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Customer Review
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 3 December 2020
Style Name: Fire 7Digital Storage Capacity: 32 GBConfiguration: without AdsColour Name: BlackVerified Purchase
I bought this as a kindle ebook reader to replace a similar small tablet when I dont wish to have the size of a full-size tablet. It is inside jacket pocket sized (usual caveats about what clothing you choose to wear). The screen quality is absolutely fine for reading, and the brightness fine for reading in the dark. It can be held in one hand or propped up and turning pages is fine. So it serves the purpose I bought it for and I am happy I bought it as the plusses of this device - price, weight, size, basic e-book reading - are all what I wanted.
There are also some neutral features - for watching a video the screen quality is not perhaps that of a top notch device but for me if the video is worth watching I am concerned with content rather than focussing on appearance and sound and video quality are good enough that I am perfectly happy using it for youtube/films/podcasts. I have not tried with music but I suspect it would be satisfactory but not audiophile quality.
However there are major minuses as well. You are paying a lot less than for a mini tablet from the well known fruit-based manufacturer and you are getting a lot less. I love my larger full price tablet and use it a lot and this device has to be regarded as an accessory device for me at least, not a main device. It is woefully slow. A minor irritation when you are reading an e-book in your bed in the dark, but for internet browsing, switching between apps to cross-check information, and trying to be productive it is poor. The internet works on it and you can browse but you might be quicker trying to find your other device and using it. The range of apps is definitely impaired, and the apps store is a good bit more clunky than official android and iOS. No microsoft word or excel I think or if they were there I could not find them. But I would not recommend this device for high level document or spreadsheet creation anyway and other apps will let you access Office documents or create quick letters. The user interface is clunky and finding and opening apps seems less intuitive than on android or iOS but this might just be because amazon are as always keen for me to review a product I have only been using for a few weeks now. The battery life is a major issue. Dont expect to pick it up a week after fully charging it and find 100% battery power in sleep mode. It will be dead. I found that 2 days after a full charge and with no use it had 48% power on one day and 7% on another. After a few hours use battery life is noticeably flagging. It is also not the quickest device to charge. However for me this is not a device I would use for 8 hours a day and while needing to remembering to charge it in advance is an irritant it will slip in my jacket pocket and last a return train journey easily.
Overall for me this device does not serve up an earth-shattering experience but it serves my needs. I would not live with this as my main tablet but for a cheap device, portable at jacket pocket level rather than needing to be carried around, good for a lightweight device to read in either daylight or the dark, and basic internet and email it is fine. I suspect as a primary device it would serve for those whose low use or budget could not justify a high-end product, and this is an excellent product for the price and from a big name company so might be considered less risky than a product at twice the price from an unknown brand.
There are also some neutral features - for watching a video the screen quality is not perhaps that of a top notch device but for me if the video is worth watching I am concerned with content rather than focussing on appearance and sound and video quality are good enough that I am perfectly happy using it for youtube/films/podcasts. I have not tried with music but I suspect it would be satisfactory but not audiophile quality.
However there are major minuses as well. You are paying a lot less than for a mini tablet from the well known fruit-based manufacturer and you are getting a lot less. I love my larger full price tablet and use it a lot and this device has to be regarded as an accessory device for me at least, not a main device. It is woefully slow. A minor irritation when you are reading an e-book in your bed in the dark, but for internet browsing, switching between apps to cross-check information, and trying to be productive it is poor. The internet works on it and you can browse but you might be quicker trying to find your other device and using it. The range of apps is definitely impaired, and the apps store is a good bit more clunky than official android and iOS. No microsoft word or excel I think or if they were there I could not find them. But I would not recommend this device for high level document or spreadsheet creation anyway and other apps will let you access Office documents or create quick letters. The user interface is clunky and finding and opening apps seems less intuitive than on android or iOS but this might just be because amazon are as always keen for me to review a product I have only been using for a few weeks now. The battery life is a major issue. Dont expect to pick it up a week after fully charging it and find 100% battery power in sleep mode. It will be dead. I found that 2 days after a full charge and with no use it had 48% power on one day and 7% on another. After a few hours use battery life is noticeably flagging. It is also not the quickest device to charge. However for me this is not a device I would use for 8 hours a day and while needing to remembering to charge it in advance is an irritant it will slip in my jacket pocket and last a return train journey easily.
Overall for me this device does not serve up an earth-shattering experience but it serves my needs. I would not live with this as my main tablet but for a cheap device, portable at jacket pocket level rather than needing to be carried around, good for a lightweight device to read in either daylight or the dark, and basic internet and email it is fine. I suspect as a primary device it would serve for those whose low use or budget could not justify a high-end product, and this is an excellent product for the price and from a big name company so might be considered less risky than a product at twice the price from an unknown brand.
