Amazon’s tablet range has struggled to find a place amongst other Android tablets in the past, primarily because the FireOS custom operating system was designed purely with Amazon’s services in mind, at the expense of app support and Play Store compatibility. Now, however, the company seems to have found its niche; incredibly cheap devices that redefine what customers can expect for their money.
The Fire is the epitome of this new approach – so much so you get a free one if you buy five at once. £50 will barely get you an eighth of an iPad Air 2, but here it buys a 7in tablet powered by a quad-core processor. There’s nothing else out there from a major brand that even comes close to this price, which could make the Fire the tablet bargain of the year.
When the tablet launched, it shipped with just 8GB of storage, although there was a microSD card slot to upgrade storage space. This is handy, particularly as a 32GB micro SD card can be bought for less than £10. However, going down this route means that you end up with two storage devices to save content to. Now, you don't have to worry about the card slot, as there's an optional 16GB Fire tablet, which costs £10 more (£60). That's not quite as good value as the micro SD card, but it's certainly less hassle. Ultimately, double the storage for £10 more is worth it, and 16GB is enough storage for light use and web browsing, whereas 8GB is really not enough.
