AVOID Amazon Fire Tablets like the plague

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BrianG

BrianG

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It's simple guys, Bezos does not want you near Google Play store and that means no Navionics or any other 'Droid app you might want. Yes there are workaround with various side door apps and hacks but it's a nightmare, you'll end up with adware, on Russian sites, and most importantly, you really want to trust you Navionics App after you've forced it into hardware and software that hates it? What could Possible go wrong when you're offshore in bad weather. "Oh look! 50% off Viagra at Moscow Pharmacy!"
 
However if all you want is to read books from a library, at $50.00 the Fire is one of the best deals out there.

Reading is my hobby , too old for boat building, have been doing 100 to 200 books a year , all complements of the local library. Works for me.
 
Come on, its just an android tablet.
Root it and take control.
 
Simi 60 said:
Come on, its just an android tablet.
Root it and take control.
Click to expand...
I tried 3 different how-to tutorials. all advised against rooting. None worked and strange things started happening. games started loading, nothing worked right. buggy buggy buggy. not what I want for cruising the islands.
 
Brian, I have three of them, all setup for access to Google Play Store. with several Apps from Google installed and running fine including Navionics, Iboat, and Opencpn. On the boat I run them as backups to my Garmin setup (545 & 942sx). I use the 5" in my Bonanza as backup to a panel mounted TSO'd nav system.

Never had a problem, no Russian crap ware, performance compared to the dedicated systems is equivalent or better.

Opening them up to Google Play is simply the addition of three or four files... no big woop. (none are rooted)
Me thinks you have a self full filling Bezos bias!
 
Exactly. Side loading FROM GOOGLE PLAY isn't any more dangerous than any other software that every Andriod owner loads every day - it's from the same store. If you side load apps from all over the place, then that's another store. I set up my Mom's Fire tablet to do so - there hasn't been any self loading apps, no crapware, nothing at all other than now she has apps she couldn't get from Amazon. Rooting isn't required for that either.

BD
 
I tried side loaders and the sites I used you couldn't tell the ads from the actual software you needed. You end up loading unwanted softwares with adware. Closest I came was the google play opening for 1 second then disappearing.
 
I would say the biggest downside, the fire tablets do not have a GPS chip. Kinda makes Navionics useless anyway...
 
I use mine with a Bluetooth GPS module that includes its own battery. Tossed up on the dash, it always has a good view of the sky. With the two batteries, 8 to 10 hours of continuous operation is common. For less than $100 it's a comforting backup.
 
You guys inspired me to take another stab at side loading. Took over an hour with several error messages, especially of the Framework program. Very aggravating. Clearly they don't want you on Google. But it can be done. If I could do it over again would I? Personally no. I'd just get the Lenovo.
 
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