Amazon released its Fire tablet a couple of months ago. While the specs aren't impressive, an 8 GB tablet for the price of a tank of gas is very tempting, but is it worth the purchase?

Consumer Reports published its assessment of Amazon's $50 tablet. The consumer products reviewer suggests that, while the device can't perform as well as midrange and higher-end units, the Fire tablet can do a lot, showcasing capabilities that rival those of other devices twice its price.

Consumer Reports tested an Amazon Fire tablet that is fitted with a quad-core ARM Cortex SoC with each core clocked at 1.3 GHz. The internal memory, as mentioned, is 8 GB but it does have a microSD expansion slot that can offer up to 128 GB of external memory.

The 7-inch display sports 171 ppi while the front-facing and main camera are 0.3 MP and 2 MP, respectively. The 11-ounce device is powered by a Fire OS 5.

"It's fine for streaming a movie, although better for content than for quality, and for simple gaming, email and social media," says Dean Gallea of Consumer Reports.

However, when browsing, pages take five times longer to load compared to the Apple iPad Mini 4. Then again, the Cupertino tablet has a $400 price tag clipped to it. Aside from the not-so-fast search speed, the difference in display quality between the two tablets is very noticeable.

Given that it runs on Amazon's Fire OS, it won't have access to apps for iOS and Android. Nonetheless, 300,000 apps are already available on the Amazon app store. Bear in mind that the Google Play Store and Apple's App Store have more apps in their respective repositories, but if it's just the essentials, then there should be an Amazon App Store equivalent.

Moreover, Consumer Reports notes that placing the sole speaker at the back does not help the audio quality performance. Thus, it is not the tablet that audiophiles would want.

Who Is the Amazon Fire Tablet's Market?

Parents might want this. It's ideal for the kids. It's cheap, so there is less fear or care if the tablet breaks. Even Amazon thinks so. The Fire tablet is encased in the Kid-Proof Case, which aims to curb fatal damage when dropped.

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