Amazon Announces $50.00 Fire Tablet – But Make Sure To Read The Fine Print

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At first blush it looks like Amazon is adopting a similar sales strategy to the one employed by inkjet printer makers for years; sell the hardware at cost or a loss, and make your profits on consumables. For instance, the last two inkjet printers I’ve purchased cost less that the their first sets of replacement ink cartridges from a discount outlet.

Similarly, Amazon isn’t going to make much money selling its new $50.00 Fire tablets, but evidently hopes to reap profits from selling content for which the tablets serve as a gateway device. The new Fire tablet includes a quad-core processor, 7-inch IPS display, front-and rear-facing cameras, up to 128GB of expandable storage (MicroSD), and Amazon features and services, for just $49.99.

Photo Courtesy Amazon.com

Customers can also opt to buy Fire tablets in a six-pack for less than $250 — essentially getting the sixth device free.

Photo Courtesy Amazon.com

“Today, we’re taking another step in our mission to deliver premium products at non-premium prices,” said Amazon.com Founder and CEO Jeff Bezos at the product announcement. “The all-new Fire features a quad-core processor, is incredibly durable, and is backed by the Amazon content ecosystem, the new Amazon Underground, and Amazon customer service with Mayday Screen Sharing. Fire sets a new bar for what customers should expect from a low cost tablet.”

Amazon touts the $50 Fire as providing access to over 38 million movies, TV shows, songs, books, apps, and games, as well as features like X-Ray, ASAP, and Second Screen, watching movies, playing games, reading books, listening to music, and more with free, unlimited cloud storage for all Amazon content.

Photo Courtesy Amazon.com

For $49.99, the new Fire tablet includes:

• A quad-core 1.3 GHz processor that Amazon says provides 2x more processing power than Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 Lite at less than half the price.

• Durability; Amazon says that measured in tumble tests, Fire is almost 2x more durable than the latest generation iPad Air.

• Front- and rear-facing cameras

Photo Courtesy Amazon.com

• Up to 128GB of expandable storage via microSD card expansion

• Battery life up to 7 hours

• Fire OS 5 Bellini with an updated user interface that replicates the look and feel of a magazine, plus hundreds of new and upgraded features and platform updates, and Amazon-exclusive services.

• Amazon’s Undergroud app store experience where over $10,000 in apps, games and even in-app items are free including extra lives, unlocked levels, unlimited add-on packs, and more.

• For Prime members, On Deck automatically keeps the Fire tablet current with popular Prime movies and TV shows, as well as Amazon Original Series. Importantly, On Deck only uses the available storage on the tablet, opportunistically in a special shadow mode. When you download something, On Deck automatically makes room for your selected content. This feature will be available via a free, over-the-air Fire OS update in the coming months.

• Activity Center for parents whose kids have outgrown Amazon FreeTime, Activity Center provides an easy way for them to see how their kids are spending time on their Fire tablet — from how much time they spend playing games, to which websites they visit. Activity Center will be available via a free, over-the-air Fire OS update in the coming months.

• Mayday Screen Sharing customer service and tech support lets an Amazon expert guide you remotely through any feature on your screen, available 24×7, 365 days a year for free.

Also available for Fire are new accessories, including a protective cover available in five colors: black, blue, orange, green, and purple, that can stand in both landscape and portrait orientations, for $24.99.

So, is Amazon primed (so to speak) to commodify the media tablet experience? Probably not. When something seems too good — or a least too inexpensive — to be true, odds are that it probably is, and scrutiny of the fine print is advisable. Forbes contributor Patrick Moorhead notes that the Fire’s lowball price is ad-supported, and you’ll have to pay another 15 bucks up front to banish the ads. Also, the processor, while a quad-core unit, is a couple of ARM generations out of date and the graphics support somewhat pedestrian.

With 1GB RAM compared with the current mainstream standard of 2GB, the Fire is unlikely to be a sparkling performer, and while Apple is receiving increasing amounts of stick for continuing to sell 16 GB iPads, the Fire comes with just 8GB of on-board storage, 5GB of which is available for apps, videos, photos, games, and so forth, making it virtually essential to upgrade to MicroSD card expansion if you want the device to be seriously usable. Amazon.com will fladly sell you a 32GB expansion card for an extra $19.99, and your $50 tablet creeps closer to $100. At least Amazon has included MicroSD card expansion support, which Apple never has on its tablet and smartphone devices.

Patrick Moorhead also observes that the Fire has a SD (not HD) Display, and thus will not display videos in 720P or 1080P resolution, leaving you stuck with 600P playback at 1,024 x 600 resolution.

Photo Courtesy Amazon.com

However, it seems almost churlish to complain about limitations of a tablet device that sells, at least nominally, for 50 bucks. I’m still Jonesing for an iPad mini 4, but if $50 is all your budget can stand, an Amazon Fire is a whole lot better than no tablet at all.

Photo Courtesy Amazon.com

The $49.99 Fire tablet will commence shipping September 3 at http://www.amazon.com/fire, and as previously noted will be also be available as a buy five, get one free six-pack for $249.95.

Product page:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00TSUGXKE/ref=ods_fs_ford

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