Buying a Samsung Galaxy Tab A 8" to replace my Kindle Fire

[FatDog]

I have been using a Kindle Fire 7" for about 3 years. As a reader it is great.
But the battery is no longer lasting a week and the REAL annoying thing is simply going from the main screen into my library can take 20+ seconds. Many other parts of the interface are very slow.

It is a great e-reader but under-powered as a tablet.

So Labor Day sales has a 32 Gig Samsung Galaxy A 8" for a good price. I have used Moon+Reader years ago on an older android tablet and I love the idea of bouncing between my Kindle library and things I can load on a SD card. (Although my un-read Kindle library is pushing 150 books so the reality is there will be very few non-kindle books really being used). I do like the idea of the occasionally faster web browsing and perhaps a few simple games.

Any opinions on the 32 Gig Tablet A to replace my kindle?

[stumped]

well you risk going from a battery that lasts a 1/2 week to a battery that lasts 1/2 a day at best . other than that it's proabbly a good move
the KF slowness will probably be cured by a hard reset, [ google it] or as a last resort a factory reset.
you should expect to be charging any tablet overnight. amazon tablets lose ~10% charge nightly on standby even if unused

[barryem]

I have a Kindle Fire and last year's Galaxy tab A 10". Actually I have 3 Kindle Fires, all fairly new. The Galaxy Tab gets quite a bit better battery life than the Kindle Fires. My Fires are 2 7" ones and an 8" one. All are 2018 models.

Barry

[stumped]

all batteries deteriorate when used a lot
i replaced by samsung tab s1 after using it several hours daily for a year, because the battery was struggling to last an evening, ( and I did not fancy trying a DIY battery replacement - even if that is possible)
a new tablet should have better battery life than a 2nd hand one.
the Kindle fire 7 [ if its the one with Kindle in the name] was last made in 2012 so its battery will be near end of life now
my ( newer) Fire HDX and Fire HD tablet batteries are still good,

[FatDog]

I read a review that said the text on the Galaxy A was a bit pixilated and blocky. Since it's main use is an e-reader, this is a big issue.

I think I am going to trade-in one of the old kindles and get a newer 8" Fire. Thanks for all the comments.

[Barbara1955]

Had one Hated it! Side load an Ebook it gets Lost Download ebook to Amazon App 1/2 got lost! 2 Days later I returned it!

"I have been using a Kindle Fire 7" for about 3 years. As a reader it is great.
But the battery is no longer lasting a week and the REAL annoying thing is simply going from the main screen into my library can take 20+ seconds. Many other parts of the interface are very slow."

Sounds like Fire hung up indexing. Remove the Last ebooks you added then Re-Download them one at a time.

[stumped]

Originally Posted by FatDog

I read a review that said the text on the Galaxy A was a bit pixilated and blocky. Since it's main use is an e-reader, this is a big issue.

I think I am going to trade-in one of the old kindles and get a newer 8" Fire. Thanks for all the comments.

the fires ( except for the fire 10 HD have 1280 x 800 screens screens so their text will be no better than the galaxy - and may be exactly the same pixel-wise.

e.g. Fire HD 8 The tablet comes with a 8.00-inch touchscreen display with a resolution of 1280x800 pixels at a pixel density of 189 pixels per inch (ppi). that's not great for an e-reader.
compared to Kindle Paperwhite 3 ... 6-inch, 1440×1080, 300 ppi

ppi is what you should be comparing for crispness of text.

you need to check exact models though, because samsung make some with screens like that but also some more expensive ones with full HD 1920 x 1200. that will translate into a much higher ppi

[AnotherCat]

Originally Posted by FatDog

I read a review that said the text on the Galaxy A was a bit pixilated and blocky. Since it's main use is an e-reader, this is a big issue...

Galaxy A is a range of phones, from el cheapo to lower mid range. I can imagine the cheap ones possibly not having very good displays but I have never had a look at one to be able to comment.

Conversely I have used Galaxy Tab A tablets from the smaller ones up to 10.5 inch and their displays are not "a bit pixilated and blocky". My reading device for a number of years has been a Tab A 10.1 inch and now a Tab A 10.5 inch, you will find that they are widely used as readers.

Just correcting the perception you seem to have put forward and which may be seen by others; am not trying to influence you in your reader choice, that is entirely your business.

[stumped]

i used to read on a tab s1 10.5 inch and that was fine, but it had a full HD 1920 x 1200 display

the "bad" combination for reading would be a 10+ inch screen that was only 1280 x 800

at 8 inches, 1280 x 800 will be acceptable, but higher resolutions may be noticeably better if you are fussy or have good eyesight

its notable that Amazon ( who are usually into scaling down or dropping features to get unit costs down ) actually increased the screen resolution and thus the ppi in their paperwhite from gen 3 onward. That suggests that their feedback from customers or their market research indicated that higher ppi was needed.

[chrispche]

I've just bought that exact model. It's great. I managed to keep it charged for 58 hours before plugging it back in. That's with heavy ebook reading and the occasional YouTube video. I'm very impressed with performance and battery life. Mind you I had it in aircraft mode while reading then jump on the 4G network for when I do Internet stuff. I have the LTE 4G version which my carrier EE supplied to me.

Sent from my SM-T295 using Tapatalk

[mrgrtt123]

It is a good device to read online, my Mom uses one at home. She prefers using this tablet compared to the iPad 2.