Amazon quietly refreshes Fire HD 10, adds aluminum chassis and more storage

[Shawn Knight]

Amazon on Thursday quietly updated its Fire HD 10 tablet with a new building material and an additional storage option.

Amazon unveiled its Fire HD 10 last September alongside a slew of other hardware including a 4K-compatible Fire TV set-top box and the ultra-affordable Fire Tablet. Starting at $229.99, the Fire HD 10 packs a quad-core processor clocked at 1.5GHz, 1GB of RAM and a 10.1-inch IPS LCD display with a resolution of 1,280 x 800.

The tablet has a four-star rating on Amazon although one of the chief complaints is its plastic rear shell which some say scratches easily, is prone to fingerprints and makes the device feel a bit cheap.

Today’s refresh addresses those concerns, replacing the plastic shell with a silver aluminum chassis. Best yet, the aluminum variant is priced identically to the black and white plastic models.

The silver aluminum version is also offered with a 64GB storage option. The existing plastic Fire HD 10s are only available with 16GB or 32GB of local storage. Do note, however, that bumping up from the base 16GB to 64GB comes with a $60 price increase.

It’s worth mentioning that all variants feature a microSD card reader, allowing you to add up to 128GB of additional storage. Seeing as you can get a 128GB microSD card for under $30, it’d be more economical to stick with the smaller 16GB Fire HD 10 and buy a memory card (assuming of course that an additional 128GB would sufficiently meet your needs).

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/65083-amazon-quietly-refreshes-fire-hd-10-adds-aluminum.html

 

[Skidmarksdeluxe]

1GB RAM? That's just plain mean. Given the price of RAM these days they could at least stuff in 2GB, charge the same price and still make a healthy profit.

 

[Arris]

1GB RAM? That's just plain mean. Given the price of RAM these days they could at least stuff in 2GB, charge the same price and still make a healthy profit.

And a resolution of only 1280x800 when we're getting QHD and 4k pushed hard at us? No thanks. I guess at least it would save on power a bit, I mean I did opt for a 1920x1080 res smartphone over a 4k one last time I changed for that reason.

 

[Kibaruk]

1GB RAM? That's just plain mean. Given the price of RAM these days they could at least stuff in 2GB, charge the same price and still make a healthy profit.

And a resolution of only 1280x800 when we're getting QHD and 4k pushed hard at us? No thanks. I guess at least it would save on power a bit, I mean I did opt for a 1920x1080 res smartphone over a 4k one last time I changed for that reason.

On such small devices, 1280x800 vs 1920x1080 almost makes no differences, specially on Android operative system.

Regardings the ram, there might be system (mobo or proc) limitations that don't allow them to increase the ram without having to up the price, and they want to give something on the same price but better, what's there to complain about? =P

 

[Skidmarksdeluxe]

On such small devices, 1280x800 vs 1920x1080 almost makes no differences, specially on Android operative system.

Regardings the ram, there might be system (mobo or proc) limitations that don't allow them to increase the ram without having to up the price, and they want to give something on the same price but better, what's there to complain about? =P

It's not a bad price but believe me, they're still making a very good profit on it and there's nothing wrong with that but the specs are pretty weak, even for that price. I wouldn't be surprised if they were using components from about 4 years ago and they've just dressed it up in a fancy aluminium outfit.

 

[3volv3d]

I have to agree the resolution isn't much of a concern. The ram though is just shocking.

Considered this tablet but then they update stuff quietly. Bought two fire TV boxes just for them to release a 4k on the sly just after my return period had expired. Sneaky