily built for consumption at the end of the
day.

~~~
msh
Why? Just because android is not optimal for coding you can't say it's
primarily for cumpsomption.

Android is just as much for communications and learning. Quite decent for
writing also with a bt keyboard.

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curun1r
I'm not sure I'd want to use one of these as my primary tablet, but these look
like excellent candidates for DIY projects that need a touchscreen interface,
especially with the discount for buying 6 at a time.

For instance, I'm thinking of adding an in-home video intercom system by
mounting a bunch of these on various walls around the house. Just hoping that
someone figures out rooting to make the software side of creating a single-
purpose tablet a bit easier.

~~~
joenathan
I bought three of them. I use two as monitors for my home camera system, I
have 6 IP cams and use Blue Iris software as DVR and web streamer. I created a
web app I loaded on the tablets and they show a rotating view of each camera
for 4 seconds before switching to the next, and if there is motion on a camera
it'll switch and stay on that camera until the motion stops. The tablets are
set to never sleep, but I use an app to automatically dim the screen at night.
I have one mounted to the wall in my room, and one mounted on the wall next to
the font door. They are cheap enough that if they die after a year or three,
I'll just order more up.

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shadeless
That sounds pretty cool, what cameras do you use? Do you have the code for the
web app available somewhere?

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joenathan
My cameras are all x264 HD IP cameras, I have 2x 720p Tenvis IPROBOT3s, 1x
720p Foscam C1, 1x 1080p Foscam C2, and 1x ELP 720p Mini IP camera.

The app I made is a webview wrapper based on this project
[https://www.ipcamtalk.com/showthread.php/93-I-made-a-
better-...](https://www.ipcamtalk.com/showthread.php/93-I-made-a-better-
remote-live-view-page)

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Theodores
The problem for me is that I have seen Amazon tablets before, struggled to do
basic tasks on them and wondered what the point is. So I will stick to
standard Android when it comes to tablets and not even give this device a
second glance. I wanted to _believe_ with the Amazon tablet before but I
couldn't do it a second time. Notice they only have bargain price to compete
on which is a bit sad as Amazon could do so much better. I just don't believe
this is it.

~~~
taeric
Oddly, I have the exact same feeling when it comes to tablets in general. I
struggle to play with them in the same way that I do my computer. And
ultimately find myself back on my computer when I want to do anything other
than read, listen to music, listen to book, or talk to someone.

I can see some ways that my Nexus 6 is a better device than my Fire. In large,
it doesn't matter. My eInk reader is better for reading than either. And for
being productive I need more than either can do.

~~~
ghaff
>find myself back on my computer when I want to do anything other than read,
listen to music, listen to book, or talk to someone.

Add video and I think you've pretty much described the bulk of what many
people do with a computer. :-)

Other than planes (where I 1. spend way too much time and 2. find tablets are
way more usable than laptops), I go back and forth on how much I use a tablet
around the house. Ultimately, you do generally have to be fine with a tablet
being enough better at media consumption than a computer that it's worth
having an additional device that can't do everything the computer can do. I
did buy a Chromebook earlier in the year to leave out on my dining room table
and I have found myself using it for things that I was tending to use my iPad
for.

(I also agree that for just reading text, an eInk reader is best.)

~~~
taeric
Apologies, I did not mean to imply that this makes tablets bad. Just that I
have a hard time seeing what makes a stock android any better than my fire. In
the consumption world, they are both about even. Newer of either is better
than older.

~~~
ghaff
>Apologies, I did not mean to imply that this makes tablets bad.

Oh, I didn't take it that way. I like my tablets but I do think there's
sometimes pushed into roles that they aren't very good for. (In general, I
don't think they're a great fit for most secondary school educational purposes
for example.)

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linuxkerneldev
In case anyone else is searching for whether or not one could reflash with
open source firmware and run debian, here's what I found:

[http://forum.xda-developers.com/fire-hd/general/how-to-
upgra...](http://forum.xda-developers.com/fire-hd/general/how-to-upgrade-
rooted-developers-t3230145)

Short answer : It is non-trivial.

~~~
dd9990
Wrong tablet/forum link I think. See: [http://forum.xda-developers.com/amazon-
fire](http://forum.xda-developers.com/amazon-fire) (situation is not much
better).

~~~
edent
Real shame there's no root access. I understand what Amazon is doing - but if
love to have turned these into some glorified smart displays.

~~~
bottled_poe
Exactly what I was thinking. Would have loved to use one of these for a
monitor on a raspberry pi.

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pbreit
I don't understand why Amazon forked Android beyond recognition (and utility).
That would seem to be a show-stopper for most prospective buyers and totally
unnecessary.

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andybak
This version is a lot less modded than I expected. The home screen is fairly
Amazoned but most other things look moderately close to stock.

However - that's just Android. The lack of Google Apps, Play Store and Google
Play Services is more of an issue but the seriousness of that totally depends
what you're expecting to do with it.

~~~
gcb0
hear from someone that have a fire phone (and who has to take it out the
garbage drawer when the main phone died)

fireos is garbage. you can't have a calendar or clock widget. any widget.
none.

the launcher is a joke designed by committee. you get a huge icon of the
recent apps 1 huge icon at a time. which would show app data on the bottom,
but not even amazon own apps use it. so it's just one big icon for you.
always. from the screenshots, on this version they changed that to instead
show your media hosted in Amazon's cloud. yeah, that will be useful to have
using 60% of my home screen at all times.

then the reviewer says he didn't find any app missing... well that made me
sure that is a paid fluffy piece (and I'm done with arstech site forever
thanks to that) because besides Facebook, every app is missing. from youtube
to Firefox. you get nothing but social site apps and fart apps.

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Animats
Do you have to have an Amazon account, or will it operate anonymously?

~~~
err4nt
I have one, during setup it asks you to log into your account to 'complete the
setup. i couldnt at the time, and some apps worked, and others absolutely
required the login, but it was half-usable without it.

When you log in it 'feels' like a cloud-powered, personalized device and I
imagine if you had a second device and were to log in it would probsbly bring
much of your info over. im curious to see what they do with tying the Amazon
account to a device in the future.

I was also a little worried as a non-US resident that it might be locked into
amazon.COM accounts when I use a different locale, but everyting seems to
smoothly work.

Its no ipad, but I can buy ten of them for a price of an ipad. As a longtime
ipad owner I finally feel like theres competition, and the price point is
unbeatable. IF you gave me $50 to spend on a tablet, Id get the fire. if you
gave me $200, Id get four fires. If you gave me 500 Id buy an ipad, and if you
gave me $550 Id buy an ipad and a fire.

You cant go wrong at that price point, but for what its worth when its in the
hand it feels like a device I would have expected to pay $150-$250 from
anybody else.

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meow_mix
This is great news for adoption rates on tablets and the mobile market in
general. I'm excited to see what it does for purchases on small android apps
as well

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tarekkurdy
Nice.

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ck2
The entire margin almost looks like it has more surface area than the screen.

