View it at http://amzn.to/1kruGc3

$50? Despite the dirt cheap price, i find it to be great for casual use. Videos play nice, games even play nice, text is just not as sexy looking as higher resolution screens. Watch the video for full demo!

The short/summed up version: it’s the new budget king in the 6-8″ size. It’s screen is a little lower in resolution but still pleasant to look at, it has enough power for most of the typical tablet tasks, and it shares many of the same features as its higher priced brothers such as front and back cameras, b/g/n wifi, and good overall battery life (minus an hour) My favorite size tablet is 8″, so if you’re looking at the amazon fire lineup, i would take this over the 6″ for sure, and would have a hard time picking the 8″ fire at 3x the price. If you’re not a prime member, it’s still a good tablet, if you are a prime member: it’s a great tablet. Possible quality control issue: Mine had two dead pixels (not very noticeable, but still will exchange) You can load APKs(enable unknown sources), i loaded antutu and panasonic image app, both work properly.

Just some background, i currently own 5 tablets not including this new one, ranging from a nook color, a samsung tab pro 8.4, LG g pad x8.3, an old acer a500 and an off brand 10.1″. Suffice it to say: i know my tablets!

Main Cons:
-2 dead pixels
-Front and rear cameras are low resolution, mostly good for video calls only
-1 speaker, sounds tinny like a small laptop, Gets decently loud, use headphones!
-Text not very crisp (but still decent to read)

The rest are overall Positives:
-7-8″ is my favorite tablet size, 6″ is just a bit too tiny, and 9+ can be cumbersome
-Uses a slightly slower quad core 1.3ghz processor, for most tasks you won’t notice a difference
-Screen resolution is OK at 171 pixels per inch, at this price point it’s totally satisfactory
-Screen uses an IPS panel, meaning good viewing angles and color
-The OS/interface overall is a smooth an intuitive experience, very simplified
-Advertisements are there, but don’t bother me much ($50 version only)
-Fit and finish are very good, feels solid in the hand
-Comes with 8gb, expandable to 128gb (and cards are cheap!)
-A little less battery life than the rest of its brothers (7 instead of 8)
-Mostly worth it if you’re an amazon prime subscriber (lots of access)
-Readability for books is overall good, but still pales in comparison to an e-ink reader such as kindle
-Movies look overall great, but look better on my other higher end tablets(of course)
-Tested with Panasonic Image app with GH4 wifi control and it works well, very little lag

Preface:
Let’s always keep in mind that this is a $50 tablet, i may be using my $200+ tablets for comparison, but i by no means expect a $200 tablet out of this $50 tablet.

The screen:
It’s a lower resolution, but the important factor is how many pixels per inch are there (PPI), at 171, it’s not exciting, but for most people it will be a fine experience, if you put it side by side with a higher resolution screen it’s a fairly clear difference, but as someone who owns both, i’m fine with both and expect this at this price. Also realize that some of the larger fire tablets have a comparable PPI. The brightness is good, and the viewing angles are good thanks to it being an IPS panel.

The Processor:
It downgrades from its brothers to a 1.3ghz quad, which in practice doesn’t mean much, it’s only when you want to use high intensive games or higher resolution video where you may see some issues. Again, this is a $50 tablet, and at that price it’s a very capable processor to have.

Overall quality:
is up to amazon’s standards, which is to say: Very good. It’s obviously very difficult for other manufactures to match amazon’s price/performance/quality, as seen by their overall tablet success. My main quality issue are those two stuck pixels mine has, and it’s annoying but simple enough to do a return/exchange to fix that.

What it all comes down to though is just one question; Are you and amazon prime subscriber? If the answer is no, and you never intend to be, than it’s still a good tablet, but if the answer is yes, than it’s a great tablet. Amazon has been seriously beefing up its prime offerings. It’s quite insane(in a good way) how many feature you get access to. I’ve been a prime member for something like 3 years, and yes i’ve totally drank the coolaid and am a devote believer in its value.

Summed up:
i could nitpick the crappy front facing camera, or the thick bezel, or the advertisements, but would have to eventually come back to the fact that this is the least expensive tablet of its kind on the market. They scaled it down expertly to be just enough tablet to appeal to a very broad market while keeping the overall quality top notch. Call me impressed and satisfied

If you have any questions or comments, please do use the comments section and i’ll response as best i can

Antutu Benchmark results:

Overall: 23628 (about half the score of a Galaxy note 4, it used the phone scale instead of tablet scale for some reason)
UX: Multitask: 3011
UX: Runtime: 1896
CPU Integer: 1658
CPU float-point: 1731
CPU single thread integer: 1187
CPU single thread float point: 975
RAM operation: 1423
RAM Speed: 1929
GPU 2D: 1637
GPU 3D: 6407
Storage I/O: 1114
Database I/O 660

View it at http://amzn.to/1kruGc3