Amazon Fire tablets are some of the most popular affordable tablets on the market thanks to their wide availability and relatively low prices compared to rival products from Apple and Samsung.
If all you need your tablet to do is power up reliably and stream Netflix, you can usually pick up the latest Fire HD 8 for less than its £99.99 RRP, far less than the cheapest £329 iPad. But there is a downside to the Fire tablet line up that prevents it from being an automatic recommendation, and that is the lack of the full Android operating system – but that could be set to change according to a new report.
Reuters has reported Amazon is mulling the release of a high-end Android tablet that will run the full Android operating system for the first time. This would make it the first Amazon branded tablet to include the Google Play Store and have the ability to run Google apps.
All of Amazon’s current Fire tablets run a modified version of Android called FireOS that does not include the Play Store and cannot run Google apps – so there’s no Gmail, Google Drive, Google Maps or YouTube.
That’s because the firm has preferred to sell tablets at low cost to encourage sales and then use them to promote Amazon’s own digital content, such as Prime Video subscriptions and Kindle e-books. Cutting out access to Google apps and using the FireOS layout to push users towards Amazon services has been the Fire tablets’ focus since launch in 2011.
But rumour now has it that Amazon is gearing up the release of a “higher-end tablet as soon as next year offering the Android operating system software for the first time”, according to Reuters. This would not only mean the ability to download Google apps, but could signal Amazon’s shift to challenge Apple and Samsung in the general tablet market for buyers who want to use them for more than just streaming video.
The other issue Amazon has is that by running its own app store on FireOS, it requires developers to make different versions of apps. This has resulted in a limited selection of apps for Fire tablet users, a problem that would not exist if the devices ran full Android and had access to the Google Play Store.
The report claims an Amazon insider said Amazon is considering a price of about $400 for the new Fire tablet, which is about £300. The firm’s current priciest Fire HD 11 tablet costs £249.99.
We’ll have to wait and see if Amazon takes a first step into the general Android tablet market, but even if it does, it’s very likely the company will continue to sell its very low-cost Fire tablet range with FireOS.