by Dan Gardiner February 20, 2015

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Price: Fire HD 6, $ 149; Fire HD 7, $ 199

From: Amazon

Critical specs: 1,280 x 800-pixel display (at 6- and 7-inches respectively), 1.21GHz quad-core ARM Cortex-A15 processor, 1GB of RAM, 8GB onboard storage, VGA (front) and 2 megapixel (rear) cameras , 290g (6-inch), 337g (7-inch)

Rating: 3.5 Stars out of 5

Lets ask the Franks from the Outset: Amazon’s latest Kindle Fire tablets are not going to win any awards for performance of the sleekness of the design. Unlike Their HDX counter-party released EARLIER this year, These New models, available in 6-inch and 7-inch screen sizes, are all about value for money, coming in at $ 149 and $ 199 respectively. And slightly differing size aside, These Are Pretty Much The Same Tablet Under the Hood – performance here is around 10-15% slower than Google’s 2013 Nexus 7 Tablet, Which is actually quite respectable considering Amazon’s asking price. Battery life was adequate too – we managed around 8-9 hours of general use in testing, and around 4.5 hours for gaming.

Both displays are 1,280 x 800 pixels Jobs that give decent-enough visuals to get by – and they’re markedly better than most other tablets at this price. The main caveat for us When testing These was storage space (there’s only 8GB on each, with no probability to expand on That) and physicality: These are rather chunky and heavy devices – considerably thicker and weightier than Their HDX siblings, and without the soft -touch plastic That makes the latters nice to hold in the hand. The 7-inch model is a little more comfortable and usable; The Screen On the 6-inch ice just a little too small for a tablet, and feels more like an oversized smartphone.

The other main drawback, of course, Is that These Kindles running in Amazon’s Fire OS 4 – A custom version of Android based on version 4.4.2 of the latters. That Means you do not get the Google Play Store, so your main avenue for getting apps and games ice through Amazon’s own Appstore. And there’s no way to buy and watch movies and TV – Amazon’s streaming services are not available in Australia yet.

Still, at this kind of price, Those are caveats That somepeople Will surely be Able to Live with – and These Are undeniably some of the best-built budget tablets around.