Amazon has sold millions of the $49 Kindle Fire 7
 

http://www.teleread.com/chris-meadow...iving-weekend/

Look like it's a hit at $49

It is.
And it sold at $35 for a week.
Backordered until after XMAS.

This is news how?

I ordered 3 @£35, two for my boys and a back up for me in case anything happens to my ipad.

Mildly.
When the tablet was announced many decried the screen resolution and expected quality to below.
Reviews indicate quality is fine and people are satidfied with what tbey see. :)

Well now,
To me, Amazon just put their basic tablet at a price it would sell.
No surprise with the amount it sold.
Yes I know among the knowledgeable ones, there was concern. I don't think the major buying population had those concerns.
Target audience was people wanting a cheap tablet. Those people are not into the technical specs.

The screen will be just fine for videos, though reading will take a hit. I ordered one for my iPad son to taking traveling. He'll use it for music and videos, and nothing else. I also gave him two 64GB mSD cards to store music and videos on. Couple that with a small portable bluetooth speaker and he'll have a great music and video player for trips where wifi is not available (like camping).

For some uses, this tablet is an excellent choice. Amazon has a big hit on their hands.

I'm not surprised at all. While folks can read on this tablet, it's only an "ok" reading experience and kinda poor if you have books other than kindle.

But I really like it as a portable media player. Streaming Amazon Prime Tv, Netflix and HBO if I have good wifi, or playing movies and tv shows I've downloaded if I don't (like on a plane).

There is a great casual games selection, 11,000 completely free games. Not much of a gamer myself, but it's a great thing to keep kids entertained.

With effort, you can do more with Android apps that aren't in Amazon's store. But that's more hassle than -I- want to go through. Perhaps if it was my only tablet instead of an adjunct to my iPhone and iPad.

I bought three. One for myself and two to give away as gifts.

My delivery estimate was originally post-Xmas but they moved it up and it came on the 15th. The order was split so no SD card yet.

I think the hardware is fine but the book software has been de-rated, Grr. And as with the HDX the User Guide misses out things you can do such as copy to clipboard but now you seem to need a Bluetooth keyboard to allow paste from clipboard.

Mine's arrived earlier than expected too. For £35 I'm happy with it; I have no intention of using it for reading though.

Don't be too sure. Kids have a way of surprising us.

If he is devoted to his iPad, then he may throw the Fire in a drawer and never use it.
Curiosity, did he say he wanted one?

He'll use it. I discussed this in depth with him before I got it and he loves the storage capacity; something his 16GB iPad mini doesn't have much of. He'll throw music on one 64GB card and videos on the other 64GB card. Outside of those two features, I doubt he'll ever look at the rest of the tablet's capabilities. For everything else, he has his 64GB iPhone 6.

That is great to hear.

I use both. The SD card on the cheap fire makes it terrific for media away from wifi