Inexpensive tablets for games

[Simba's Mom]

I was considering the Kindle Fire 7. I've had a Kindle Fire and it worked perfectly, until it died a few weeks ago. All I do with it is play games that I've downloaded (apps). Such games as solitaire, jigsaw puzzles, sudoku, etc. So graphics, etc. aren't of any concern to me. Want something under $100 if possible, and the Fire 7 is a good price at $50. Any reviews or other suggestions?

 

[bcla]

Wait unttil Christmas. Last year my wife got a Fire 8 for our kid to use for $50 during their Christmas sale. It only had 16 GB fixed, but I got SanDisk’s Amazon-specific 32 GB microSD card for $10. It can offload a lot of data storage to the card, including parts of applications.

It can play games just fine, although there are some that aren’t available. It’s mostly a platform for Amazon to try and sell services, movies, and encourage Prime membership. At $50 they’re not making any money off the hardware. I read somewhere that Prime membership fees are what makes Amazon profitable, along with web services. Their hardware is just a loss leader to encourage the purchase of Prime membership.

 

[Malyficent]

My kids have iPads that are ancient. We're looking to get them Kindle Fires for Christmas. Amazon actually has a preview sale now for Alexa owners - you ask Alexa for your deals and then order via Alexa for the savings The way I read the email it seemed like the same prices will be available to all on Black Friday. I'm still reviewing specs to decide between the Fires or I'd have ordered already.

 

[bcla]

My kids have iPads that are ancient. We're looking to get them Kindle Fires for Christmas. Amazon actually has a preview sale now for Alexa owners - you ask Alexa for your deals and then order via Alexa for the savings The way I read the email it seemed like the same prices will be available to all on Black Friday. I'm still reviewing specs to decide between the Fires or I'd have ordered already.

The Fire HD 8 works pretty well. Most of the games and apps are optimized to run on a somewhat limited piece of hardware. If you're using it for simple games and movies it looks nice and works reasonably well for a good price. The only issue is the best price comes with ads showing up, but those are easy enough to ignore. I've also noticed a lot of Washington Post updates, which are automatic and can't be turned off, although it's easy enough to just ignore them.

The latest iPad Mini 4 (which I have myself) would be a better, more powerful device with a larger app ecosystem.

If you're willing to spend a bit more, a Fire HD 10 is more powerful than the smaller Fire tablets. Of course it's not quite an iPad in terms of performance, but it's a good value.

 

[Malyficent]

Thank you @bcla!