HD Will they update the Fire HD6 or drop it?

[booklover6]

The Fire HD 6 was released in fall 2014, 2 years ago! I thought at the time it would be a great seller, and bought 3 for my family, and later another for my mother. (All 4 are working fine and have never had a problem).

Since then, it has been on permanent sale for a long, long time.

Was it not such a great seller?

Will they quietly discontinue it when their stock is gone? Surely it is not still in production with the permanent sale?

I would love a 2nd edition, preferably thinner and lighter, but with the same screen, faster would be nice, too. Is it a pipe dream? Yes there are 5" phones but those are also a LOT more expensive.

Originally Posted by booklover6

The Fire HD 6 was released in fall 2014, 2 years ago! I thought at the time it would be a great seller, and bought 3 for my family, and later another for my mother. (All 4 are working fine and have never had a problem).

Since then, it has been on permanent sale for a long, long time.

Was it not such a great seller?

Will they quietly discontinue it when their stock is gone? Surely it is not still in production with the permanent sale?

I would love a 2nd edition, preferably thinner and lighter, but with the same screen, faster would be nice, too. Is it a pipe dream? Yes there are 5" phones but those are also a LOT more expensive.

I doubt Amazon will upgrade it, but they might downgrade it with a cheaper built device. That seems to be what they do these days.

My Fire HD 6 is okay, but it was never that great. The worst complaint I have about it is the screen. When I touch the screen, I have to touch about 1/4" (6mm) above the target I'm trying to hit. This is true for any spot on the screen. I've never had any other touchscreen device that was off like that. Otherwise, it is a bottomline type of device for the market. I know Amazon has made cheaper and lesser resolution devices since, but in the competitor market these are now bottomline. If they downgrade it with lower resolution, I cannot imagine it being a decent buy.

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by jswinden

I doubt Amazon will upgrade it, but they might downgrade it with a cheaper built device. That seems to be what they do these days.

That's actually a good thing considering how fast they abandon expensive devices.

[HarryT]

Yes, Amazon seem to have abandoned the high-end tablet market. I guess they make the bulk of their money from content sales, so their goal these days is to get content-consumption devices into the hands of customers at the minimum price.

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

That's actually a good thing considering how fast they abandon expensive devices.

And eventually we will see the 2020 Kindle Fire HD that pretty much looks like this, except with Android:

[booklover6]

The consensus disappoints me. Ah well....I'll just enjoy the one I have for as long as it lasts.

[issybird]

I also think the HD 6 is a nifty little device. You can't beat it for the combination of portability and clarity.

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by jswinden

And eventually we will see the 2020 Kindle Fire HD that pretty much looks like this, except with Android:

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by booklover6

The consensus disappoints me. Ah well....I'll just enjoy the one I have for as long as it lasts.

With tablets, though, there's no particular benefit to the Amazon brand, is there? Lots of others to choose from if you want a higher-spec device than those sold by Amazon.

[issybird]

Originally Posted by HarryT

With tablets, though, there's no particular benefit to the Amazon brand, is there? Lots of others to choose from if you want a higher-spec device than those sold by Amazon.

The Amazon brand is a drawback. The walled garden applies to apps, also. There's a work-around for that, but more disappointing is that the native apps, I'm thinking of Audible in particular, are not as functional as the Android versions.

Still, the HD 6 was an excellent value for its specs.

[Josieb1]

Originally Posted by HarryT

With tablets, though, there's no particular benefit to the Amazon brand, is there? Lots of others to choose from if you want a higher-spec device than those sold by Amazon.

The only real benefit of an Amazon Fire is in Text to Speech, pretty much everything else is covered using android or iOS apps.

[booklover6]

Originally Posted by Josieb1

The only real benefit of an Amazon Fire is in Text to Speech, pretty much everything else is covered using android or iOS apps.

Yes, that! And I don't think there are any other 6" tablets on the market.

[HarryT]

You can install Inova TTS (which is what the Amazon tablets use) on any Android tablet.

[Josieb1]

Originally Posted by HarryT

You can install Inova TTS (which is what the Amazon tablets use) on any Android tablet.

I have that (bought before Amazon bought Ivona), the HQ plus a few voices, as well as Voice Dream with a few voices on iOS. It's just more convenient and easier to use a Fire for TTS.

[booklover6]

Originally Posted by HarryT

You can install Inova TTS (which is what the Amazon tablets use) on any Android tablet.

Yes, but the user is very limited as to what voices they can use. Only female voices, from what I have seen. Even the Fire Phone, only female. But the tablets have a full range of male and female to choose from. I haven't found a way to get a male voice in the Ivona TTS except for Fire tablets.