Design The Fire 7 inherits the blocky design of the previous generation, but fits comfortably in one hand. It’s slightly taller and thinner than last year’s model, measuring 7.6 x 4.5 x 0.4 inches and weighing 0.65 pounds. Compared to the 8-inch Fire HD (0.81 pounds), the new Fire has a slightly smaller footprint and weighs less, but has the same thickness. Display Colors also lacked vibrancy, with both dark and light areas appearing washed out. Viewing angles of the display were surprisingly good, with minimal distortion at extreme angles. When I watched the trailer for Blade Runner 2049, the typically vivid colors of the cityscapes and landscapes seemed muted, and some of the iconic Tyrell Corporation architecture lacked detail. Rick Deckard’s hideout in the desert looked comparatively dull, and some of the mystique of the dust-laden interior was lost. Based on our measurements, the Fire 7’s screen covered 78.4 percent of the color gamut, which is nearly the same as the HD 8’s 79.4, but still well below the category average of 90.4 percent. As for brightness, the panel goes up to 335 nits, which is adequate but dimmer than the Fire HD 8’s 380 nits and the 385-nit tablet category average. I found that I needed to keep the display close to full brightness while using it. Audio There’s only one rear-firing speaker on the Fire 7, so it isn’t surprising that the audio quality isn’t great. The vocal lines throughout the Blade Runner 2049 trailer were audible when I played it through the speakers, but not very clear. The trailer’s music sounded muffled, and some of the instrument detail got lost in the background. Volume output levels fell on the quiet side, and I did hear some crackling when I turned the sound all the way up. The 3.5mm headphone jack is powerful enough to drive a regular pair of headphones, but don’t expect to power any high-end audio equipment through the Fire. Interface and Fire OS There is a swipe-down interface for access to notifications and basic settings and a useful notification counter in the task bar for a quick overview of pending alerts. This OS is missing some more advanced features such as split-screen multitasking and swipe typing on the keyboard, which might disappoint iOS and Android users alike. However, if you plan to just watch a video, read a book or play a single game at a time, you may not miss these productivity-enhancing capabilities. Additional Settings Some of the Fire-specific features for video include the Advanced Streaming and Prediction (ASAP) service, a video-buffering system that anticipates the TV shows and movies you are likely to watch next, as well as On Deck, which preloads popular content onto your device while it is sleeping. The popular X-Ray video-overlay system for actor and actress information and scene commentary also makes an appearance. Other useful system settings include a Blue Shade mode, which reduces harmful blue light in the display to protect your eyes right before you go to bed. A useful storage section in the settings app lets you view content from all user profiles on the device, manage external storage drives and archive device content to the cloud if you are running low on space. Apps Alexa After failing to make an appearance in last year’s lineup, Alexa has finally arrived on the Fire tablets. Setup is quick and painless, and it takes only a minute or two before the service is up and running. Android and iOS users will feel right at home after enabling the long-press home button to activate Alexa, which brings up a pulsing blue bar at the bottom of the display. The wake word “Hey, Alexa” feature isn’t supported, so you’ll need to unlock your device before trying any commands. Alexa performed as promised, quickly relaying information such as the weather forecast and movie show times or opening up apps on command. Voice recognition was accurate, and Alexa understood my requests from across a midsized room, but you’ll need to learn the exact commands to get voice recognition to work correctly. Parental Controls You could spend $99 for the Fire 7 Kids Edition, which is the same tablet hardware-wise as the regular Fire 7, but with a bunch of extras. If you don’t want to do that, you can still get great parental controls, with a panel that lets you create profiles for any young users in the household. You can set daily time goals for reading, dictate working hours and limit the daily screen-usage time of an account. MORE: 100+ Tech Gift Ideas for Men, Women and Kids Parents can even choose to block access to any of the entertainment features until a reading goal is met for the day. You can also block access to certain content based on age groups, with different modes for teenagers and children ages 10 and under. Performance Battery Life Cameras The Fire 7 tablet has a 2-MP rear camera and a front-facing camera with VGA resolution, but colors were consistently dull, with high levels of noise in both well-lit and darker environments. The camera software is basic but functional, with options to enable HDR shots, change the photo ratio and stitch together panoramas if you feel so inclined. The other notable setting is called Lenticular, which enables you to create gifs using up to 10 seconds of successive shots. Configurations The Fire 7 tablet comes with either 8GB ($49.99) or 16GB ($69.99) of internal storage, but the amount of usable storage is much less, at 4.5GB and 11.6GB, respectively. While this is not a huge amount of storage, the tablet does support storage expansion of up to 256GB via the microSD card slot. If you frequently download movies and TV shows for offline viewing, you should opt for the larger storage size and an external memory card just to be safe. Our review unit came with these ads enabled, and while it didn’t impede the unlock process, seeing the same ad campaigns so frequently became annoying. Bottom Line However, if you’re on a tight budget and need a tablet for single-serve entertainment experiences, such as watching a movie or reading a novel, the $49 Fire 7 could be your best bet. Credit: Shaun Lucas/ Laptop Mag
