Amazon launched its first $50 Fire tablet in 2015. Now the company is giving its cheapest tablet an update.

The new model has the same price and similar specs, but it sports a slimmer and lighter body, dual-band WiFi, and Amazon says the new model offers up to 8 hours of battery life, which is an hour more than you get from the older model.

The 2017 Amazon Fire 7″ tablet is up for pre-order for $50, and it should ship starting June 7th. You can also save 20% and order 3 for $120 when you use the coupon code FIRE3PACK.

Like the original $50 Fire tablet, the new model has a 7 inch, 1024 x 600 pixel IPS touchscreen display with 171 pixels per inch, a 1.3 GHz quad-core processor, 1GB of RAM, and a choice of 8GB or 16GB of storage. There’s also a microSD card slot which lets you add up to 256GB of removable storage.

Other features include a 2MP rear camera, a front-facing VGA camera. a 3.5mm audio jack, a micro USB 2.0 port, dual-band 802.11n WiFi, Bluetooth, and a speaker.

Aside from the battery life improvement, the biggest difference between this year’s model and the one it replaces is the size… although the difference isn’t actually all that great:

  • 2017 Fire Tablet: 192mm x 115mm x 9.6mm (7.6″ x 4.5″ x 0.4″) and 295 grams (10.4 ounces)
  • 2015 Fire Tablet: 191mm x 115mm x 10.6mm (7.5″ x 4.5″ x 0.4″) and 313 grams (11 ounces)

Amazon also says the new model’s display has “higher contrast and sharper text,” which is a bit strange since it’s the same size and resolution as the original. Perhaps Amazon went with a higher-quality display panel. Or maybe the differences are due to software changes.

There’s also a new Amazon Fire 7 Kids Edition tablet with a starting price of $100 for a model with 16GB of storage, a 1-year subscription to Amazon FreeTime Unlimited, a rugged case, and a 2-year “worry-free guarantee.”

Amazon’s new entry-level tablet is available in black, yellow, blue and red, and the base price is for a model with “Special Offers.” If you’d prefer not to see ads on the lock screen you can pay an extra $15. Or you could just buy Barnes & Noble’s $50 tablet, which has similar specs but ships with the Google Play Store rather than the Amazon Appstore.

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4 replies on “Amazon launches thinner and lighter $50 Fire tablet”

  1. Yeah, I wonder how the “higher contrast and sharper text” is accomplished without any actual resolution increase.

  2. It comes down to whether they are still using that shitty none-square pixels display that was not reconfigurable. All squares look like rectangles, all circles look like ovals. They went too cheap on that display for the older model.

    1. I’m sure Amazon will be distraught to find that they will not have you for a customer.

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