A few Fire tablet questions.

azith28

The new Fire Tablets from amazon have me thinking about getting one for my place. Previously I've figured my phone or my computer was fine for this stuff, but recently ive been picking up more ebooks then usual so a tablet might make casual reading better. Anyway, I have a few questions.

Is the Amazon OS, just an android OS?
does it use google play to get apps or is it only the amazon marketplace?
Do these tablets have the Hearthstone app?

Is there any point to jailbreaking them and using a different OS?

Thanks

wunderbar

azith28 wrote: »

The new Fire Tablets from amazon have me thinking about getting one for my place. Previously I've figured my phone or my computer was fine for this stuff, but recently ive been picking up more ebooks then usual so a tablet might make casual reading better. Anyway, I have a few questions.

Is the Amazon OS, just an android OS?
does it use google play to get apps or is it only the amazon marketplace?
Do these tablets have the Hearthstone app?

Is there any point to jailbreaking them and using a different OS?

Thanks

it is Android, but an Amazon customized version of Android. It does not run the Play Store, but the Amazon app store. You can apparently root it to get the Play store on it, but as always with that, your mileage may vary.

A quick 5 second search on Amazon's website shows that Hearthstone should be available for it.

EDIT: just to clarify one thing. No play store on the device means no google apps at all, like gmail, google calendar, google maps, etc. It's all Amazon services. Again you can root to put play store on, but ymmv.

a5ehren

FireOS is ok if you're willing to work within Amazon's very limited app store.

Rooting and getting Google Play Services on there is possible on most of the older ones, but it is janky in the way that all 3rd party Android mods are. You *can* sideload a different launcher pretty easily if you want it to look like normal Android, though.

LD50

I personally would go with a standard android tablet. Something from one of the more well known brands that's in you're price range. If you go that route you can get e-books from not only amazon, but google or B&N or anyone that puts out e-books. Any apps that are on the amazon app store are going to be on google play too.

Darlan

Whoops, didn't see this thread earlier and posted in the android thread. Anyhow, I'm in a similar boat, and while I don't mind not having Google Play so much, as I never really game on tablets, I am curious about Youtube--does it handle well in the Silk browser, and have full screen options and such there?

a5ehren

Youtube is really, really bad on my Fire HDX compared to anything else I run it on, at least in Silk.

It might be better if you sideload Opera or Firefox, but I haven't tried it extensively enough to say.

LD50

Darlan wrote: »

Whoops, didn't see this thread earlier and posted in the android thread. Anyhow, I'm in a similar boat, and while I don't mind not having Google Play so much, as I never really game on tablets, I am curious about Youtube--does it handle well in the Silk browser, and have full screen options and such there?

a5ehren wrote: »

Youtube is really, really bad on my Fire HDX compared to anything else I run it on, at least in Silk.

It might be better if you sideload Opera or Firefox, but I haven't tried it extensively enough to say.

This is 100% why you want google play. Google play isn't just about games. No browser is going to give you an experience as good as the native youtube app, and this isn't just true of youtube, but of any other platform that has a native android app. Some of those are going to have an app on the amazon store, but they're all going to have apps on google play.

There are a lot of other apps out there that are perfect for tablets too. PDF software, comic viewing software, drawing software, note taking software, graphing calculators, etc. The best of the best is available on google play.

Darlan

Yeah, thanks, I did a bit more research and found that Marvel Unlimited is also something that is not on the amazon app store, another thing I'd like to give a go with a new tablet. At some point doing everything through the browser just gets silly. I'd get a mini 2 if I had any confidence in Apple's legacy support, but I don't (they dropped my original model like a bad habit in less than 3 years), so I suppose I'll wait around for a few more months in hopes of a new proper android tablet.

It's a shame too, that HD 8 looks exactly like the right spec/price point combination for me if it wasn't for the crappy DRM seperation.

useless4

out of curiosity do you think you will buy a non-apple tablet supported for more than three years? The Mini 2 is the iPhone 4s of the iPad line. Yes it will stick around but it will be the slowest performer by far of the supported bunch.

wunderbar

Apple has beyond a shadow of a doubt the *best* long term support of their devices. I mean the iPad 2 just got iOS 9. There are of course outliers. Sometimes there are just devices that end up being a bastard stepchild type device, and the first iPad was one of those, but even the most passionate of Android fans would admit that Apple's support is generally better than anything on Android, except for maybe nexus.

But here's another thing to consider. If you buy the mini 2, you're buying a device that is *already* 2 years old. Even with Apple's really good support for devices in the long term, imo buying a 2 year old product, then expecting to get 3 more years of support out of it is not a good purchase.

Jubal77

Amazon's ecosystem, if you invest into it, is really the core of the Tablet offering. The tablets are one of the better implementations of an ecosystem out there. And yes that is including Apple. They have all the major apps in the store and once attached to a Prime account they really shine. But again you have to buy into the Amazon ecosystem.

a5ehren

I actually think Amazon's problem is that they have to have all of their stuff (Music, Kindle, Instant Video) available on other platforms anyway. FireOS doesn't integrate them in a compelling enough way to make up for the vast gulf between their App Store and the big 2.

Google has this problem to a lesser extent as well.

Jubal77

I would disagree with the statement that FireOS 'does not remove "clicks"' from getting to the ecosystem which would be the core of the argument for it. For the record I currently use a Samsung tablet. I also think their family/permission system is one of the better ones out.