The world's two richest retailers also sell some of the cheapest tablets you can buy. We put their latest 8-inch slates head-to-head to see what a sub-$100 tablet gets you in 2025.
Battle of who do you want to give all your usage data to so they spam you with ads?
There’s a reason why they’re cheap, never used Walmart ones but the Amazon tablets required extra fees just to not be a permanent billboard on the lock screen.
And it’s a piece of shit. The only thing the Amazon fire tablets ever did well was shop Amazon. And I stopped shopping on Amazon years ago. These are a waste of money at any price
I don’t know, I doubt it. It’s actually an older android os that has been modified by Amazon, so I don’t think you can get around it. You used to be able to jailbreak them and use google play store, but I don’t think that’s possible anymore
Sometime around 2019-ish they locked them down hard and it’s not possible to jailbreak them and put custom firmware on it, however I’m pretty sure you can still put the play store on it, I’ve side loaded it on my 2021 model but it’s still awful because of Amazon.
I played KOTOR on a fire tablet back when they had the Amazon Underground app store and it worked alright, after underground the only apps that worked worth anything were the amazon bundle of shop/kindle/Alexa/etc.
My last one I gave to a friend (she uses it exclusively as a kindle) after Amazon ended watch party on video and I ended my subscription.
Eh, they’re pretty good for kids IMO. Put some restrictions on them so they can only use them for a certain amount of time, and they feel happy that they have their own device without monopolizing/breaking your nicer ones.
Battle of who do you want to give all your usage data to so they spam you with ads?
There’s a reason why they’re cheap, never used Walmart ones but the Amazon tablets required extra fees just to not be a permanent billboard on the lock screen.
And it’s a piece of shit. The only thing the Amazon fire tablets ever did well was shop Amazon. And I stopped shopping on Amazon years ago. These are a waste of money at any price
Is it possible to remove the amazon OS, install Linux/Android and get rid of the bloatware or is it OS locked like iPads etc.?
We don’t have Amazon in my country so I’ve never seen those tablets.
I don’t know, I doubt it. It’s actually an older android os that has been modified by Amazon, so I don’t think you can get around it. You used to be able to jailbreak them and use google play store, but I don’t think that’s possible anymore
Sometime around 2019-ish they locked them down hard and it’s not possible to jailbreak them and put custom firmware on it, however I’m pretty sure you can still put the play store on it, I’ve side loaded it on my 2021 model but it’s still awful because of Amazon.
I played KOTOR on a fire tablet back when they had the Amazon Underground app store and it worked alright, after underground the only apps that worked worth anything were the amazon bundle of shop/kindle/Alexa/etc.
My last one I gave to a friend (she uses it exclusively as a kindle) after Amazon ended watch party on video and I ended my subscription.
Eh, they’re pretty good for kids IMO. Put some restrictions on them so they can only use them for a certain amount of time, and they feel happy that they have their own device without monopolizing/breaking your nicer ones.