skip it, buy Fire HD8 instead

Amazon has recently refreshed its $ 50 Fire 7 tablet with new colors, a support to call Alexa by name and twice as much storage as before. It's so affordable that I jumped into a Best Buy and bought one last week.

But, having tested it for a few days, I can not recommend it to anyone. Instead, if you're interested in Amazon's Fire tablets, which are usually very economical, buy the Fire HD 8 at $ 60 instead.

Here's what you need to know about the new Fire 7.

The Fire 7 tablet is the smallest tablet sold by Amazon that gives you access to Amazon's services, such as Audible, Amazon Photos, Alexa, Amazon Prime video and the Amazon store.

Amazon has generously included 16GB of storage instead of the previous 8GB for tablets in this price range, but most people will still want to buy a microSD card to add more. 16GB will not allow you to store a lot of TV shows and movies offline if you have a lot of apps, and this is really enough only if you plan to broadcast a lot.

It's easy to set up: Sign in to your Amazon account and you're ready to go. Like other Amazon tablets, it listens when you speak "Alexa" so you can speak to the voice assistant whenever you want, without having to press a button or open an application. It worked well for me, although sometimes I had to say "Alexa" more than once to wake up.

The most remarkable thing about this is the price of $ 50. You would be hard pressed to find a better tablet for $ 50. But I still think you should spend the extra $ 10 on Amazon Fire HD 8, which is better in many ways.

In for money.

The battery life of the Fire 7 is pretty terrible and has not spent a full day. It even seems that the battery is emptying faster than other devices while remaining inactive in my bag, which was annoying. Amazon promises you 7 hours of battery life, which is good if you travel fast by plane, but 3 hours less than the Fire HD 8.

The screen is a throwback – it's not the HD, which is pretty standard on devices for almost a decade, and you can see the pixels when you look at it. The Fire HD 8 has a sharper screen and, although you can still see the pixels, it is better for movies and text reading.

In addition, the Fire 7 has a single speaker on the left side that will block if you hold the tablet in portrait mode. Again, the Fire HD 8 offers a better option with stereo speakers coming out on both sides of the tablet.

The cameras on the Fire 7 are adequate considering the price. Do not expect them to be close to what you get on a modern phone.

In addition, the Fire 7 sometimes feels slow. I noticed some delay when I was moving in the applications and sometimes even when I was scrolling through the system. That's probably because it only has 1GB of RAM, compared to 1.5GB in the Fire HD 8. The latter is not very fast either, but seems a little smoother. .

Jump.

$ 50 is tantalizing for a product that allows you to quickly access movies, TV shows, many Amazon apps such as Netflix and Hulu, and more.

But the Fiire HD 8 costs only $ 10 more but offers 3 hours more battery, a little more RAM to speed things up, a bigger and sharper screen and better stereo speakers. I bought these two tablets and I think everyone should spend $ 10 more for the Fire HD 8.