Amazon's New $50 Fire Tablet • Hacker News Board

Re: Amazon's New $50 Fire Tablet

#41

Post by semi-extrinsic » Thu, Sep 17, 2015, 9:10 PM UTC

protomyth wrote: post #32

ceejayoz wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, they expect anyone who cares to pay more than $50.

If your saying its "built for entertainment", a mono speaker doesn't go with that.

You're not going to get any sort of audio fidelity from the speakers in a tablet, so anyone who wants that is already using headphones. Thus it's likely that the people using that speakers can't hear the difference between mono/stereo for the content they care about.

Re: Amazon's New $50 Fire Tablet

#42

Post by deng » Thu, Sep 17, 2015, 9:10 PM UTC

Before people buy stuff like this and expect to be able to install Cyanogen in a few months:

http://forum.xda-developers.com/fire-hd/general/psa-dont-buy...

Re: Amazon's New $50 Fire Tablet

#43

Post by sn0v » Thu, Sep 17, 2015, 9:11 PM UTC

byron_fast wrote: post #36

It would be more interesting if Amazon put Flash on it instead of making it a spam delivery device. Swim upstream. Less work than Amazon Underground, more free games.

You're kidding, right?

Flash is dying tech, and not worth the battery life tradeoff (which this device doesn't have much of to begin with)

Re: Amazon's New $50 Fire Tablet

#44

Post by hobofan » Thu, Sep 17, 2015, 9:12 PM UTC

eclipxe wrote: post #28

borkabrak wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Can you turn off the lockscreen?

Re: Amazon's New $50 Fire Tablet

#45

Post by Zelphyr » Thu, Sep 17, 2015, 9:13 PM UTC

Everything Amazon does with the Fire product line I find to be terrible. The Kindle Paperwhite is a delight to use but the Fire is beyond frustrating and, often as not, feels like a device designed for the sole purpose of parting me with my money on Amazon other products.

My 7 year old got a Kids Kindle Fire. I have 20+ years software engineering experience yet I have more trouble trying to do the most basic things with that device. Its infuriating.

We got the Fire TV Stick figuring it would be a good alternative to the Roku. Its not. Most of the time it couldn't keep a connection to wifi.

I don't know what Amazon is thinking but, in my opinion, their reputation is suffering badly because of their handling of the Fire product line. I know personally I will never buy another Fire product.

Re: Amazon's New $50 Fire Tablet

#46

Post by Splines » Thu, Sep 17, 2015, 9:14 PM UTC

byron_fast wrote: post #36

It would be more interesting if Amazon put Flash on it instead of making it a spam delivery device. Swim upstream. Less work than Amazon Underground, more free games.

AFAIK Adobe stopped supporting flash on Android some time ago. It would be a considerable engineering effort to get it working again. Plus, (again, AFAIK) flash it not common among touch devices and I would be surprised if all games would work easily without a mouse.

That aside, what if Amazon got it working? What then? Free content doesn't help Amazon any.

The Fire tablets are not just about games/apps - it's about tying the user into the rest of Amazon's media ecosystem. Video, books and shopping. It's Amazon's equivalent of free parking.

Re: Amazon's New $50 Fire Tablet

#47

Post by quinndupont » Thu, Sep 17, 2015, 9:14 PM UTC

dacox wrote: post #37

Amazon! Won't ship to lonely old Canada.

Can anyone else confirm? Seems to have added to my basket (on Amazon.com, but with Canadian account). Now, with a $.70CAD->USD conversion...

Re: Amazon's New $50 Fire Tablet

#48

Post by semi-extrinsic » Thu, Sep 17, 2015, 9:15 PM UTC

bsilvereagle wrote: post #39

eclipxe wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just ads on lockscreen...not too bad.

Ads on the lockscreen may be fine from a UX perspective, however, that tablet is now using data when it's a sleep which becomes a factor when someone is on a capped connection. Sure, it may only be a handful of MB/month, but to some people, every MB counts.

I believe this thing only has wifi, so that's not a relevant problem.

Re: Amazon's New $50 Fire Tablet

#49

Post by Turing_Machine » Thu, Sep 17, 2015, 9:15 PM UTC

jay_kyburz wrote: post #38

Osiris wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, the "no questions asked" warranty is only on the "Kids edition" which is $100. The Kids edition is the $50 tablet + a case + "FreeTime", and the 2 year replacement warranty.

I don't want my kids bombarded with ads for crap on Amazon.

Then you can pay an extra $15 and get one that doesn't bombard your kids with ads for crap on Amazon.

Re: Amazon's New $50 Fire Tablet

#50

Post by gknoy » Thu, Sep 17, 2015, 9:20 PM UTC

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?

As @deng mentioned above, the Amazon tablets have historically had locked bootloaders -- they won't load custom ROMs. The XDA guys seem to believe it's unlikely you'll ever be able to load Cyanogen on one of them.