Consider this my love letter for the basic tablet from Amazon.
Sarah Tew / CNET
As regular Cheapskate readers know, Amazon equipment goes on sale all the time. The Fire 7 tablet, for example, has been discounted on no fewer than seven occasions in the past 12 months. Therefore, this business is not super special.
Except, in a way, it is. Fire 7 was one of the first to enter the new Cheapskate Hall of Fame, and that was based on its normal price of $ 50. Now that it’s on sale again, I wanted to expand what makes it such an amazing deal.
Simply put, it’s a complete tablet for $ 40. Think about it for a second. The cost of the original Kindle electronic reader $ 400. The first iPad: $ 500. These were large, clumsy and limited devices; the Fire 7 is thin, light and powerful. It is not powerful in terms of processing, although its 1.3 GHz quad-core CPU can handle most tasks well; no, I mean powerful in its breadth of capacity.
It is an e-reader, of course, but also a video player, music player, video game console, educational tool, virtual assistant (Alexa on board, natch), digital camera, video camera, web browser, zoom and more.
Your $ 40 buys just 16 GB of onboard storage, but this is easily (and inexpensively) expanded to up to 512 GB (!) With microSD cards. Remind me again which iPads support memory expansion? Okay, none of them.
Granted, Fire 7 is best paired with a Amazon Prime subscription, which would represent a considerable additional expense if you only bought it to accompany the tablet. But most of us buy for shipping and streaming; the Fire 7 is simply another delivery vehicle for the latter.
Some may complain about the screen, which at 1,024×600 pixels is not clear. Some might argue that a 6-inch phone in the pocket dispenses with the need for a 7-inch tablet anywhere.
Fair points, both. And I’m going to add the existence of Fire HD 8, which for $ 25 more (based on current sale price $ 65) offers a larger, higher-resolution screen, a faster processor, two speakers, a USB-C port and twice as much storage. It is the smartest purchase, no doubt.
But seen in a vacuum, the Fire 7 for $ 40 is a totally incredible deal. He totally deserves his entry into the Hall of Fame.
Your thoughts?
Read More: CNET Amazon Fire 7 tablet review
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