Three weeks ago,
I wasn't planning on benchmarking the Amazon.com Fire tablet as I am an industry analyst and not an official benchmarker, and I would have expected others to test it. When I asked benchmarkers why they didn't test it, they answered that they already knew it would perform poorly. I really wanted to see how it did as I have a pretty extensive device and SoC research practice, so I went ahead and spent my Sunday benchmarking the unit while I watched football.
Net-net, as I expected, the Amazon Fire tablet is a very poor performer based on benchmarks and specifications scoring worse or close to as well as a tablet you may have considered from Google or
Amazon Fire tablet performs on CPU tests:
- 42%, 23%, 47%, and 74% worse than the Samsung Galaxy Note (2013)
- Fairly equal versus the Google Nexus 7 (2012)
- Up to 3.9X slower than an
Apple iPad mini 2 (2013) - Up to 9X slower an Apple iPhone 6s Plus (2015)
This makes a lot of sense to me given the Amazon.com Fire tablet uses a lower end MediaTek chip using a much lower performing, off the shelf,
The Amazon Fire Tablet performs more like a tablet in 2012 or 2013 with lower display, memory and storage specs. You get what you pay for.
Amazon Fire tablet performs on GPU and gaming tests:
- the same, 84% worse, 20% better, 7% better, 19% better than the Samsung Electronics Galaxy Note (2013)
- 41% better, 29% better, 42% better, 31% better than the Google Nexus 7 (2012)
- Up to 8X slower than an Apple iPad mini 2 (2013)
- Up to 16X slower than the
NVIDIA SHIELD tablet (2014) - Up to 14X slower an Apple iPhone 6s Plus (2015)
- Up to 17X slower than the Samsung Electronics S6 edge + (2015)
Graphics-wise, the Amazon Fire tablet does well against its 2012 and 2013 counterparts with its ARM Holdings Mali 450 MP, but it gets demolished by modern-day graphics from NVIDIA, Apple and Samsung Electronics.
Finally, let's look at some of the most important specifications, the display, memory and storage and do a quick comparisons. The Amazon.com Fire has:
- half as many pixels as the Google Nexus 7 (2012) and Samsung Electronics Galaxy Note (2013)
- 5X less pixels than the Apple iPad mini 2 (2013) and the iPad Air (2013)
- half the memory as the Samsung Galaxy Note (2013)
- half the storage as the Google Nexus 7 (2012)
So there you have it. I'm not saying not to buy the Amazon Fire tablet, but I hope this reinforces there are no free lunches or special deals with it. You are getting what you are paying for, and on the performance front, it's not a lot.
You can download the gory testing details here.
Benchmarking Notes:
- Testing was conducted on October 11, 2015.
- Systems were run stock, were not jail-broken, with WiFi turned off, background apps closed, in the same room with the same ambient temperature. The only exception was where "WiFi on" was required by the benchmark to provide a score.
- Systems were run three times for each benchmark and an average was taken. Benchmarks were run with the same time intervals across systems to attempt to normalize over-heating and throttling.
- Systems were chosen based on availability at MI&S Headquarters in Austin, TX. If you'd like us to test your tablet, please contact us and we will evaluate it.
- MI&S likes PCMark for Android, but it would not install on the Amazon Fire Tablet. Therefore it was not tested.
- 3DMARK Slingshot will not run on Amazon Fire, Google Nexus 7, or Samsung Galaxy Note and therefore was not tested.
- MI&S is still researching GeekBench MC to evaluate whether it accurately reflects mobile software and multi-CPU cores.
- Basemark X 1.1 "High settings" would not run on the Google Nexus 7 (2012). Error message was "missing depth rendering capability".
- Basemark X 1.1 scores were pulled from the Basemark website as these apps were not available in the Apple App Store. Scores were not available for the iPhone 6s Plus.
- Camspeed is not available on the Amazon App Store and therefore was not tested.
- DNR= does not run
- NA= not available in the app store
DISCLOSURE: Moor Insights & Strategy was not compensated to perform or publish these results.