Cheap tablets

**teamsaint** · 02-11-16, 22:22

Originally posted by Dave2002 View Post

I saw an Amazon Fire HD tablet in Tescos today for around £60. At home I don't need one, but could that be a good thing to have for going away for a while, and staying in hotels etc. Taking expensive gadgets out might not make sense, as if any damage or loss arose on a trip replacements would possibly not be covered by insurance, but tablets under £100 could probably be written off.

Are there any other reasonable cheap tablets? Reviews nearly always come out and say that the high end models are better, and best - but sometimes one just wants something which does not cost s fortune, and enables modest functionality for a short period of time. My guess is that the Fire HD might just do that - basic Internet - with WiFi for hotels and hotspots, and email and the ability to play films and music.

Comments?

Can't really go wrong with a Kindle Fire 7 for your purposes Dave.

It has a micro SD slot for big storage, and if you are patient amazon do the 8GB at £35 from time to time.
no brainer really.
Also really user friendly, light, great battery life.

**Dave2002** · 03-11-16, 14:31

Originally posted by teamsaint View Post

Can't really go wrong with a Kindle Fire 7 for your purposes Dave.

It has a micro SD slot for big storage, and if you are patient amazon do the 8GB at £35 from time to time.
no brainer really.
Also really user friendly, light, great battery life.

That's interesting to know. Does the OS (isn't it an Amazon "special") allow sensible use of additional memory? I have an Android mobile phone which I hardly use. Although it has a 32 Gbyte card installed it is effectively useless because of the way that the Android OS works, and my phone has a ridiculously small amount of installed memory. I have managed to watch a few videos on the phone (a couple of years ago), but managing the storage is a complete pain, and I have all but given up. It would be easy if the videos could actually work from the memory card, and the memory management was easier.

I had thought that these tablets would get substantially cheaper - and without such stupid limitations - over the years, but I'm not sure this has yet happened. Mrs D. has a Nexus which I looked at recently to see how much memory was actually used. It was provided "free" with a subscription to the Times several years ago, and depending on how one views the finances it was either free with the Times, or else cost about £180 with the Times thrown in. I was surprised to note that it really is/was a good deal, as it has 32 Gbytes of memory, but by now I was expecting that most devices even at low price points would have a lot of memory.

Again, looking at patterns of usage, it seems that 16 Gbytes would probably be enough - maybe more than - but with some of the tablets if external storage either by SDHC, or micro SD cards, or USB is usable then smaller internal memory would work, and keep costs down, but not all tablet and/or OS makers are playing that game.

I do not want to have to rely on any form of cloud storage, which is something that some/many makers try to promote - and one of the market leaders manages to make things very difficult by not making it easy for data to be moved back from mobile devices to other computers - guess which one!

I am encouraged to try the Fire by your comments, but the aim is to concentrate on something useful/usable which would not result in tears if it were lost or stolen, and get the balance right.

**teamsaint** · 03-11-16, 16:57

Dave, I think the main external memory constraint is on books.

the external storage is fine for music ( definitely) and video ( I think). However, books seem to be restricted to amazon kindle purchases.
You'd need to check that though, I think.

Music copied to a micro SD card on Media player from any source certainly works OK on formats such as MP3 etc.

**Dave2002** · 11-11-16, 11:10

I ended up with a Fire HD 8. I tried to buy a 7, but when I got to the checkout the salesperson tried to put it through the till, but a product recall block popped up, so she couldn't sell it to me. The 8 is good enough and within budget. It's no good in bright sunlight, but I expected that. The original Kindle (and similar descendants) still beats everything outside in sun.

**Anastasius** · 11-11-16, 16:58

In my (albeit limited experience) it's not the amount of memory that is the limiting factor but the performance of the CPU/graphics which, on all the cheap ones I saw, was terrible.

On a slight digression, a little mole told me that EE are getting the contract to supply the UK mobile coverage for the new C3 systems for the emergency services. From that, it is suggested, their network (and so mobile signal coverage for the rest of us) is going to be significantly extended to cover a lot more of the UK then it currently does.

**Dave2002** · 14-11-16, 00:37

Not sure about the performance of the Fire HD 8. Seems good enough to me so far. Major limitation practically is internet speed, but that would affect all tablets.

**Flay** · 14-11-16, 07:33

The Amazon "Black Friday" sale has started, so it's worth keeping an eye out for "bargains" (I do wonder about the original prices quoted).

**Dave2002** · 16-11-16, 02:57

Sometimes the bargains are really good, but as suggested one should have an awareness of current pricing.

**Jonathan** · 16-11-16, 15:15

Very happy with my new Kindle which I bought to replace an old one which broke (it refused to start!). It was only £60 and does everything well and is fine for reading on too.

**teamsaint** · 23-11-16, 20:22

Kindle Fire 7 8GB is £29.99 at the moment.

**cloughie** · 23-11-16, 20:32

Originally posted by teamsaint View Post

Kindle Fire 7 8GB is £29.99 at the moment.

At that price I ordered earlier today! With other equipment I have it may have limited use for me but it will be useful on the move and fit my pocket.

**Dave2002** · 24-11-16, 06:44

Originally posted by cloughie View Post

At that price I ordered earlier today! With other equipment I have it may have limited use for me but it will be useful on the move and fit my pocket.

Not sure about the generality of the £29.99 price, and whether it's linked to so called Black Friday. At Argos they have it in blue, tangerine and magenta, but the black one is £10 more. At Amazon the black is also available at the lower price - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Fire-Tablet...indles+fire+hd

I assume that the 7 inch model is similar to the 8 inch which I have - probably a bit more pocket friendly, though the 8 Gbyte limitation might become irritating.
I have now almost filled up my 16 Gbyte HD 8, though I assume that I can fit a microSD card - maybe 64 Gbytes - for around a further £16 - such as this one - https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/...d_i=1345826031

Prices of the microSD cards do fluctuate, and perhaps a 32 Gbyte card would do almost as well for most people - around £10.

Most of the storage on mine has been filled up with music, and if I can off load it to a microSD card then it should be possible to reclaim most of the memory - though it's not a problem right now. The Fire has served its purpose already - though it didn't get stolen! The aim was to have a device which would work, but wouldn't cause too many tears if it got stolen or broken on holiday. The quality of the display is good for Kindle books, though it's fairly useless in bright sunlight - as mentioned earlier.

My guess is that if the £29.99 price is time limited - that for many people who might have a low cost mobile requirement the Fire 7 would be a really good thing to have - at an almost throw away price.

**Beef Oven!** · 24-11-16, 11:32

Originally posted by Dave2002 View Post

I assume that the 7 inch model is similar to the 8 inch which I have - probably a bit more pocket friendly, though the 8 Gbyte limitation might become irritating.

On Amazon, the blurb says you can expand it with an SD card.

"No more worrying about storage space
Keep your photos, movies and games with you using a microSD card slot that lets you expand your tablet’s storage by up to 200 GB.
Plus, enjoy free unlimited cloud storage for all Amazon content and photos taken with your Fire device........"

**Dave2002** · 24-11-16, 12:00

Indeed, but I don't always believe what manufacturers and sellers claim - do you? Sometimes their claims are way off, leading to considerable, and very long lasting, end user dissatisfaction. I think the Fire + memory card is probably OK though, but eome Android phones (e.g. one from Sony) turn out to be real dogs - which is, incidentally, unkind to canine creatures.