January 2020...is the Fire 7 too old?

[Scarpozzi]

There was a thread on slickdeals yesterday about the Fire7 with ads being sold at Target for $29.99. They're like $35 on Amazon. I went ahead and ordered them, but haven't picked them up yet...should I?

I've got 2 kids.....5 and 7 at the moment. We're about to take a trip to Hawaii and will have a long layover on the way coming back. I'm sure the plane will have in-flight entertainment, but this might give us more options when in the airport to keep them from being too bored.

I held off from getting them tablets for Christmas...I'm not really sure it's a good idea to get them....but at $65 + maybe another $15 in cases we'd be set.

We don't currently have internet in the house, except for when I share my phone's hotspot...but that may change soon. We're just being cheap because we learned we could do without it and live with 100GB/month from our phones. (it gives us parents a lot of power when the internet has to be "turned on" to work)

I really know nothing about these things. I've never held one. We have an iPad2 mini that we use sparingly because we no longer have internet in the house.

Is the hardware any good for games if they aren't connected or is everything based on having an internet connection for ads? 16GB isn't a lot of storage for most tablets....but how does the SD slot work on these, does it expand the way Android OS used to or is it more like Oreo where you can't load apps on the card (for the sake of performance) and have to set storage for EACH app to use the card?

Any opinions welcome. I've got a day to make up my mind on the purchase.

 

[Zaap]

Do you know what generation of Fire 7 tablet? The answers to your questions I think really depends on that. IF it's $30 for a 7th (2017) or 9th (2019) then yes, that's a steal of a price and worth every penny.

If it's the previous 2011-2015 models then I'd say those are too old. So I'd base following through on which generation, if you can easily find out. Below 7th Gen... dust your hands and walk away.

The current Fire 7 is perfect for your kids. There can't be much a 7 and 5 year old do with a tablet that those won't meet their needs.

I don't think you can run apps from SD card without hacking the Fire tablets but again .. does a 7 year old need more than 16 gigs to be entertained for a bit? I don't believe so. My sons (8 and 5) would kill for a tablet that good but we don't allow them to have their own.

The newer Fire tablets are IMO some of the best android tablets available and certainly for the price. If they weren't subsidised by Amazon they'd probably cost twice the normal price. For $30 a 2017-2019 is as good as you'll get for an android 7" tablet in anywhere close to the same price range.

Don't be fooled by the dirt cheap Chinese alternatives ...most of them are absolutely wretched. The Fires are much higher quality from stats to build quality to screen Res to proper batteries that won't die or explode.

The main drawback for a tech saavy adult is Amazon's custom interface all over the device the ads, and Amazon's own app store vs. Google's. (can be fixed with hacks)

Your kids likely won't care at all.

Still I'd recommend taking a few minutes and side load the Google Play store and apps. Then you can run most anything on them. (Plenty of easy guides how to do this on the web)

My experience is the Fires since 2017 can handle modest gaming pretty well. I'm doubting your kids play much beyond whant a Fire can handle. Granted you won't be fitting many on the internal storage. But load a few of their favorite games internally, and a bunch of their movies on an SD card and call it a day.

Last thing: there aren't internet-connected limitations to the device based on it being Amazon. Not even for ads (which can even be removed) . If an app or game requires a net connection to run, that's the specific app not the Fire itself. Mostly its a normal android device with Amazon's skin applied to it.