Sure, Amazon's 7-inch Fire tablet launched at a mass market pricepoint of $49.99, which is already absurdly affordable compared to competitor's slates with similar specs. But now as part of a limited time sale, it's a measly $39.99. That's 20% off a tablet that was already a paltry $49.99.
I bought one without blinking because admittedly I relish the fact that I now live in a world where I can buy a freaking tablet for less than a bag of high-end dogfood or an oil change or a decent smartphone cover. By next year maybe I'll be handing them out at Halloween.
Then I bought another one just to spite my Samsung Galaxy Tab.
This thing that displays images in color is only $39.99 right now at Amazon.com
Then I realized something kind of remarkable, and also very frightening: For the first time ever, I bought a tablet on a whim. It was an impulse purchase. I've paid more for Chinese takeout.
We all know tablets are ubiquitous in the future. You know how everyone in SyFy's The Expanse is walking around with a tablet? They're probably Amazon Fires.
Look, I don't expect a $39.99 Amazon Fire 7" to blow my mind with its 1024x600 IPS display or its 1.3GHz quad-core processor. But it has a screen, and also a CPU. For $39.99! It also has things like Bluetooth, Wireless, a certainly shoddy speaker, expandable storage up to 128GB via a microSD slot (nice!), and two cameras. If you're a Prime user the appeal is undeniable, considering you now have a $40 device that can happily feed you a steady I.V. drip of Prime Music, Prime Video, a reasonable selection of more popular games, and offer up unlimited photo storage.
Amazon says this Fire slate is 2x more durable than the latest iPad Mini. Perhaps I'll accidentally put that claim to the test. And if I do, hey, I'm only out...you guessed it, thirty nine US dollars and ninety-nine cents.
In all seriousness, there's something about that extra $10 being shaved off that makes this purchase decidedly easier to swallow. I plan to implement one of these Fire tablets as my dedicated reading device. Hey Amazon, maybe consider paying Marvel an obscene amount of cash to get Marvel Unlimited on your Fire OS? Because you'd sell a lot more of these things.
Snide humor aside, this is a fantastic deal and a genius way to get people invested in Amazon's ecosystem. True, it had the same $39.99 price tag briefly last year during Black Friday, but I actively avoid the internet and just watch Dawn of the Dead. The film and the shopping day are remarkably similar, after all.
