Cheap tablets

[Beef Oven!]

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.

Do you think I should cancel my order? I’ve gone ahead with a purchase from Amazon, but if there’s even a whiff of doubt about the storage being expandable, maybe I should get out of the transaction. 8g is no good to me and one of the reasons why I went ahead and ordered it is because the manufacturer and seller claim that it is expandable. I’d need between 32 and 64g.

UPDATE: On reflection, I can’t take the risk if there’s even the slightest doubt about storage expansion. I had tended to believe the blurb that manufacturers and sellers give. Accordingly, I have cancelled my order with Amazon. Thanks for the steer Dave2002 - probably saved me a lot of headache!

[Cockney Sparrow]

On expanding the description on the page, it says this:
"Free unlimited cloud storage for all Amazon content and photos taken with Fire devices. Add a microSD card for up to 200GB of additional storage"

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B018Y223ZU/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

[Beef Oven!]

On expanding the description on the page, it says this:
"Free unlimited cloud storage for all Amazon content and photos taken with Fire devices. Add a microSD card for up to 200GB of additional storage"

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

But see Dave2002’s post - it might be untrue. I don’t want considerable, and very long lasting, end user dissatisfaction. This is what it seems it could lead to.

[Cockney Sparrow]

BeefO, if you feel uneasy, then I would not want to dissuade you. Although I can't get away from the fact I have a different view....

For any others looking, if you look down the Amazon page describing the tablet, it reiterates there is a card slot and the memory card capacity.(e.g in the comparison with other models table. In the "Technical details" section it states:
"Storage 8 GB (4.5 GB available to user) or 16 GB (11.6 GB available to user) of internal storage. Add a microSD card for up to 200 GB of storage for even more movies, TV shows, music, photos, personal videos and apps."
(obviously, I know I've ordered the 8GB version)

For myself, I have ordered one, at this price too hard to resist (and I can envisage use from it) - I don't have much doubt it will enable the extra storage as described. It will be a subsidiary tablet for general quick web checks and to control music playing, so I don't need much internal memory. (And, at the back of it all, Amazon is a reputable seller with a returns policy).

[teamsaint]

Kindle fire 7 stores MP3 and other formats just fine on a micro sd as Amazon claim.
It won't store ebooks on the sd card, ( I think) and it won't play MPEG 4(?).
But for MP3 and other common formats the expansion slot works well.

[Dave2002]

But see Dave2002’s post - it might be untrue. I don’t want considerable, and very long lasting, end user dissatisfaction. This is what it seems it could lead to.

I didn't necessarily intend you to cancel your order. I think it might actually be quite a good deal, and at £29.99 it's not a great deal to lose - providing it doesn't give you headaches. For an additional £10 you can get a 16 Gbyte model at the current prices. I paid rather more than that for my Fire 8 (from Tesco) - but my expectations were different According to the T3 magazine which I read on a plane yesterday, the cheapest (!!!) worthwhile tabet seems to be about £250 - but that magazine is supporting much more expensive kit, and promoting the likes of Apple. I definitely did not want to be spending that much on a mini tablet (the Apple mini was recommended in the mag), and for my purposes the outlay of around £90 including a cheap case was justified, and I think it's very good.

I was actually thinking of asking you about the use of microSD cards, as I wondered if it would be worth putting music in FLAC format onto some, and they could play on the Fire using at least one of the freely downloadable Apps - such as PlayerXtreme. However, there's probably not a great deal of point, other than to save time in the loading, as it's doubtful that the Fire device would be able to deliver high quality audio - though perhaps more on that later.

You might wish to reconsider your cancellation. Re the long lasting user disappointments, some have been due to Apple (some of their stuff is very good - but not all...) and Sony/Android phones. I haven't had any major problems so far with Amazon, or Amazon devices. Surely if you discovered problems within the first 20 or so days you could send it back anyway - Amazon is usually good at that. If you are intending to put a large amount of music on, it could be useful to know whether this would work well with the 8 Gbyte model. I'm not quite sure what the Fire OS is based on - is it an Android variant? My specific complaints re other Android implementations include this - that although it is possible to install external cards, in practice that isn't always useful due to system limitations, and also relying on cloud storage doesn't always help if one is going to parts of the world, or travelling on planes etc. where there isn't any wifi - either free or otherwise.

Some will probably find the Fire 7 at under £30 a very useful device.

[Beef Oven!]

Phew! Turns out that in the end, I didn’t tick the cancel box so my order was always going ahead!

But thanks Dave and Cockney Sparrow for the advice/information, anyway

All’s well that ends well.

[Dave2002]

I tried to figure out how to connect my Fire HD 8 to Chromecast last night, but failed. Not really a big deal for me, but if anyone finds out how to do it, maybe they could let us know. I have previously managed to cast to Chromecast from Mac OS and also from Android phones.

[Anastasius]

Phew! Turns out that in the end, I didn’t tick the cancel box so my order was always going ahead!

But thanks Dave and Cockney Sparrow for the advice/information, anyway

All’s well that ends well.

It's very easy to send stuff back to Amazon FOC if you don't like it - within 14 days I believe.

I've just signed up to a £10 a month (three free months) for a Huawei tablet with Three as I foresee it will be very useful over the next couple of years and is slightly larger than my Huawei phone...which is pretty good.

[Dave2002]

I bought a modest (16 Gbyte) microSD card to go in the Fire HD - and it does seem possible to copy all the music and other stuff out of the main memory to it.
There are some possibly to be expected snags - but the OS does try to make things simple. I now seem to have duplicate copies of many of the downloaded tracks.

One recommendation is to actually clear all the downloads from memory, then change the download setting to target the microSD, and do the download again. This isn't strictly necessary for music tracks, but seems to be the way to go for Kindle books. I suspect that some of the automated transfer features stop if the device turns itself off due to energy saving or for other reasons.

If this does seem to be useful I'll buy a much larger card in due course. I hope the Fire 7 tablets with 8 Gbytes of main memory will be easy enough to manage in a similar way for those who'd bought into those.

[Anastasius]

Took delivery of a Huawei MediaPad 7 with a mobile dongle from Three. Yes, it's a good deal but it's gone back as I found the display quality disappointing. The fonts in many sites never rendered properly or gave the impression of rendering differently each time. I couldn't put my finger on it but I couldn't live with it. I might have a look a second hand iPads.

[Dave2002]

I tried to figure out how to connect my Fire HD 8 to Chromecast last night, but failed. Not really a big deal for me, but if anyone finds out how to do it, maybe they could let us know. I have previously managed to cast to Chromecast from Mac OS and also from Android phones.

Just noticed I'd already tried this - and failed! I have a couple of Chromecasts - one for TV and a Chromecast Audio. Both work, though I have had some "issues" with the audio model dropping out - which seems erratic. A few days ago seemed to be dropping out all the time, but worked fine yesterday.

That was driving from an iOS iPad Pro - but I still haven't figured out how to get the audio from an Amazon Fire HD. Maybe this can't be done - turf wars between Amazon and Google perhaps meaning that the end user loses out?

If anyone gets Chromecast to work from a Fire I'd love to know about it - particularly the audio model.

[Anastasius]

Following on, I was told I could keep the tablet. I haven't bothered to switch it on at all. Nothing to do with the quality or lack thereof....quite simply because I use my Mac. Who needs a tablet ? What am I missing ?

[Dave2002]

Was that the Huawei MediaPad? I thought that had been sent back.

[Anastasius]

Was that the Huawei MediaPad? I thought that had been sent back.

In the end they faffed around so much with the pre-paid stuff they told me to keep it.