Gadgetory

it's been said that Amazon is scaling back its efforts and its consumer hardware division but based on today's product releases we're seeing it's clear they're still putting some effort behind low-cost tablets we're looking at four new tablets first there's the new Fire HD 8 inch a Fire HD 10 inch a very inexpensive 7 inch tablet and another tablet that's designed for kids let's look at the new fire HDS first they have a new industrial design some people may like the colors that they come in but I can say that this plastic bag feels a little cheap right off the bat they're super thin they're 7.7 millimeters thin and Amazon is calling this its lightest tablet ever one interesting note about these tablets is they have a 16 by 10 aspect ratio we've seen more and more tablet makers go to a four by three aspect ratio because four by three is better for more everyday stuff like reading 16 by 10 is generally better for a cinematic experience you can see that Amazon is really pushing its prime video here it has a 1.5 gigahertz quad-core processor the 8 inch starts with 8 gigabytes of internal storage the 10 inch with 16 gigabytes of internal storage both have a microSD slot to expand both tablets are running on the latest version of iOS it's fire OS 5 and they're starting out with Android lollipop the new 10 inch Fire HD tablet costs 230 dollars the 8 inch costs a hundred and fifty dollars that is indeed a low cost tablet but Amazon is going even lower than that it's also putting out a new seven-inch tablet that's going to cost just fifty dollars this one doesn't have quite as nice of a display it's a 1024 by 600 display it does have IPs it starts with 8 gigabytes of storage and has the same microSD slot for expandable storage it has a 1.3 gigahertz processor 1 gigabyte of RAM and once again is running on the latest version of iOS which is fire OS 5 the craziest thing is that Amazon thinks that this is going to be your next great party favor instead of showing up with a six-pack of beer maybe you'll show up with a 6-pack of tablets because they're actually bundling them as a six-pack and if you buy five you get the six one for free so once again these are not your top-of-the-line best tablets ever based on the specs and base to build a little bit - but amazon thinks that it has struck a chord with more of a low-cost approach to tablets and that's clearly what we're seeing here today