Amazon replaces its Fire tablets with Google Play-ready Alexa Tablets starting at $229.99

For 15 years, a Fire tablet owner who wanted Gmail or Google Maps from Google's store went without ^[9][3]. Fire OS was built on Android, but Amazon refused to allow Google Play services, and that limited which apps the tablets could run ^[3]. Amazon's own app store came installed instead ^[2]. The Alexa Tablets open Google Play at launch ^[2]. "Google Play was a necessity, end of story," Panos Panay, Amazon's senior vice president for hardware and Alexa, told The Verge ^[4].

The entry price moves too. Gizmodo put the cheapest Fire at $59.99 ^[8]. The cheapest Alexa Tablet is $229.99, a rise of $170, or about 3.8 times ^[21]. The top of the range climbs $270 ^[19], although the priciest Fire still cost $50 more than the new Tablet 8 ^[22]. According to Gizmodo, the extra money goes to stamped aluminum bodies and better screens, on a line whose predecessors were built from the cheapest plastics to keep list prices low ^[15]. The Verge puts the 8 and the 11 up against the iPad Mini and the base iPad ^[18].

Panay's pitch for the 12 Pro is a computer ^[14]. He told The Verge he hopes people will use it as a secondary or even primary machine ^[24]. "We've shipped nothing like this," he told Gizmodo ^[10]. Amazon sells a keyboard and a pen to go with it ^[14]. The reviewers describe a different user. "Amazon understands well that tablets are primarily consumption devices," The Verge wrote ^[12]. It called the 12 Pro's specs, built around a MediaTek Dimensity 8400, "fine" ^[7].

Amazon gave up store exclusivity and kept the shortcuts to its own content ^[2][11]. The tablets ship with Amazon apps preloaded and built-in routes to Prime Video and shopping, according to The Verge ^[11]. An Alexa+ widget in the top-left corner of the home screen lists movies, TV shows, e-books and games to resume ^[16]. Open the Kindle app and notifications go quiet, with battery life up to 20 hours, Amazon says ^[13].

The reports show Amazon dropping the closed store as the way in. They do not show whether the Fire tablets were sold at a loss: none of the three gives Amazon's margins on either line, or a price for the new Kids tablets ^[17].

For anyone buying tablets for a household or a small team, two facts about the user decide it. The first is whether their daily apps include Google's own, or staples such as Slack and Snapchat that now arrive through Google Play ^[3]. The second is whether the budget per device clears $229.99 ^[1].

If the apps are on the list and the budget clears, the Tablet 8 belongs on the shortlist beside an iPad Mini ^[18]. The tradeoff is $170 over the old Fire floor, plus an Amazon home screen that still comes first ^[21][11][16]. A user who needs those apps on less money finds nothing in this lineup ^[1]. For someone who only reads Kindle books and watches Prime Video on a tight budget, the fit was the $59.99 Fire, and Amazon is replacing it ^[8]. With more to spend, that same reader pays the difference for aluminum and a better screen ^[15].