The specs are also fairly impressive. It has a 10.1-inch, 224ppi LCD display. The Amazon Fire Tablets 10 features a 2GHz Mediatek MT8183 octa-core processor with 2GB of RAM. You could also purchase models with either 32GB or 64GB internal storage. The Amazon Fire Tablet also supports a microSD card for extra storage of up to 512 GB.
However, there are a lot of limitations and drawbacks to using an Amazon Fire tablet, which makes them nearly useless.
Login Ads
It has annoying Login Ads, as soon as you turn it on, the very first thing you’re confronted with is a full-screen ad. The last thing you should have to deal with after shelling out $150 to $190 is in your face ads.
All about Amazon Products and Services
Say you do manage to log in, you will notice that the main page does not let you get very far from Amazon. The majority of the pre-installed apps are Amazon Prime Video, Amazon Music, and Amazon Kids.
All they do is want to drive you towards using Amazon services, and sadly, Amazon’s self-promotion doesn’t end there.
The God-awful Silk Browser
One of the biggest limitations of the Amazon Fire tablet is the Silk browser. Its severely lacking in features is not the only problem, it’s the fact that you’re limited to using it and nothing else.
Beyond the basic browser features, don’t have any additional features, yes, not even extensions or add-ons. You will be able to notice even the browser itself is integrated with Amazon features. The menu has a link to your Amazon Lists, has a quick link to Amazon for shopping, along with a feature called Instant Recommendations.
Instant Recommendations is likely a way for Amazon to also offer you ads that are more relevant to your interests – so enable this with caution, or just don’t enable it. Even if you try searching the Appstore for other browsers like Google or Firefox, you won’t find them.
Let me tell you what you’ll find, is an unusual app called Google Search, which you might think is the equivalent of the Chrome browser, but, it isn’t.
The Google Services are just Scaled-Down Alternatives
If you’re a major user of Google services, this is your queue to forget wanting to buy a Fire Tablet. Google Search is an app that lets you use the Google search engine; it’s more of a beyond-minimalist app that allows you to search Google Web as well as Google Images, it is not Google Chrome.
The menu is very basic, it offers no real links to many other Google services or even your Google account.
Search listings default to mobile view, so they don’t even fill the entire page, it barely does the job.
Other apps that seem to offer Google services you might want to use are equally scaled-down, for example, Google Calendar, where you only get a Day and Month view, no weekly view at all. The Google Drive app is the same as well.
If you sign in to your Google account on the app, you will be accessing all of the folders and files in your Google Drive. However, all you can do is view them, edit them, or download them, and nothing else. As if the lack of features wasn’t bad, the viewing or editing files don’t even use the Google Drive app itself. It opens the file in the Silk browser, where you have to view and edit it.
The Amazon Fire Apps are Equally Limited
Take the Facebook app as an example, most of the features you’re used to seeing on Facebook online or on the mobile app are missing from the Amazon Fire Facebook app. It also defaults to mobile view, which looks horrendous when you are using the tablet in wide-screen orientation.
What all the other apps lack in functionality, Amazon’s own apps have in spades. Take the Prime video app as an example, it has all of the menus, and categories, along with most of the options you’re used to seeing on the Amazon Prime website/mobile app.
Tablet Utility Apps are Not Very Useful
If you tap the utility icon, you will be able to see a list of apps like a calendar, clock, weather, maps, and more. However, these are all such bare-bones apps that they’re essentially useless. The only somewhat useful utility is the Weather app, while the Calendar, Clock, and Calculator utilities are even less functional than the similar apps that are on your smartphone.
The Fire Tablet is just a vehicle for Amazon’s ecosystem – ebooks, music, movies games. It is a way to shop the Amazon store to buy Amazon products and Audible titles. To generally try to stuff Amazon products, and no others down the throat of people who didn’t (yet) decide.
So, why is Amazon selling these useless Fire Tablets? Part of the answer has to do with the way Amazon tends to discount its hardware to drive sales of all the media that can be consumed with them. Amazon has its own Appstore like Google Play and iTunes, and that could be a solid enough reason to pump out these Fire Tablets.
It is to attract people with the low prices, when compared to other tablets like the iPad, to attract people who are content with what they get at the price. I mean they do offer nice hardware; the only problem is that the software is useless. I mean, you can’t expect to get iPad performance when paying a fraction of its amount, if you do then you need to reconsider your expectations.
Maybe Amazon just wants to enter into every market and keep updating according to times to not risk losing relevancy, as when Nokia, failed to upgrade themselves according to the trend and faced a dire crisis.
What is the difference between a Kindle and a Fire Tablet?
| KINDLE | FIRE TABLET |
|---|---|
| Designed for reading books. Black and white e-ink displays.Built-in screen lighting in current models. Can’t run apps No cameras. Limited web browsing capabilities. Extremely long battery life. Wi-Fi + Cellular models include limited free 3G internet access. | Designed for general media consumption. Colorful LCD screens are available in HD resolution. Runs apps from the Amazon app store. Includes front and rear cameras. Has the ability to stream movies from services like Amazon Prime, Netflix, and more. Read books with the Kindle app. Much shorter battery life than Kindle. |
How to factory reset the amazon fire tablet?
- Follow the given steps to factory reset Amazon Fire tablets:
- Swipe down from the top of your screen, then tap on the Settings gear.
- Scroll down till you find Device Options, then tap on it.
- Select the option that says Reset to Factory Defaults.
- Then tap on Reset.
How to Manually Reset My Fire Tablet?
- If you are not able to access your device to reset your Fire tablet without the pin, or if your device is frozen:
- When the device is turned off, hold down the Power button + Volume Up until it turns on.
- After you spot the Amazon logo, release the Volume Up button, but keep holding the Power button, this will bring up the system recovery screen.
- Use the Volume buttons to scroll through the options, these will also be used to highlight wipe data/factory reset. Use the Power to make a selection.
- Select Yes to confirm your action.
If you liked this article (or if it helped at all), leave a comment below or share it with friends, so they can also know Why is amazon selling useless fire tablets.
