On Thursday, Amazon launched an all-out assault on its consumers and the tech press with a raft of new products. The tech company has four new tablets available for preorder, all of which will ship in October. It's also rebooted its Fire TV line. It's a lot of new releases to be happening all at once.
In an effort to help sift through the information, here are some things to consider if you're thinking about buying a new Amazon device.
First up: the new Amazon Fire
It's just $49.99. That's it.
The most exciting release is Amazon's cheaply priced tablet, the Fire. Amazon took a look at the sub-$100 tablet market and undercut it. The result is a tablet that's thick, small, and not that pretty — until you hear how cheap it is.
Amazon made a serviceable tablet that's very affordable. So affordable, in fact, that Amazon is selling it in economy-size bundles.
You can buy Amazon Fire in packs of six.
That's "buy five, get one free" at $249.95.
The bundling of the tablets could mean that people use them in ways we're not used to seeing. Someone might want tablets for specific tasks — one for reading, one for watching movies, one mounted in the kitchen for recipes — or for specific places, like one in the bedroom and another in the living room.
There's also the new Amazon Fire HD.
The Fire HD comes in two sizes: 8-inch and 10-inch.
And two prices: $149.99 for the Fire HD 8, and $229.99 for the Fire HD 10.
For a very rough price comparison point, the iPad Air 2 (which is 9.7 inches) starts at $499.
The larger version is very rectangular.
The dimensions are, according to Amazon, made specifically for widescreen viewing. The Fire HD's 16:10 aspect ratio offers more viewing space than traditional tablets with a 4:3 aspect ratio.
And the smaller one comes in four colors.
The tablets are light, but build to endure a lot of damage. Their displays are designed to reduce glare. They also come with some new features. Among them is one called On Deck, which downloads new videos to your device automatically while it's charging, so you never get caught offline without something to watch.
All of the new Amazon tablets come with SD card slots so their memory can be expanded after purchase.
And there is a keyboard attachment available for the Fire HD 10.
Finally, there's the tablet for children.
It's basically the Amazon Fire with a built-in bumper.
The Fire Kids Edition comes in blue or pink, accompanied by a two-year, no-questions-asked warranty. A kid can toss it in the pool and, if it's within 24 months, Amazon will replace it. It also comes with a year's access to Free Time: Amazon's apps, books, and video ecosystem for kids. It includes 10,000 titles, and a web browser with 20,000 curated websites and YouTube videos from the Free Time team. It's available for $99.99.
That's not all! There's also a brand-new Fire TV.
The most exciting new addition to Fire TV is Alexa — Amazon's voice-control system — which had previously been confined to the Amazon Echo. According to Amazon, 90% of searches on Fire TV were voice-controlled, so making Fire TV smarter and able to do more with voice commands was a straightforward decision. Now you can ask the device all sorts of questions, like "What's the weather like today?" or "Did the Patriots lose last night?"
The new Fire TV is faster than its predecessor with a CPU that's "75% more powerful" than the current TV CPU. It also supports 4K streaming, if you're one of the early adopters with a 4K TV.
Fire TV is $99.99.
The new Fire TV Stick also features voice control.
According to Amazon, the Fire TV Stick is both the most powerful streaming stick on the market. Until now, the device didn't support voice control. But now with the addition of a new remote and an over-the-air firmware update, the stick can hear you.
Currently, the Fire TV Stick is $39.99, which won't change. Purchasing it along with the voice remote will cost you $49.99.
The remote itself has been reworked as well; Amazon says it's about 20% faster, and now lasts for a year on a single pair of triple A batteries.
Fire TV for gamers.
The final update to the Amazon product line is a completely redesigned game controller, and a $139.99 "gaming package" for Fire TV that includes preloaded games (a Ducktales reboot, anyone?) and a 32 GB SD card to store larger game files. Gaming launched on Fire TV 18 months ago and, with this update, Amazon is doubling down as a more convenient (and much less expensive) alternative to traditional consoles like the Xbox One or Playstation 4.