The world's two richest retailers also sell some of the cheapest tablets you can buy. We put their latest 8-inch slates head-to-head to see what a sub-$100 tablet gets you in 2025.
  • spaghettiwestern@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    20·
    9 days ago

    I recently bought a cheap refurbished 10" Amazon Fire specifically for web browsing. The author is spot on when he says it’s “obnoxious to the point of hostility.”

    Amazon places a huge “Register now” nag across the launcher that can’t be removed without registering, and even the calculator won’t work until you do. Wigets aren’t supported by Amazon’s launcher and it is impossible to load an alternative. There are a host of other deliberate annoyances Amazon has created to make sure the tablet is used for their purpose rather than your own.

    It was only $35, but it’s not worth even that much. Amazon has truly made enshittification an art form.

    • Infernal_pizza@lemm.eeEnglish
      3·
      10 days ago

      I’ve always thought the fact that the LockScreen is just one massive advert tells you everything you need to know about fire tablets!

  • FireWire400@lemmy.worldEnglish
    161·
    11 days ago

    No one should buy either of them IMO. These super cheap mobile devices are more or less e-waste from day one…

  • fl42v@lemmy.mlEnglish
    14·
    11 days ago

    Please, just don’t. At least unless there’s a reasonably not shady ROM on XDA that you feel comfortable flashing.

  • DaveyRocket@lemmy.worldEnglish
    10·
    12 days ago

    Old Amazon Kindle was amazing, I read tons of books on it. New Kindle was so clunky to get books on it, set up different accounts, constantly suspicious you were up to something. A totally non-intuitive piece of shit. Amazon design has all the charm of their warehouses.

    • Squizzy@lemmy.worldEnglish
      41·
      11 days ago

      Most phones are that now! To be honest, I say this with three tablets in mt house - I cant believe there is much market for these at all.

    • JustARegularNerd@lemmy.worldEnglish
      2·
      10 days ago

      I was so sad when my Nexus 7 gave up the ghost (quite literally fizzled and nothing more) but I got a solid 10 years out of it.

      I loved how easy they were to work on, the NFC, the unlockable bootloader, the ROM support, headphone jack of course. We didn’t know how good we had it then.