Anyone picking up Amazon's new $50 tablet?

So tomorrow, as in, Wednesday the 30th, Amazon is launching a bunch of new tablets, but one in particular seems to stick out... the one simply titled "Fire" because of its crazy low price point of just $50. That is pretty damn low, especially considering this is from Amazon and not some no-name apad shit from China. In fact they seem to be so into selling these at a low price they seriously have an offer where if you buy five of them you get one free. So you know, if you wanted to Oprah Winfrey your family around Christmas time while also being a cheapass there you go.

Just wondering if anyone on here is considering one, be it for themselves or others. Right now, I own a 2012 Nexus 7 that's still more powerful in terms of specs, but has aged like shit as the years have gone by. Seriously, my battery life is horrendous and it's gotten so sluggish. I thought something like this might be a decent replacement until I decide if I really want to dish out $200+ on something a little more high end. One positive to the Fire is it DOES support MicroSD cards up to 128gb, and those are pretty cheap now too so you can really store quite a bit of media if you wanted.

Seems like a solid choice for those who've never had a tablet but would like one, or as a nice gift for your mom or something. What do you duders think?

I did not know about this, do you know the specs on this tablet?

The price seems pretty good, but what's the OS like? My wife bought her dad one a few years ago (a Fire HD or something) and I remember it being pretty restrictive with media and it didn't have access to Goggle Play. I guess it depends what you want out of it.

you can sideload apps to fire os devices. it's not as easy as downloading it straight from google play, but it certainly is doable.

i've been using a toshiba excite go for over a year. it gets the job done, but it ain't great. if i can watch wwe network from this device, than its already better than my current tablet. will be buying day one.

Looks pretty awful to be honest, especially as it's £50 here which isn't even close to $50. You say it's not some Chinese apad shit, but it may as well be but with a Amazon sticker on it and twice the price.

You can buy something with exactly the same specs but it runs actual Android and not Amazon's awful OS for £30.

@alexw00d: While I wouldn't go quite this far..what you said.

To everyone else. I own the a kindle from the previous generation (A Fire HD 6 or 7, whichever it is) and..no. No google play is a big issue. yes you can get around that..but its a big pain in the butt. This thing isn't a tablet, its a kindle..with a touch screen and some app support. From the website its internals are no differnt then the device I am currently using (the screen is just bigger which is a negative in my case.)

And let me tell you what..the system sucks. Slow down, lock up. Charger not working, files transfer not coming up. To hell with the restricted app store, the OS itself is a POS and they justed updated it...and now its worse.

Do not buy, do not. If all you want is a kindle for reading..your better off getting something in a slightly smaller size if only for ease of holding while reading. For that, its fine...but then so are the half-dozen apps for your phone.

So again, no, for the majority of people, no.

There is going to someone, somewhere, that is happy with this device..but I don't know who. Like the only thing going for it is price, and the negatives are so overwhelming, your better off buying 1 100$ tablet/phone/whatever as to 2 of these, that's for sure.

I'm going to pass. It's just to weak for what I want it to do. Plus due to my work I need a better camera.

I want a new e-reader and my Nexus has been performing so poorly lately that I thought about it...but the specs on this thing make it look like I'd be wasting my money.

Same with my gen 2 Nexus...but I think the cons outweigh the pros. I just put all the Amazon apps on one page, and I just need to find that nice wallpaper that Fire has and boom, I have the new fire and I don't have to wait till November for it to ship. I love that Amazon is really going for it lately though.

I completely forgot Amazon had their own shitty version of Android. Although, it's not very difficult to change that iirc.

Are the specs truly that bad? Of course the Amazon.com listing conveniently just says "Quad core CPU up to 1.3ghz" which sounds not great but not really out of line for a $50 budget tablet. The resolution and screen quality isn't very good either but again, $50. I haven't checked any tech sites on it or anything though, and just going by their vague listing.

Also I don't know how much apads have improved over the last few years but the last one I messed with was probably the most aggravating experience with Android I've ever had. Not to mention the charger broke after like four uses and the battery almost immediately after. Also, those companies offer absolutely no warranty or replacements. At least this thing has that going for it. (Although, from first hand experience I can tell you Amazon's support is pretty bad)

The whole idea behind their touch pads in general was just to use for reading digital books.

While they have broadened that a little bit, and you can use it for other stuff if you want to mess with it more, mostly their touch pads are worthless. So no. I've never had a need for their touch pad thing. Even though I do know people who would use something like this none of them really need one so I don't even see this as a useful Christmas present option right now.

Given the general response to many of their first party products such as their their phone I'll pass for now and see what the verdicts like a couple months down the road.

That sounds like a good deal, I will have to look into it.

Yeah I think I'm gonna wait. If reviews say it's something secretly awesome and replacing Amazon's Android variant with anything else is really easily done, I might look into it. I do like that they're targeting tablets for that cheap though. Might inspire other manufacturers to do the same and we could get some pretty decent tablets for cheap.

Maaaaybe.

I might get one with a sd card to use as a mp3 player. Ive had my ipod touch 2 since it came out. I have a ipad air 2 so i have no use for it as a tablet.

I don't have a whole lot of faith in a $50 device being all that worthwhile (outside of web browsing, music, and some light video) and cutting you off from the Google Play store takes out a fair amount of the functionality I'd want on a Android tablet. Seems if you'd be willing to spend a bit more and get a used device you'd be getting into the territory of things like the Nexus 7 which is pretty robust.