I'm looking to get a tablet for when I travel. I currently have a Kindle Paperwhite but I sometimes get tired of reading and wouldn't mind watching a movie or TV show.

The tablet would pretty much be used for traveling only as I found with my first expensive at the time tablet, the Asus Transformer, that I still used my smartphone for everything I thought I'd use a tablet for.

So I'm looking at the Amazon Fire. I do have Prime and hear Amazon offers free downloads of various movies & tv shows for a set amount of time. This would be beneficial as I can't usually stream via wifi on planes. I like that its less than $100 and since I'm Prime already, I'd have access to a lot of media.

Any other tablet I should consider? Since I'm just using as a media viewing device, I'd like to keep price low. I see the older version of the Fire is only $49. Will I regret getting that and not just spending the extra $40?
iPad is probably out of the question as all of my devices are Android, Windows and Google(phone, Nexus player, laptop etc).

This post was edited on 10/12/16 at 10:11 pm

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Posted by jamalsdeck

Member since Jul 2016

2818 posts

Posted on 10/13/16 at 12:37 am to SirSaintly

if you are a prime member you get free movies and tv shows that are downloadable.. so you don't always need wifi to watch. and it even works on the amazon video app for iOS aka iPad.

just fwiw

i have no specific tablet suggestion for you though. just passing that along.

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Posted by Hammertime

Will trade dowsing rod for titties

Member since Jan 2012

43030 posts

Posted on 10/13/16 at 7:13 am to SirSaintly

I got a Note 8 off of CL for $50 from this hot chick

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Posted by TigerinATL

Member since Feb 2005

61480 posts

Posted on 10/13/16 at 8:26 am to SirSaintly

quote:
I see the older version of the Fire is only $49. Will I regret getting that and not just spending the extra $40?

I have a first or 2nd gen version of that tablet and it works fine for simple media consumption. I've used it for NetFlix/Prime Video and light gaming while traveling and it works fine for that. I can see 2 likely downsides for you based on what you've said.

1) It comes with Amazon's flavor of Android which means no Google apps or Google Play Store unless you sideload them.

2) The resolution is pretty bad, something like 1024x600 or 1280x800. This is "fine" but it would be noticeably different next to a similar tablet with a much higher resolution.

Again, if you're just using this as a travel media player it shouldn't matter, but if you want it to be a bigger version of your phone it won't be.

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Posted by TU Rob

Birmingham

Member since Nov 2008

12737 posts

Posted on 10/13/16 at 8:34 am to SirSaintly

I had the original Fire and a year or two back I bought the Fire 6. The original with the iPad mini sized screen was bulky and heavy. Using it in the bed was annoying because it was hard to prop up in the case. I like the smaller thinner 6. Plus the newer one is just faster with a better screen. Last few trips we've taken I download a couple of movies for the kids and it is great for car rides. I don't play around on it as much now that I have an iPhone 6 and the larger screen than the 5 but I'll break it out sometimes for video.

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Posted by CarRamrod