Amazon Backpedals On Encryption, But Fire "Still Sucks"

Just a day after it made headlines for announcing that it would remove encryption from its line of FireOS devices, reports Ars Technica, the company has reverted the change, and says that encryption will again be a user-selectable option, with an update to come sometime this Spring. Judging from comments here on Slashdot, that ought to please a lot of people. However, encryption isn't the Fire's only problem; Ricki Jennings at ComputerWorld has collected some of the user reaction to the change, and says that anemic hardware means that even with this small course correction, the Fire tablets themselves "still suck." I'm not so sure; I bought one of the low-end Fire tablets and returned it, disappointed not in the hardware (seemed not bad at all for $50, with a decent screen, snappy video, and sound that was better than reviews had led me to expect) but rather by the intentional limitations of the OS itself.

Comments

Review notes

[um... Lucas]

I bought a Fire on the first day of release as well, and set very low expectations for it based on how much I was paying. Ultimately, all I ever use it for is to watch movies I've downloaded on flights. It's Browser performance (just performing DNS lookups as far as I can tell from the UI, forget about getting pages to render) is anemic at best. I haven't even bother installing any applications that I could use to create or add data to it (like a text editor, dropbox, or even a non-throwaway email address), but I'm sure some people do that.

Oh on the plus side, it plays Minecraft like a champ, so it's useful for quieting the house.

Just amused that it can render rudimentary 3-D graphics, play full screen, full motion video, but I can't even use it to visit Slashdot...

Re: Review notes

[bill_mcgonigle]

I wish the bootloader weren't locked but they don't prevent you from sideloading Play Store. I got one for $40 for my daughter to take on an international trip to use as a Hangouts device and I was totally satisfied with the value and got a second one for my own use.

I think the "with special offers" idea is fantastic - I would have bought twice if they hadn't sold out (a whole Eneloop setup for $14?). By keeping them as restricted Android devices, they're keeping lots of potential shoppers away from Special Offers. I guess they've done the math on this and it says they make more from their app store than they lose from less Amazon shopping, but the $20 price difference indicates they are losing real profit for notional profit.

Re: Review notes

[Bartles]

The bootloader is locked but you can still install cyanogen mod and have a decent fully functional tablet for 50 bucks. Go look at the XDA forums.

You can de-limit the operating system

[Robotech_Master]

It's actually very simple to get Google Services, including the Play Store, on the Fire. You don't even have to root it—just enable developer mode, activate USB debugging, install some drivers on your PC, and sideload a software package. Then, boom: you've got the Play Store and nearly every app I've tried works just fine. (Oddly enough, Google Inbox is one that doesn't.) As a side effect, it also disables Special Offers for free.

I gather you can go further with further hacking, outright replacing Fire OS with CyanogenMod or whatever, but I've never felt the need to. I have other pure Android devices, and this Fire the way it is is good enough.