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Amazon Upgrades Storage on Fire Kids Edition Tablet, Won’t Be Replacing It This Year

moar storageAmazon has just signaled that they won’t be replacing either of their two cheapest tablet models this year.

The retailer has put out a press release on Thursday touting the news that they had bumped the storage on the one Fire tablet model that needed it the most.

When it originally launched in late 2014, the Fire Kids Edition tablet came with a two-year warranty, a case (but not a very good one) a year’s subscription to Amazon Freetime Unlimited, and  either 8GB or 16GB of storage.

The tablet was relaunched in 2015 with a $99 price tag and only 8GB of storage, but today Amazon released a new version of the tablet with 16GB of storage for $20 more.

The Fire Kids Edition Tablet sports a 6″ screen, and runs Amazon’s version of Android n a quad-core 1.3GHz CPU with 1GB RAM, a microSD card slot, and a pair of cameras (VGA and 2MP). And now it has two storage options (8GB or 16 GB internal storage).

In related news, a couple weeks back Amazon launched a new version of its cheapest tablet with twice the storage, and today they’ve announced that it now comes in three additional color options: magenta, blue, or tangerine.

All of the tablets are available today on Amazon.com.

O O O

If you’re looking at the tablets and wondering how they’ll compare to the new models, I wouldn’t spend too much time on that. The fact that Amazon upgraded the storage, and launched new colors, can be taken as a sign that Amazon won’t be replacing either model this year.

If Amazon had planned to replace the tablets, they would not have wasted time with upgrading the storage; they would start leaking details about the new tablet. For example, last week Amazon leaked the benchmark test results for a new Fire HD8 with an upgraded CPU (but weaker cameras).

This is just a prediction, but I think it’s safe to conclude that we won’t be getting a new Fire tablet this year.

Do you think I’m wrong? (Would you like me to be wrong?)

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Comments


Tom Semple April 22, 2016 um 12:49 am

A slight correction: there have been two Kids Edition Fire tablets: one was based on the 2014 6″ Fire HD, the other on last years 7″ Fire. The latter is the what they’re offering now and with the new memory configuration, the former is unavailable.

The HD6 didn’t get a refresh last year, so I think it may be due to get one this year (shave some weight off, dual band WiFi, SD slot, etc.). For me, it is the perfect size, it is just a little heavy and takes forever to charge. They can fix that. Yes, and they can copy the Oasis and make it easy to hold in one hand, put page turn buttons on there, ha-ha.

Another thing I sort of hope for is a new HDX7, with a better display and oomph. It seems embarrassing they don’t have something that can Miracast to Fire TV in the lineup now.

There’s no way they won’t have some new Fires in the fall.

Nate Hoffelder April 22, 2016 um 3:35 am

Here’s where things get complicated: There were two Kinds Editions in 2014, one each based on the 7″ and 6″ (see my link).

And there are two Kids Editions now (check the page), with the same screen sizes. According to the listing, they have a microSD card slot. I don’t know if that’s both, or just one, or what.


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