Amazon Fire HD 10 Tablet with Alexa

This was a somewhat spontaneous, and not completely rational purchase. But Amazon was willing to give me $15 for an older Fire tablet, plus 25% off this purchase. So in the end, this was a $100 experiment. And having lived with the new generation 10″ Fire HD tablet, I have to say I’m quite impressed. I like the screen, it’s fast, it runs most of the Android apps I care about, and it’s the first Fire tablet that talks back (via Alexa). The only one I really miss is the GMAIL app, but I can easily access GMAIL via the (Firefox) Web browser, and I’m OK with that workaround.

To see what the pros have to say about this tablet, you can check out their reviews below. But from my perspective, the Amazon Fire tablet provides a truly amazing value when compare to leading brands such as Samsung and Apple. Of course, if price is of no concern, I’m still an iPad fan, and would invest in Apple’s new 9.7″ iPad. Apple prices have finally come down to earth and for $329 (Walmart’s price), you can get a really good 32gb tablet that will satisfy for years!

Getting back to the Fire tablet, I would encourage you to also invest in Amazon’s Fire TV Stick, which is a $40 ($35 refurbished) HDMI device you connect to your TV and stream content from your Fire tablet to your TV.

I’m also an advocate of protective cases, for laptops, tablets, smartphones, etc. Here’s the one I purchased for my Fire tablet. It’s reasonably priced and works really well. I highly recommend it (Ztotop Folio Case for All-New Fire HD 10 Tablet (2017 Release, 7th Generation)

And then a thought occurred to me, that a 10″ tablet’s screen should be large enough to work as a laptop replacement, if only I had a Bluetooth keyboard. Well, I do have a Bluetooth keyboard made by Jetech but it doesn’t play well with the Fire tablet – space bar doesn’t register, delete key doesn’t work, etc. So I’m ordering this one that should work better – Pwr+ Extra Slim External Wireless Bluetooth-Keyboard for Tablets for $13. This keyboard arrived, and here’s a picture of it in front of the Fire HD 10. Unlike the Jetech, this keyboard works quite well. As one would expect, many keys are irrelevant for a tablet (function keys don’t do anything and most of the keys across the top row don’t function, except audio controls do work properly).

Installed by default on the Fire HD 10 is ‘WPS Office for Amazon’. Document, spreadsheet and presentation editors are provided in WPS, and files are saved locally in standard Microsoft formats (.doc, .docx, .xls, .xlsx, etc.). Better than WPS Office is OfficeSuite Free from mobisystems. OfficeSuite also saves files in Microsoft file formats and supports export to .PDF, and with the addition of File Commander, file storage on an installed SD card or in the cloud is supported. When it’s time to use your Fire tablet for serious document creation, consider OfficeSuite Pro, also from mobisystems. You’ll not regret the $15 investment in a really good Office app for your Fire tablet.

HOW IS OFFICESUITE PRO BETTER THAN OFFICESUITE FREE?

• Security features – work with password protected files
• Format Painter in Word documents
• Track changes with multiple author support
• Insert pictures using your camera or from an external file
• Additional options in Excel including Insert Filter, Conditional Formatting, Define Name, Import Image, Edit Chart, and Save as CSV
• Interactive form support for PDFs: checkboxes, radio buttons, text fields, etc.
• Legacy Microsoft document formats support (.DOC, .XLS, .PPT) along with .ODF formats

One last thought while we’re on the topic: microSD card. I purchased this one for my Fire tablet and expect it to work just fine. Patriot LX Series 32GB High Speed Micro SDHC Class 10 ($10). Anything you create on, or download to, the Fire tablet can, and probably should, be stored on the SD card keeping the tablet’s internal memory free for apps and data associated with apps. With 32gb of internal storage and another 32gb of SD card storage, you shouldn’t have to worry about storage space for a while.

Reviews