Amazon Fire 7" Tablet or How to get $150 tablet for $50 (or less)

[BoredSysAdmin]

https://www.amazon.com/Amazon-Fire-7-Inch-Tablet-8GB/dp/B00TSUGXKE
This is very solid hardware but absolutely terrible FireOS - it's very laggy, very annoying lock screen ads, unintuitive, did I mentioned laggy? Only good news it's cheap. Normally it's $50, but goes often on sale for $40

Luckily there is a way to fix, but it's not very easy. You could easily permanently damage your tablet and I assume no responsibility. This is what I did and it worked.

Step 1) get this tool: http://www.rootjunky.com/amazon-fire-5th-gen-supertool/
DL here (not old) - http://rootjunkysdl.com/files/?dir=Amazon Fire 5th gen/SuperTool
Watch the videos. Make sure NOT to follow advice to downgrade OS to older one - you'll brick your tablet hard.

Step 2) Factory reset/wipe from recovery menu (turn off, press power and volume down)

Step 3) run auto.bat from supertool (unzip it) choose - ADB Driver install

Step 4) Choose Root Amazon Fire (option 6) and follow prompts to run Kingroot and do root - If Kingroot fails (mine didn't) - reboot and try again. It must succeed. this is showstopper.

Step 5) Install Google Play store and install flashfire 0.53 (or just google and install it from apk mirror site)

Step 6) From here follow steps here: http://forum.xda-developers.com/amazon-fire/orig-development/rom-cm-12-1-2015-11-15-t3249416
Look for "Fresh Installation from FlashFire 0.50"
Make sure to download CM and Gapps zips prior:
CM: https://www.androidfilehost.com/?fid=457095661767103103
Gapps: http://opengapps.org/ (Select ARM (not ARM64) platform, Android: 5.1 and Variant: Nano)

End result: It's running CyanogenMod 12.1 which is practically tastefully and lightly modified, a stock Android Lollipop 5.1.1 OS. It's much, much smoother running and it's a pleasure to use now.
Things I done after install is to enable back root - it's a simple toggle in dev options.
Installed https://f-droid.org/ and from it AdAway app. Both require root as second one blocks ads for all android apps, not just the browser.

 

[BoredSysAdmin]

One possible alternative:
https://www.amazon.com/Samsung-Galaxy-7-Inch-Tablet-Black/dp/B01AZ8ERHI/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1478486443&sr=8-1&keywords=7+android+tablet
It has a bit better display, camera (only dorks using cameras on tablets) and a bit more ram (1.5gb vs 1gb), but it's

• Almost 3 times more expensive
• Slightly slower: Fire: http://www.notebookcheck.net/Mediatek-MT8127-SoC.156974.0.html vs Samsung: http://www.notebookcheck.net/Qualcomm-Snapdragon-410-MSM8916-SoC.111656.0.htm
• It's Running Samsung's TouchWiz - it's not as horrible as Amazon, but it adds decent amount of lag to the interface as well.

btw: Ars liked Amazon Fire even with crappy software preloaded:
http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/10/amazons-50-fire-tablet-review-suprisingly-it-doesnt-suck/
Trust me - it's so much better with CM12.1.

 

[panteragstk]

Sweet. I got two of the $50 for my kids that they never use. I'll have to try this.

Thanks.

 

[STRONGBADF1]

It would be easier to just have it shipped to you and when you are done you ship it to me.

Sent from my SM-G920V using Tapatalk

 

[panteragstk]

Did this to both of mine. Worked well.

 

[BoredSysAdmin]

Nice. Notice how lag in UI is gone?

Sent from my VS986 using Tapatalk

 

[panteragstk]

Well, with how terrible the amazon UI is, lag is the last thing I noticed. All I can say is that it's nice to have functional tablets. Granted, I have two 7" tablets and one 10" and I don't really use them. I suppose it's time to find some educational things for the kids to do on them.

 

[BMXTRIX]

We got those tablets for my kids last year for $35 each. They use them almost every single day and really seem to enjoy them as is.

Nice info on installing Android to them though. They are well built tablets and much better than the nearly identical looking Android tablets I had bought them only a year before.

Mostly they use Netflix and YouTube, but they have a number of games they enjoy as well. The 8GB is a bit of a factor.

 

[BoredSysAdmin]

Nice info on installing Android to them though.

The nerd in me feels the urge to correct that minor issue immediately.
First relevant xkcd:

and now Technically (feel free to not to read any of it) the Fire Tablet is based on Android 5.1, in fact the same version as CM12 which I recommend above.
However the difference is Amazon did terrible hack job of it of reinventing the wheel since they oppose of using Google's Play (and missing out on the sweet, sweet 30% (or so) fees from every single app and in-app purchase. You see - Google is very sneaky about it. Stock Android without Play services is very bare and unusable. Here's a good read about it : http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/10/googles-iron-grip-on-android-controlling-open-source-by-any-means-necessary/

TL;DR: FireOS is android. CM12 is android. You could even install google play with a bit of tinkering on Fire tablet without rooting it, but it still be very slow and laggy. CM12 devs did a much better job of keeping the OS clean, fast and very usable.

 

[BoredSysAdmin]

Also it's now on sale for $33 I bought few for family,friends presents after I'm done with them
https://www.amazon.com/Amazon-Fire-7-Inch-Tablet-8GB/dp/B00TSUGXKE

 

[BoredSysAdmin]

even cheaper today:
https://liliputing.com/2016/11/target-selling-amazon-fire-tablet-just-28.html