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Amazon’s new $80 Fire HD 8 supports hands-free Alexa, better front camera… not much else

Amazon is updating its Fire tablet lineup with a new 2018 version of the Fire HD 8. For the most part… it’s a lot like last year’s model. But there are a few improvements. The new model supports larger microSD cards. It has a better front-facing camera. And it lets you interact with the Alexa […]

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What to do if your 2017 Amazon Fire tablet stops showing Google Play apps

Have a recent Amazon Fire, Fire HD 8, or Fire HD 10 tablet with the Google Play Store installed? Sometime in the past few weeks a number of users noticed that they were having trouble using some of the apps installed from the Play Store. Update: Some users are reporting they’re having the same problems […]

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PSA: Amazon releases Fire OS 5.6 update, fixes install from unknown sources bug

Amazon recently rolled out a new version of Fire OS for its tablets and while Fire OS 5.6 brings a few new features including support for monitoring smart home cameras with Alexa, app icons in the notification tray and some tweaks to the settings menu, it also partially broke one feature: installation of apps from […]

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Amazon Fire tablets: Installing apps from unknown sources in Fire OS 5.6.0

Amazon recently starting rolling out Fire OS 5.6.0 for the Amazon Fire, Fire HD 8 and Fire HD 10 tablets. Among other things, it includes an updated notification tray that shows icons for apps that want your attention rather than just a number showing how many notifications are available. But folks who have tried installing […]

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Amazon’s new Fire TV will ship with Fire OS 6.0 (based on Android Nougat)

Amazon’s Fire devices run a custom version of Android called Fire OS, and pretty much every Fire tablet and Fire TV device available right now runs Fire OS 5.x, which is based on Android 5.1 or Android 6.0, depending on the version. But when the new 2017 edition of the Amazon Fire TV ships in […]

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Amazon Fire TV software update adds voice-to-text input

Amazon is rolling out a software update for its Fire TV devices that adds support for live streaming Thursday Night Football games (for Prime members), among other things. But as a non-sports fan, there’s another feature I find much more interesting. You can finally enter text using your voice. That could make entering usernames, passwords, […]

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How to use an SD card with Amazon’s Fire tablets

Every tablet Amazon Fire tablet released in the past few years has featured a microSD card slot, which is a nice thing to have if you’re using a tablet that may have as little as 8GB of built-in storage. You can pick up just about any Class 10 or UHS microSD card to add up […]

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Making Amazon’s 2017 Fire tablets more Googley (Play Store, third-party launchers)

Amazon’s tablets run an Android-based operating system called Fire OS. While Amazon has developed a custom user interface for the operating system, featuring tight integration with the Amazon Appstore, Kindle, Music, and Movies apps, it’s surprisingly easy to install the Google Play Store on Amazon’s most recent tablets. You may not be able to root […]

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Closer look at Element’s Smart TV with Amazon Fire OS and Alexa

The first smart TV sets powered by Amazon Fire TV software are coming this year. Today Amazon announced that we’d see 4K televisions from Seiki, Westinghouse, and Element Electronics later this year. They all feature the same software that runs on an Amazon Fire TV… plus a few extra features including support for watching live […]