Should you buy the all new Amazon Fire 7?
Is Amazon's newest budget tablet worth your $50?
The online giant is calling it the "all new Fire 7," which is perhaps more a marketing thing than actual hard truth when it comes to the tablet in question. It is new, and it is improved, but marketing hype is still marketing hype.
So, let's actually break down what is new and whether this latest budget tablet is worth your time.
What's actually new?There are subtle differences in the hardware on the all new Fire 7, but ones that will make for a solid improvement in user experience. The first of these is that it now supports the microSDXC standard which means you can now expand your internal storage by up to 256GB based on currently available cards.
The next important improvement is the inclusion of dual-band Wi-Fi, which means you're now able to use the Fire 7 on the 5GHz band. Traditionally these give you better speeds over your local network, and it's a notable upgrade over the single-band available in the old model.
Amazon has also an improved 7-inch IPS display in the new Fire 7, though just how good that is will have to wait until we actually see one.
Then there's a little thing called Alexa. Amazon's AI platform continues to grow, and following its inclusion on the most recent Fire TV products, Alexa is now on the basic Fire tablet, too. Holding the home button launches Alexa and from there you can ask questions and control your connected home devices just as you can with an Echo.
Is it worth getting one?Absolutely. We've long recommended the Fire 7 as a cheap tablet that's actually worth buying and that hasn't changed with the new one. The improvements that have been made strengthen an already great product for $50.
Alexa is probably only going to excite you if you're already getting into that ecosystem, but if you are, it's yet another piece of tech you can use to turn on your lights and much more besides.
If you already have a Fire 7, it's not necessarily worth ditching it just to grab the latest one. If it's working just fine still, keep hold of it for now. Then again, $50 is almost an impulse buy, which is part of what makes the Fire 7 so good in the first place.