If you're looking for an Android tablet that can do it all for under $100, you should prepare for disappointment—especially if you're eyeballing Amazon's Fire 7 (2022 edition). We're not going to dunk on this tablet, because there are certainly some people out there who might want a cheap, lightweight device for reading books and watching YouTube, Netflix, or whatever other streaming service you love. To that end, this $60 tablet (with ads; $75 without) isn't the worst buy. But if you already have a decently sized smartphone, even a hand-me-down from the past few years, you're better off sticking with that and saving up for a higher-performing tablet (or a Paperwhite, if you're a voracious reader).

Design, hardware, what’s in the box

Amazon's Fire 7 (2022) has barely shed weight in the off-season. It's nearly four-tenths of an inch shorter and ever-so-slightly wider than its 2019 predecessor, but you'd hardly notice the difference. The Fire 7 comes with a USB Type-A to USB Type-C charging cable as well as a 5W adapter.

Amazon gives the included quad-core MediaTek processor a boost from 1.3Ghz to 2GHz between the 2019 and 2022 editions of the Fire 7, and you also get double the memory (2GB) and internal storage (16GB or 32GB). As always, Amazon is willing to cut you a deal on your device if you can put up with advertising on the lock screen. The version we reviewed didn't have these, but paying a few coffees' worth of an extra charge is worth it to get rid of at least one of the tablet's many major annoyances.

You can purchase a version of the tablet that comes with an official cover/stand combination, and it'll cost you roughly $30 over the Fire 7's base price. If you do, however, you're getting an advertising-filled version of the tablet, which makes this "deal" much less enticing.

Display

Like its predecessor, the 2022 Fire 7 has a fairly thick half-inch bezel that runs around all edges of the tablet's seven-inch IPS display. It's not a great look, but we didn't expect an ultra-thin border given the tablet's low cost.

If you're big into desktop monitors, you might see "IPS" in the specifications for the tablet's display and think, "Oh, great images." And while the Fire 7 is fine for viewing photos and videos, especially given what you're paying for it, the same can't be said for reading text on the tablet. The tablet's lackluster 1024-by-600 resolution and crummy 171-pixels-per-inch density, virtually unchanged since its debut in 2011, gives it a more of a budget feeling than anything else. Text can appear fuzzy on the Fire 7's screen, especially when it's small, and it's something you'll start to notice a lot more than you'd want to.

We had fewer issues reading large-font books on the tablet's included Kindle app, but if that's your primary interest, you're better off saving your money and splurging for a Kindle Paperwhite. While the Fire 7 looks better when the font is larger, you won't get nearly the battery life you'd get from a dedicated e-reader. The trade-off, even for the money you save, doesn't feel worth it.

Software and performance

Even though this version of the Fire 7 has a few hardware upgrades over its predecessor, Amazon hasn't done enough to make this tablet feel modern, zippy, and fresh. Its sluggish performance is noticeable nearly everywhere, especially if you've purchased a new smartphone at some point in the past few years.

Apps, webpages, and videos take a bit longer to load than they should. Waking up the tablet from sleep and jumping into the home screen can feel kludgy, and even basic built-in apps, like Settings or Amazon's very own "Silk" web browser, feel unresponsive more often than not. While you shouldn't expect the capabilities of a $1,000+ smartphone on a $50-ish tablet, you also shouldn't have to deal with slow loading times and incredibly choppy visuals when you're, say, trying to browse your standard Instagram feed. It's a displeasing experience that would make anyone question why they bought a budget tablet to begin with.

Don't expect to do anything but the most basic gaming on the Fire 7. Casual, Candy Crush Saga-style games are fine, subject to the same occasional jittering or slowness you'll experience throughout the rest of the tablet. Games that demand any kind of reasonable graphical processing, like Hearthstone, are completely unplayable.

We had few issues watching a typical 1080p YouTube stream on the Fire 7. Sometimes, it worked perfectly; other times, the video was incredibly choppy for anywhere from 10-20 seconds until it finally kicked into gear. This was less of an issue when we lowered the video's resolution to 360 or 480p, waited a little bit, and then kicked it back up to a higher resolution to continue. Still, it was annoying to not have clear, seamless video playback from the start, and consuming content is supposed to be this tablet's primary purpose. (Its single speaker, which sounds anemic and stilted, doesn't help.)

The tablet's wireless capabilities, while not breathtaking, are good enough. We managed to hit 250Mbps on a simple fast.com test from the same location where an iPhone 13 Pro Max topped out at nearly 500Mbps (the difference being a single-antenna, budget WiFi 5 tablet versus a top-shelf, 2x2-MIMO, WiFi 6 smartphone).

The absolute worst part of the Fire 7 is a mess of Amazon's own making: Fire OS. Amazon substitutes the ever-useful Google Play Store (and other traditional Google apps) for Amazon-branded alternatives. Amazon's Appstore is the biggest offender. You won't find nearly the level of depth that you'd get from the Google Play Store, and it's incredibly frustrating to fire up a new tablet and realize that many of the popular apps or games you enjoy are now out of your reach—unless you do a little clever hacking, which most people will not. Amazon gets around this with some apps (mainly Google apps like YouTube or Google Drive) by giving you the service's website in a shell-less frame on your tablet. That's the "app," and as we discussed in last year's review of the Fire HD 10, Amazon's treatment can lead to some broken encounters.

Camera samples

Don't expect to use the Fire 7 to take good photos; its rear and front-facing cameras are only two megapixels, which puts them right in "grandparents' webcam" territory. Any picture you capture will look dated and awful. So much so, we question why Amazon even includes a rear-facing camera at all.

We'd only use the Fire 7's camera if our boss was forcing us to turn it on during a group video chat. Otherwise, both the front- and rear-facing cameras are utterly unremarkable, more reminiscent of a flip phone camera from a decade ago than what you should get on a modern-day portable device.

Battery

It'll take you a bit over four hours to charge the Fire 7's battery from extinguished to full, but you won't enjoy any kind of "get half the battery after 30 minutes" quick-charging functionality. That's for modern smartphones and tablets; the Fire 7 is decidedly retro. We do appreciate the change to USB-C, though. You'll be able to plug in with your existing high-wattage smartphone cable, even if the tablet won't charge any faster.

However, when we fired up a super-long video and let the tablet run, its battery lasted a whopping eight hours and 25 minutes. Given the rest of the tablet's meh performance, we expected much worse. That's a great amount of battery life for such an inexpensive device.

Should you buy it?

Maybe, if cost is your primary concern. The Fire 7 is cheap, no question there. And Amazon is likely to discount it even more throughout the year, especially on one of its big "Prime Shopping" days. While the tablet is hardly powerful, nor very fun to use or look at, it at least gives you a screen that's bigger than your smartphone's for the most basic tasks. It's not terrible for reading books, either, though it lacks the days-to-weeks battery life of an e-reader like Amazon's own Paperwhite.

As long as you can be honest with yourself, and if you can get an ad-free version for less than $50, the Fire 7 isn't terrible. Check your email, reply to messages, and get some light reading done, with an occasional pre-bed YouTube video—that's about all it's good for. This is not the tablet to buy if it's going to be your first and only, nor should you buy it if you think you'll be severely limited by its performance and lackluster app store. In general, we think Amazon's own Fire HD 10 makes more sense than the Fire 7, if for nothing else than its larger screen and better resolution. And if you need a great, general-purpose budget tablet, something like the Lenovo Tab P11 Plus is a better pick (even if it costs four to five times as much as the Fire 7). Amazon's Fire 7 certainly has a place, if you can get it for an amazing deal, but its price is pretty much the best thing going for it.

Buy it if...

• You can get it on sale for even cheaper
• Your needs are very basic and you've already bought into Amazon's ecosystem

Don't buy it if...

• You want a tablet that supports every Android app out of the box
• You like to play more complex games than Fruit Ninja or Candy Crush Saga
• You need to take decent pictures of anything

FAQ

Q: How does the Amazon Fire 7 (2022) compare to the Amazon Fire HD 10 (2021)?

If you absolutely had to get one of Amazon's cheap tablets, you're better off saving your pennies for the Amazon Fire HD 10. Even though it's a year older, you'll get a slightly better processor, a smidge more RAM, more storage space (32GB or 64GB), and a slightly improved rear-facing camera (5MP versus 2MP). Most importantly, the larger 10.1-inch display runs at a higher resolution (1920 x 1200), which gives you more pixels-per-inch and, ideally, no fuzzy text.

It's still not a great tablet, and you'll still have to contend with Amazon's terrible app store, but it's at least slightly better than Amazon's Fire 7. If nothing else, at least you'll have a larger screen for watching your occasionally choppy videos.

Q: How does the Amazon Fire 7 (2022) compare to the Samsung Galaxy Tab A8?

At roughly $230, the Samsung Galaxy Tab A8 is hardly as "budget" as Amazon's Fire 7. However, you'll get better performance; a larger 10.5-inch display with a better resolution (1920 x 1200), more storage (starting at 32GB), more memory (3GB), much better cameras (8MP rear; 5MP front), faster charging (15W), quad speakers, and the full Android experience. If you're not tethered to Amazon, we think it's worth considering as an alternative to any of the Fire tablets; that's a lot to like for a low-ish price.