Top positive review
12 people found this helpful
A great general use tablet
By R. B. Richardson on Reviewed in the United States on October 19, 2020
I picked up the 64 GB blue version on Prime Day. I was able to get the matching cover https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07RR6HQKX/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 and with tax paid around what the 32GB with no cover usually costs. This super aggressive pricing is a huge factor in favor of the Fire tablets, and Amazon reliably discounts all of its self branded products for Prime Day, Black Friday, and Cyber Monday. Yes any Apple tablet is going to beat any Fire tablet or similarly priced Android product in every single way. If your budget is in Apple's price range you really should buy one because they are great and you will be very happy with it. If you are someone that thinks those prices are too high for steaming a movie once in a while or reading a book now and then (and you are correct), then this Fire 10 tablet might be the right choice for you. Android tablets in this price range aren't going to set any performance records, and users accustomed to nearly instantaneous responses from every tap on their (overpriced and overpowered) smart phone may notice quite a bit of lag when using a tablet like this. Let me assure you that ALL tablets in this price range (and many that cost a whole lot more than this) are going to seem slow compared to the overwhelming number of smart phones people have snapped up the last few years. Be prepared for comparatively sluggish task switching, and for apps to open noticeably more slowly. That doesn't mean they won't run, but they aren't going to pop open like they do on your phone that probably cost many multiples of times more than this. I've found that apps...once open...work exactly as expected without issues. The HD screen is much better than other inexpensive tablet I've owned. Its nice and bright, and video plays very smoothly. Heavy book readers truly should go for a Paperwhite Kindle model over anything with a backlight, but the text on this screen is very good for more casual reading, web sites, the occasional book, etc. Viewing angles are generous, making it legible from a variety of angles and distances that works good even in Show mode. The biggest negative is that there is still a lot of bezel. I'd expect some effort at device shrinking, including a smaller bezel, in the next iteration if Amazon expects these devices to remain relevant. The sound from the tiny speakers are fine for Alexa responses or something like an audible book, but for music or movies you are going to want an external speaker or headphones. I like to keep bluetooth off for battery life, so the physical headphone jack is a big plus to me. I streamed a few TV show episodes, about 1/3 of a movie (which I had started on my Firestick and was able to resume on my Fire tablet), read a few magazines and news articles, streamed music to an external speaker, and played a few different games while trying out the tablet. I still had 28% battery life left when I plugged it in to try out Show mode. The battery drains as you would expect with any device: quite a bit faster playing games and streaming video than when playing music or reading. Overall, the estimated time Amazon gives appears to be on the optimistic end of what people have reported from real testing, and I didn't see anything to make me think its unfair. The bottom line is most people are going to get a normal day's mixed use out of it without much trouble. Alexa works like you expect, with the added benefit of it being portable. One feature I really like is being able to get double duty out of it as a Show device while charging. That matching cover helps here because I can prop it up or grab it on the go very quickly. The cameras are pretty terrible though, so expect functional but not good video calling and only if you have good lighting. Improving the front camera would be a good upgrade for the next model, and I'd personally trade the virtually useless rear camera for a single, good quality front one. Amazon's unapologetically self serving UI gets a lot of criticism, but the truth is a lot of people use Amazon services and if you are one of them the Fire 10 makes it exceptionally simple to access all of it. If there are apps not in Amazon's store you want to use.. well, let's just say I had the play store installed, Chrome synced, and a movie playing on HBO Max in less than 10 minutes following simple instructions I found with the easiest search terms in you can think of in Google. If you want to strip it down to a more stock Android launcher you can do that too. Seriously, don't worry about Amazon's store or app selection. Regarding storage, I opted for the 64GB version mostly because of shipping availability and I didn't want to wait. The 32GB version is an amazing product and is usually the better value of the two options. Regardless of which one you get, I recommend you add an SD card formatted as external storage NOT as internal memory. The reason is that no tablet is going to access an inserted card as fast as it can its internal memory, and the last thing you want to do is make this tablet any slower. The Fire should automatically select all the right file types (music, photos, etc.) to save to the card so you can save the internal space for your apps. TLDR: The 2019 Fire 10 is a good product made great when you can get it at one of Amazon's frequently offered sale prices.
Top critical review
3 people found this helpful
What are you planning to use the machine for?
By David J. Webb Sr. on Reviewed in the United States on April 22, 2020
I have never been a fan of android. It is a gutted version really of Linux, possibly ubuntu. Making a custom machine is impossible for the android versions out there. The big problem I have with android systems is the periodic upgrade that requires new hardware to operate them and suddenly all the old software disappears to upload. What Amazon Fire Tablet division has done is put together a reasonably priced 10 inch screen with 2 gigs of Ram and a relatively easy to see screen for movies, music, ebooks from the library, and kindle books they can charge for. During the current national and international crisis most of the libraries in the country are closed. They are however allowing us to do a Kindle borrow from your local library. The real problem I see is the constant WiFi needed to run the books. On my regular computer it downloads to my machine for a set period of time and I am able to control it. That is using a standard obsolete windows 7 pro machine. The constant advertising makes this cheap tablet a piece of work. Greed has its place. But this would be a far more valuable machine if that annoying feature was discarded for something a little less boring. I built advertising for a daily newspaper for 41 years. I am qualified to review ads. In the words of one of my teachers in the ad building trade, "A good ad must attract the attention of a man on a galloping horse to stop and look at the ad." None of which these beautiful graphics appear to do. Instead they turn up at inopportune times and annoy rather than attract customers. All customers are liars. That is a well known sales proverb. Meaning people do not always do what they say they will do. I am using the machine to simply read e-books from my local library. They really need to install an Amazon version of Libby on all new machines as well as the standard overdrive for library use. So far turning off the automatic rotation almost works. It still will turn the page at unacceptable times. The Kindle loan feature is a good idea and has a lot going for it. Only it needs a tool bar on the side to make bookmarking a little easier. I do like the microsoft overdrive feature of easily returning read books. I love the longer and acceptable battery life of about 10 to 12 hours. What no one loves is the drain of said battery by hidden features. For the money it has several features I do like a lot. Like the ability to put a 512 GB storage unit on the machine. For altering things I want like a browser with a firefox sync and password manager easily accessed for passwords I have forgot that is a cheap and relatively easy thing to change and a whole lot less annoying than typing in a email address and a password on an awkward keyboard on the screen. I can go a year without using a website. Making my password easy for a senior to use is a mistake a lot of browsers currently make. I could name names. Locking the passwords is only convenient if the user can get to them easily. No security is reliable against a good hacker. Turning the entire machine off should disable WiFi for that reason. Only when someone is on the screen do you want outside access on any computer. If you are making your own browser then include what I just mentioned. You get what you pay for. Personally, a $35 Raspberry Pi for a competent linux user has a lot of practical free programs on it as does Google Play. Set the machine up to handle Google Play as part of the system and you just doubled the value of the tablet without doing much of anything. And yes given a less annoying machine will make you much more money that all of this advertising will do. I just value my time more than the extensive programming needed to make it work. As for your ads, the big mistake made is the ad creator is not using KISS. Keep It Simple Stupid! The entire purpose of all advertising is to get the potential customer to pay attention enough so they make a decision of their own free will to buy what you are selling. I suggest a very discounted price on a dummy line book explaining all there is to know about the tablet in simple non-techie terms. Make it a coupon that comes with the tablet if you haven't all ready thought to do so. The biggest advertisement for this machine is "what is in it for me?" For me, in my retirement, I love good authors and books. Mostly I borrow rather than buy with the exception of good how to do books that I can reference for a couple of years. My latest purchase was a Bread Lover's book on making bread with a machine including about 300 recipes. I seldom order from Amazon for one reason. You have been set back by about 50 years in your marketing because nothing arrives in under about a month while if I can I get a product from a retail store today the convenience of getting it today out weighs the price on-line right now. I bought the unit as an ideal compromise giving me a machine capable of movies, music, and conveniently any e-book or audible book in the resources of my local library. Yes I do have PRIME and have used it extensively in the last couple of years. To me it is almost worthless with the long wait for a product to arrive. Until that changes, I expect Amazon to lose a lot of money from lost business from that factor alone. I gave it a 3 star because of the common practice of annoying things. It got three stars because no one has a better price on a high-quality product. Also you really need to back off things that do cause the annoyance factor. I am retired. When I worked as a master printer in a composing room, my average return on the advertising was at least 19%. 19% on a circulation of about 100,000 newspaper readers back then caused most of my customers to come back for more advertising. One grocery was with us for 5 years. I am also a competent real estate salesman though I am too lazy to work that profession in the modern day. I have only had your particular machine for a few days. So the three stars may go up if I get used to the machine more.
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