Costing just $50, Amazon’s Fire tablet is definitely a bargain. But it looks so much like the company’s original Kindle Fire and is so cheap, that I got to thinking. Did Amazon just put old Kindle Fire hardware in a new package? In this TechRepublic teardown gallery, I crack open the Fire to find out. More my full hardware analysis and to watch a video of the teardown, check out my article, Cracking Open: Amazon Fire illustrates dramatic drop in cost of tablet tech.
Released in 2011 for $200, Amazon’s original Kindle Fire was a moderately priced tablet with average specs. It was more an entertainment device and shopping portal than anything else. The new Fire tablet takes this concept to the extreme, but does it at a quarter of the cost.
Its dimensions are nearly identical to the original Kindle Fire, but it weighs slightly less and has a more rounded back cover. It also has a lot of features the older tablet didn’t have, like cameras, a microphone, and a microSD card slot, which is good because like the original Kindle Fire it only has 8GB of internal storage and more than 2 of that is used for the operating system. Also like the original Kindle Fire, the screen has a 1,024×600-pixel resolution, so it’s not high-definition like Amazon’s Fire HD tablets. And the front panel isn’t made with Gorilla Glass, so it’s not are durable as many other tablets on the market.
Bill Detwiler is the Editor for Technical Content and Ecosystem at Celonis. He is the former Editor in Chief of TechRepublic and previous host of TechRepublic's Dynamic Developer podcast and Cracking Open, CNET and TechRepublic's popular online show. Previously, Bill was an IT manager in the social research and energy industries. He has bachelor's and master's degrees from the University of Louisville, where he has also lectured on computer crime and crime prevention.
