Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2017/09/19/amazons-new-10-1080p-fire.html
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Man… if only the Amazon Tablets came with 4G. One did for while, then they dropped the feature.
That was one of the first thing I looked for and hoped for on this one.
I’m actually thinking of turning one of these into a digital calendar in our house with a mounting plate.
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Considering that Apple makes the fastest mobile CPUs in the world, the answer to that is “way slower.” Which may still be more than fast enough for your needs.
Protip: The key to preventing your child from breaking “many very expensive tablets” is to a) give them a cheap hand me down tablet of their very own, and b) put it in a rugged case.
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Amazon App store is missing too many apps I use from Google Play and Apple Store. Side loading Google Play works and then doesn’t work at times and have to unload it and reinstall.
I loved my Kindle Fire HDX for a long time, but Feedly dropped their app a while back, and now LastPass has officially stopped developing for it. I cannot in good conscience recommend a device that LastPass doesn’t support. I might be switching to another (probably Android) tablet soon.
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I’ve found my Fire HDX 7" is getting a little hard to keep going with google play sideloaded and the device rooted. I’ve considered switching it back to just pure Amazon’s android variant.
Stay on topic. Everyone knows we use affiliate links on Boing Boing – AND talk about telescopes in a telescope thread.
far far slower performance?That last time I shopped for FireHD8 tablets (mom’s birthday, in june), I did the usual benchmarks and the ipads were in a totally different league. This could be that Amazon’s browser isn’t up to chrome’s standards.
I used sunspider and octane, but perhaps there are better browser benchmarks.
I just wish I could find a waterproof case for them as they come out.
I’ve never had any problems with the Play Store on my Fire 7 or HD 8. Some apps don’t work, most annoyingly Google Inbox, and I’m sure all three people who use Google+ are disappointed it won’t work on the Fire, but in on the whole, it’s great. I’m Swype-typing this comment into Chrome on my HD 8 right now.
I was really happy to discover it’s now ridiculously easy to put Google on the Fire. It used to be you had to screw around with USB debug mode and ADB driver packages, but now you can add it from the Silk web browser. It made the recent sale on Fire tablets a heck of a bargain.
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amazon’s developer page says it uses a MediaTek MT8173 (64-bit quad-core),
And the MediaTek MT8173 is listed at notebook check
The Mediatek MT8173 is an upper mainstream ARM SoC (System on a chip) that was introduced in March 2015 and is primarily used for Android based tablets. It is manufactured in a 28 nm process and has a total of four CPU cores with two Cortex-A72 and two Cortex-A53 cores in a big.LITTLE configuration. The graphics unit is based on the IMG Series 6XT (Rogue) and has the designation PowerVR GX6250. Among others, the GPU includes a video decoder with 4K and H.265 support.
with one set of lackluster Geekbench 3 scores,
(1385 Single 2909 Multicore)
Compare that to an Apple A9X (used in an older iPad Pro)
3139 Single, 5343 Multicore
Now, I realize that geekbench is an absurd benchmark. But Apple themselves used it and others to justify the “iPad Pro – What’s a Computer?” campaign.
https://9to5mac.com/2016/08/01/ipad-pro-ad-computer-replacement/
This sort of thing actually fooled me into thinking that tablets had finally come of age, and I could think about replacing my ipad with something that supported the latest ancilary technologies (latest version of bluetooth, h.265 support etc). What I found out was that
1 PC like speed costs an arm and a leg.
2 Amazon, and indeed anything that’s affordable is way behind the performance curve.
3 I should save my money.
But I have different requirements and different budgets than you.
My wife has the basic fire tablet, and while it is fine for its main use (video streaming and Skype), it is pretty slow at other tasks, even basic ones like reading ebooks. However, at $35 or thereabouts (on sale), it is a lot of technology for a throwaway price.
For sure it is faster than the Z80 machine on which I wrote my PhD dissertation.
The Fire puts me in mind of the Ford Model T, which was by all accounts the barest of bare-bones automobiles. People loved to scoff at it (as evidenced by all the comics and jokes in a Model T history book my Dad had), but its low price brought owning a car within reach of nearly everybody.
Seems that the Fire is kind of like that for tablets.
I’d love to do this as well… let us know how it goes (and give us tips!)
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