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Amazon's New $50 Fire Tablet

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Re: Amazon's New $50 Fire Tablet

#21

Post by borkabrak »

bsilvereagle wrote: post #14
borkabrak wrote: post #8

Maybe I'm not sufficiently hardware-savvy, but what's the downside here? I am more or less in the market for a modest tablet, but I'm indifferent to whether it comes from Amazon. Can someone recommend a better deal?

From what I could tell, (at least) the $50 Fire is currently ad supported, and by default Amazon Underground is ad supported as well.

Ouch. This one landed. If this is true, then I think it would turn me off the deal. Unless I wanted to try what someone else mentioned and flash it with CyanogenMod or something. Never done that before, but this might be a good way to start..

edit: It looks like they've got the same situation vis-a-vis ads as all Kindles - yes they have ads, there is some attempt to make them unobtrusive, and they only have ads in the US.

http://www.zdnet.com/article/all-kindle-fire-hd-models-ad-su...

So that explains that. Now to find out how hard flashing a new OS would be. :)

Re: Amazon's New $50 Fire Tablet

#25

Post by k__ »

300zxkyle wrote: post #18
tlianza wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Biggest downside is the FireOS, Amazon store instead of Google Play, etc. If you want to do basic web surfing stuff, this is a phenomenal deal. I doubt you'll find a better one. If you want to experience all that modern Android tablets are capable of, these tablets will not provide that. In particular anything related to Google services (mail/apps) and Android apps that are delivered through the Google Play store but…

Excuse my ignorance, what prevents a savvy user from flashing it with a different OS?

locked bootloaders.

got a Xoom 2ME here. decent hardware, but I never got a new OS on it

Re: Amazon's New $50 Fire Tablet

#26

Post by toxican »

Interesting. Very tempting as-is, but we'll have to see where we're at with Cyanogen Mod support in a few months before I'll buy one. Though I realize I'm not the target demographic for this by any means.

Re: Amazon's New $50 Fire Tablet

#27

Post by eclipxe »

ninjakeyboard wrote: post #11
borkabrak wrote: post #8

Maybe I'm not sufficiently hardware-savvy, but what's the downside here? I am more or less in the market for a modest tablet, but I'm indifferent to whether it comes from Amazon. Can someone recommend a better deal?

Likely it's heavily subsidized vs market value in order to increase initial buy with the hope you will purchase from the marketplace. If you want an ereader get a paperwhite imo. But if you actually want a screen tablet this may not be a bad bet. There are lots of good cheap android devices these days too. Fire does run android but in my dev shop we treat fire with special care due to both the heavy modification and…

The new FireOS seems to be much closer to stock Android

Re: Amazon's New $50 Fire Tablet

#28

Post by eclipxe »

borkabrak wrote: post #21
bsilvereagle wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From what I could tell, (at least) the $50 Fire is currently ad supported, and by default Amazon Underground is ad supported as well.

Ouch. This one landed. If this is true, then I think it would turn me off the deal. Unless I wanted to try what someone else mentioned and flash it with CyanogenMod or something. Never done that before, but this might be a good way to start.. edit: It looks like they've got the same situation vis-a-vis ads as all Kindles - yes they have ads, there is some attempt to make them unobtrusive, and they only have ads in th…

Just ads on lockscreen...not too bad.

Re: Amazon's New $50 Fire Tablet

#29

Post by leesalminen »

noja wrote: post #19
leesalminen wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My customers use cheap Fire tablets as e-signature collection devices.

Which software do they use to collect the signatures? Is it in the app store? With the Amazon Android?

Part of my product is a browser based e-signature collection tool using , React.js and web sockets. So, not Android related. Any capacitive touch device with a browser and internet works.

It's fairly domain specific today (credit card transactions and legal agreements), but as a weekend project I want to abstract it for broader use cases.

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