Last Updated on November 30, 2021
Amazon Fire 7
The Amazon tablets are low-cost alternatives to other popular tablets on the market
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The Amazon Fire 7 is a smart tablet created by Amazon to be the more inexpensive solution for people who want a tablet, but don’t want to spend hundreds of dollars for the iPad Pro. Due to this, don’t expect the same functionality as an iPad for a fraction of the cost.
The Fire 7 is good for reading books from the Audible app, watching some simple videos, and doing some light shopping. Amazon has had to make some pretty substantial compromises to keep the cost as low as it is for the Fire 7.
But is the Fire 7 worth the lower cost if there’s less that you can do with it? Or are you better off opting for a more expensive tablet that works more like a smartphone or laptop? Today we’re going to be reviewing the Amazon Fire 7 to find out.
- Display: 7” touchscreen, 1024 x 600 resolution at 171 ppi, SD video playback, with IPS (in-plane switching) technology and advanced polarizing filter
- Size: 7.6” x 4.5” x 0.4” (192 x 115 x 9.6 mm)
- Weight: 10.1 ounces (286 grams) Actual size and weight may vary by configuration and manufacturing process.
- CPU & RAM: Quad-Core 1.3 GHz with 1 GB of RAM
- Storage: 16 GB (9.4 GB available to user) or 32 GB (23.6 GB available to user) of internal storage.
- Battery life: Up to 7 hours of reading, browsing the web, watching video, and listening to music.
- Charge time: Fully charges in approximately 4 hours using the micro-USB power adapter included in the box.
- Processor: MediaTek 8163
- Wifi connectivity: Single-antenna dual-band wifi. Supports public and private wifi networks or hotspots that use the dual-band 802.
- Ports: USB 2.0
Design
The Amazon Fire 7 comes equipped with a case-like exterior that feels like it could take a beating. It feels like it could withstand a few drops off the counter every now and then, and you wouldn’t be too worried about it when giving it to a child to watch cartoons.
The screen is considerably smaller than the exterior casing which looks a little strange and makes the tablet look rather bulky. This design is to make it easier to read off of the screen so that you don’t accidentally touch the screen.
Display
Okay, so the screen isn’t the best we’ve seen from a tablet. It’s a 7-inch IPS LCD display with a resolution of 1024 x 600. However, it’s worth mentioning that the entire tablet is 7.6 x 4.5 x 0.4 inches. This means that you’re getting quite a border around the screen that is effectively useless.
The resolution is not ideal for watching television or movies, but it will do for the occasional YouTube video. However, reading off of this tablet is a different story. The text is clear and easy to read much like reading from a Kindle.
However, the screen does not fare well in sunlight and you’ll find it difficult to read in direct sunlight. The Kindle handles this better, but for an additional cost.
We definitely wouldn’t recommend purchasing the Amazon Fire 7 for watching Amazon Prime or Netflix. The screen isn’t of high enough quality to support the colors and quick movements.
Connectivity
The port that the Amazon Fire 7 offers is a micro-USB at the top of the screen. We would have preferred to see the more popular and useful USB-C port on the tablet, but the low price point is a reasonable explanation for this port. The small size of the tablet also explains why there is only one port on the tablet.
Battery Life
The battery life of the Amazon Fire 7 is quite impressive, with it lasting up to seven hours on a single charge. The charging time is four hours which is respectable as well. However, it is worth noting that some previous customers have found the battery life underwhelming and not the best.
We think that the battery life would be drained from watching lots of videos and television on the tablet. However, reading books on the tablet requires substantially less battery life, and therefore it will last for a more impressive amount of time.
Storage
The Amazon Fire 7 is not designed to be a portal for all of your pictures, videos, and music like an iPad or Google Tablet might be. For this reason, there are two respectable storage options available – 16 GB or 32 GB.
A Kindle book takes up around 1MB of space on a tablet, meaning that you could fit around 16,000 books on the lowest storage. Take a few away to allow for other apps and technology storage, but this is still an impressive amount of storage if you mainly wanted the tablet for reading.
Cameras
You might not expect such an inexpensive tablet to have two cameras – one front-facing and one back-facing – but the Amazon Fire 7 surprises us. Granted, the cameras are only 2 MP each, so there is no difference between the quality of the images as you might expect.
Compare this to the iPad Pro’s two 12 MP and 10 MP cameras, and you shouldn’t be too disappointed at the image quality coming from the Fire 7’s cameras. Again, the price will excuse the fact that this is not a tablet for aspiring photographers.
Availability and Price
Thanks to Amazon selling their own tablet, you can get the Amazon Fire 7 tablet in most countries worldwide. You can opt for supporting ads or without ads for an additional price, and there are four colors of the exterior to choose from.
These are matte block colors, unlike the other leading tablets on the market which are currently all about metallic colors. There’s also the option to double up the storage from 16 GB to 32 GB for a slight increase in the price.
Again, thanks to Amazon being the seller and manufacturer, they’ll often run offers on Black Friday in which you might be able to get the tablet for even cheaper. This is just a guess, but from looking at what they do with their Echo’s every Black Friday, we think it’s pretty clear that they’ll be running some sort of deal on these events.
Summary
Overall, the Amazon Fire 7 is not the most impressive tablet out there. There are a lot of things that Amazon has had to sacrifice to keep the price so low. This tablet is good for reading and watching a few YouTube videos, but not much else.
We found ourselves excusing a lot of the issues with the Amazon Fire 7 for the low price. So, if you only want it for reading and YouTube, it could be a good option for you. However, don’t be expecting it to be on the same level as an iPad or Samsung Tablet.
