Which Amazon Fire Tablet Is Best for You?

The most important question that you need to ask yourself if you're shopping for an Amazon Fire Tablet is: Is it Prime Day? If so, then yes, it's a good time to buy. If not, then no. The exception is Black Friday when they are usually on sale for upwards of 35 percent off, in that case, go for it.

Seriously, Fire Tablets are loss leaders for Amazon Prime. Unless you reeeeally need it right now, there's no reason to pay full price. Fire HD tablets go on sale multiple times a year for at least 30 percent off, and they are 50 percent off during Prime Day sales (which, remember, isn't a single day anymore). Do the math here and you're basically never more than two months from getting one for at least 30 percent off. Do yourself a favor and wait for the sale. It'll make your Fire HD tablet that much better.

Only buy one of the 13th Generation Fire tablets. We suggest sticking to the models we talk about in this article (also listed here). Older-model Fire tablets won't get software updates for as long as the current generation will. You'll also miss out on the faster processor and more RAM in the newer models. A far better idea is to wait for Prime Day or another sale when you can get the new models at 30 to 50 percent off.

If you won't be deterred from buying an older Fire tablet right now, be sure to cross-reference the latest update available for the tablet you’re going to buy (find it on this sheet) with the latest version of Fire OS to see how up-to-date your software will be. And bear in mind that Amazon does cut off old devices from accessing its content.

Amazon added generative AI features to Fire OS at the end of 2024. Fire OS now has three AI assistants, Writing Assist, Wallpaper Creator, and a webpage summary tool. The first is designed to help with sending messages, emails, and other text content. It consists of automated spelling correction, grammar fixes, and more predictive features like an option to make your message more “casual”, which appears to consist in adding words like “stoked” to your messages. Wallpaper creator lets you generate images based on your prompts, and the webpage summary tool offers quick, reasonably accurate bullet points summarizing the webpage you're reading.

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A faucet for Amazon content: If you subscribe to Amazon’s Prime service, you can consume all the included movies, music, TV, and books, shop for all the items you can get with its free two-day shipping, and browse your free Amazon photo storage. You can do most of the same things from an Android tablet or iPad, but the Fire OS interface is crafted specifically to deliver Amazon goods, with swipeable pages for each type of media Amazon sells.

Built “good enough”: Physically, Amazon’s Fire tablets are made of cheap-ish plastic, but they’re designed with enough care that the build quality won’t bother you too much. Wifi reception is excellent, and the front facing cameras have improved considerably in the last couple releases. The Kids Editions are also some of the best-quality tablets for kids, encased in a rugged bumper, and all have microSD slots so you can add extra storage. (We recommend this 128-GB microSD card for $15.) It used to be that you could improve things by hacking Amazon's tablets to installing the Google Play Store on your Fire device. Unfortunately installing the Play Store has become increasingly difficult and is something I no longer recommend for most people. It's not worth the hassle when there are other reasonable cheap Android tablets available.

Cheap: Did we mention the price? They all cost $200 or less, save the new Max 11. If you stick to the cheaper models though, they're a great value. You can also get them with Amazon lock-screen ads, which will lower your price by $15.

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Non-Amazon content is lacking: The greatest strength of these tablets is also their greatest weakness. If you aren’t an Amazon Prime subscriber and don't plan to get your video, audio, or books from Amazon, the Fire tablet line is far less compelling. They do have Alexa, so that could be a plus, but again, that’s tied deeply into Amazon’s content library. You can download third-party apps like Netflix on Amazon’s Appstore, but the selection is far more limited than what's available on Apple's iPad or the Google Play Store on standard Android tablets. Rumor has it this will be changing next year as Amazon improves Fire OS, but so far that's just a rumor.

Old tech: The tech inside these tablets is old. The processors aren't the fastest, and you'll likely notice small fits of lag and a general lack of power compared to more expensive Android tablets. The touchscreens aren't a responsive or sensitive as more expensive tablets. Since many of the apps for Fire OS are built with weak processing power in mind, you don’t notice it too much. The operating system is also dated (depending on which Fire tablet you're buying), which could hide some of the weaknesses. Amazon’s latest Fire OS is a modified version of Android 11, which came out in 2020. Amazon keeps updating its tablets to some degree, but not nearly as often as it should.

Short warranties: Only the Fire HD 10 comes with a full one-year warranty. Oddly, the smaller devices come with 90-day warranties.

Special offers: Over time Amazon's Special Offers ads have gotten more overt and annoying. We recommend you pay the extra $15 to buy a Fire tablet without them.