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I saw the new Kindle Fire SD announced with slightly better specs available for $159. I wanted to buy it and also sign up for Prime to stream video and borrow books and have apps and stuff, plus root it and run Android 4.1 so I can have an awesome cheap "android tablet" with Amazon Prime
Is it worth the $280?
Will there be development?
Thanks in advance for aiding a little noob.
Encerspay said:
I saw the new Kindle Fire SD announced with slightly better specs available for $159. I wanted to buy it and also sign up for Prime to stream video and borrow books and have apps and stuff, plus root it and run Android 4.1 so I can have an awesome cheap "android tablet" with Amazon Prime
Is it worth the $280?
Will there be development?
Thanks in advance for aiding a little noob.
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Click to collapse
Buy it because you want to use it as an Amazon tablet. Whether or not these can ever be used as an Android tablet is the big question mark right now. There are rumors and much speculation about whether or not the bootloader will be secured in some way. The way that Amazon is marketing these things with lockscreen advertising, they have plenty of reasons to keep them from being easily manipulated like the first generation devices. Nobody will have any good idea about their potential until the right people start looking at them.
I have no idea where this $280 figure comes into play.
EDIT: I'm not sure the SD version is a good buy anyway. For $40 more, you get the better display, double the storage, bluetooth, HDMI out... that seems like the better choice.
kinfauns said:
Buy it because you want to use it as an Amazon tablet. Whether or not these can ever be used as an Android tablet is the big question mark right now. There are rumors and much speculation about whether or not the bootloader will be secured in some way. The way that Amazon is marketing these things with lockscreen advertising, they have plenty of reasons to keep them from being easily manipulated like the first generation devices. Nobody will have any good idea about their potential until the right people start looking at them.
I have no idea where this $280 figure comes into play.
EDIT: I'm not sure the SD version is a good buy anyway. For $40 more, you get the better display, double the storage, bluetooth, HDMI out... that seems like the better choice.
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The $280 includes Prime, sorry I didn't clarify that
$40 doesn't seem like much at all, and your views on the SD tablet are very interesting. I honestly haven't even considered the HD version. I'll check it out.
Thanks for the input.
It's still a question mark on whether the developers will be able to root the new fire easily. I suggest waiting for a month or so.
Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 2
The new Kindles have a locked bootloader, but I have a feeling they'll be easily bypassed since Amazon lets you do manual updates via USB.
Ok you're asking us about 2 separate things. In my opinion, Amazon Prime is only worth $80 if you buy a lot of stuff online.
If I were in your shoes, I'd buy a used Kindle Fire or I'd find a way to get $40 together and buy a Nexus 7.
I picked up a Fire Phone during the Black Friday Firesale. I've given it a month to see if I could use it, but it spent the last week in my glove compartment. I just feel like FireOS is too limited. It's not any one thing, more like a bunch of small annoyances added up.
Pros:
Love the hardware
Integration with Amazon services is nice (Audible, Prime Video)
Most gapps work sideloaded
Cheap
Cons:
The whole OS is designed to sell you stuff. I don't like paying money (even just $200) for ads.
Doesn't feel like a true Android experience, even after sideloading Play Store and changing launcher.
At the end of the day, it's a phone I didn't use. I'd rather lug my LTE iPad mini around than use this phone. Even with a year of Amazon Prime ($50 since I'm a student), I can't really justify keeping it.
tanders12 said:
I picked up a Fire Phone during the Black Friday Firesale. I've given it a month to see if I could use it, but it spent the last week in my glove compartment. I just feel like FireOS is too limited. It's not any one thing, more like a bunch of small annoyances added up.
Pros:
Love the hardware
Integration with Amazon services is nice (Audible, Prime Video)
Most gapps work sideloaded
Cheap
Cons:
The whole OS is designed to sell you stuff. I don't like paying money (even just $200) for ads.
Doesn't feel like a true Android experience, even after sideloading Play Store and changing launcher.
At the end of the day, it's a phone I didn't use. I'd rather lug my LTE iPad mini around than use this phone. Even with a year of Amazon Prime ($50 since I'm a student), I can't really justify keeping it.
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The reason why I'm happy with it is because my sister wanted a phone and the max. she was willing to pay was US $125 for the price I got it for ($199 which includes a year of prime which I sold the other 4 slots for $25 a piece to people on a forum...) this makes the phone just $100 for that price you really can't go wrong, I'm running Google Play Store on it with Google Now Launcher.
Sent from my A0001 using Tapatalk
swati770 said:
The reason why I'm happy with it is because my sister wanted a phone and the max. she was willing to pay was US $125 for the price I got it for ($199 which includes a year of prime which I sold the other 4 slots for $25 a piece to people on a forum...) this makes the phone just $100 for that price you really can't go wrong, I'm running Google Play Store on it with Google Now Launcher.
Sent from my A0001 using Tapatalk
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I'm glad it worked out for you. It really was a close call for me. So far I'm really happy with the Moto G. It's not as snappy as the Fire, but it's so nice to have vanilla Android.
While I'm sure Amazon will go under because you returned the phone, I don't get this whole "selling you stuff" and "ads". While it's true we cannot root the phones and install and adblocker, I'm not seeing all of these "ads" you're referring to. The ad-supported apps are certainly functioning by providing ads so we can have the app for "free", but otherwise, these ads that you're telling us about don't seem to be there. Amazon hasn't sold me anything, although they certainly designed the phone to make it easy for amazon customers to purchase from amazon. Other than some free apps that didn't work, as not all apps will work with the Fire Phone, I really haven't experienced any of this horrible "selling" and "ads" that you have found.
I am a very early adopter of the Fire TV. One issue with set top boxes that really sticks in MY CRAW is how they can market a device for gaming then provide no storage to keep them? At its release this was suppose to be added to Fire TV and unless I'm missing something still no support?
Fire TV is not alone Android TV devices , Madcatz Mojo, have slots for expansion then provide a OS that does not support it? I just can't see the Logic!!!! You ask me to buy games? Where am I suppose to put them do a uninstall daily or weekly? You should not have to modify the device?
Am I the only one who is missing something here? Can anyone explain the thought process behind this? There has to be a reason I JUST DONT SEE IT?
My fire TV sits in the closet
I agree. Terrible device. Just send it to me.
artkrime said:
I agree. Terrible device. Just send it to me.
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:laugh: Please dont get me wrong I am not saying Fire TV is bad ! Just want the ability to store my games local?
wastate2014 said:
:laugh: Please dont get me wrong I am not saying Fire TV is bad ! Just want the ability to store my games local?
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I didn't buy 2 of these boxes for gaming. But, yes I think you have a VERY legitimate gripe. The only reason I bring it up is the other nite I was watching the news and saw people were suing Apple over the new iPhone.
I didn't follow-up on it & 'really only just thought about it when I read your post, but they're basically mad because Apple promises x amount of storage without making it clear that the OS takes up a significant amount. I don't have a iPhone but I'll bet the provider has some immovable bloatware as well. THEN their only solution for you is to upgrade for a substantial fee or pay for cloud storage.
I've pointed out it seems like a crime to have such little space to start then take another 30% or so away from the user. (Yes that's almost exactly how I put it) Now we may find out if it IS a crime.
But I bought this to root it and attach external storage. To be honest, even if it came with double the advertised 8gb, it still wouldn't make a difference to me.
The current FireTV is unrootable though. So there iż no way to extend storage. I am slowly thinking of moving to Nexus Player - it's at least open although it has an awful remote.
Magnesus said:
The current FireTV is unrootable though. So there iż no way to extend storage. I am slowly thinking of moving to Nexus Player - it's at least open although it has an awful remote.
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I would wait for Razer's $99.00 upcoming Forge TV MUCH nicer specs same price:good:. Still don't know if it will support storage?
I know most on this forum have no issues modding a device which I am all for. Should it not come standard without the need to mod? Amazon needs to step up to the plate!
Nexus has no wired network unless I'm wrong. At the price they are I also would like to argue over storage but for now I just made my box a 1 trick pony Xbmc and some streamed TV etc and use something else for the rest. I can't buy any games or videos there's no room for paid apps
I recently bought the Oddworld: Stranger game for my AFTV. While my system is rooted, I am not currently using the best method for external storage (4TB drive to be here today), so it would download the game, but then tell me I didn't have enough room to install it.
I ended up resetting my AFTV because I it ended up I needed like an extra 300mb to install the software. Really stupid on Amazon's part. They need to put in usb storage for unrooted peeps.
I guess in my case I am looking at this device without a Mod whatsoever. I am trying to understand Amazon spending Hugh $$$$ + on developing games to market on Fire TV where am I suppose to put them??? I just cant wrap my head around how this is good business sense? Really this is more me venting with frustration as calling Amazon support is useless on this matter heck half of them did not understand what I meant about external storage
Example: Bard Tale alone can be 1.8GB at that rate you are out of space within a few large games?
You do have a very valid point regarding storage. With the current unrootability of newer FTVs it sucks not having the storage expansion. That should be something built into the system. I was lucky to get a new FTV that was rootable after Christmas and now I have it all hooked up. I have probably over 100 games installed on an external WD My Passport with 320GB storage. I installed the Ouya Everywhere apks, with a modded launcher, the Google Play Store, and Nova Launcher. It took some tweaking, but most everything works awesomely. The FTV is a great little device with enough power to make it a usable gaming system. The lack of storage and now unrootability may be its downfall though. The average user is not going to even bother with rooting, let alone the mods needed to expand the storage. Amazon should rethink this for its FTV2.
wastate2014 said:
I guess in my case I am looking at this device without a Mod whatsoever. I am trying to understand Amazon spending Hugh $$$$ + on developing games to market on Fire TV where am I suppose to put them???
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Amazon recently released a nice game made by their studio - Tales From Deep Space - but it's only available on Fire Tablets, not on Fire TV. I don't know what they are thinking, really.
Check out this guide for moving app data/obb files to external storage (requires root): http://www.aftvnews.com/how-to-move-and-run-amazon-fire-tv-apps-from-an-external-usb-storage-drive/
This lets you have more than just one or two big games at a time.
just wondering, are any of those large games actually supported by the AFTV(as in downloaded directly from Amazon's limited Fire TV app store)? or are they ones that exist on other platforms(and not vetted to run on the AFTV) that you side loaded?
The big games (in terms of file size) I have from Amazon are all the GTA titles. I also installed KOTOR from Google Play.
tekweezle said:
just wondering, are any of those large games actually supported by the AFTV(as in downloaded directly from Amazon's limited Fire TV app store)? or are they ones that exist on other platforms(and not vetted to run on the AFTV) that you side loaded?
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Well, I got my 4TB drive that I hooked up to my aftv using the method that copies the /data folder over. Love it so far, but dang copying stuff from my computer to the aftv with that drive is slow. Thinking I should boot up a linux livecd, hook the usb HD to my computer and copy stuff over that way.
As for games, it depends. If I'm buying the game, i prefer an Amazon Fire TV version. Otherwise I'll try to located a pirated version of it (from a trusted uploader on torrent sites) to test out. And then generally I buy the paid version, but not always. Sort of hard to put money out for GTA SA when I've bought that game like 5 times for various systems so far. And still haven't finished it.
Anyways, Amazon was stupid to put only 8gb of ram in their system and needs to get rolling with usb storage support. While it's not necessarily a gaming machine, for android devices, it's actually a really nice gaming device.
Do you mean this method? http://forum.xda-developers.com/fire-tv/general/mounting-external-usb-to-data-t2889319
You all got me thinking about trying it, so I switched this evening. It seems like a better option because some games don't keep their bulk in the data/obb files so there's nothing for FileMount to move.
Mrreg said:
Do you mean this method? http://forum.xda-developers.com/fire-tv/general/mounting-external-usb-to-data-t2889319
You all got me thinking about trying it, so I switched this evening. It seems like a better option because some games don't keep their bulk in the data/obb files so there's nothing for FileMount to move.
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yes, did method 1, all the data. Got a fast drive, so only limitation is the usb speed. Seems to be okay so far. No complaints.
It is a joke what amazon did with the storage, they said 8bg but when you open the box you have 5.49 space and out of that you have only 4.85gb available to use.....what nonsense! They really didn't think AFTV was going to do well cuz they said gaming was just an added bonus for the AFTV but i suppose once they saw it was one of the hottest item selling on there site they decided add more games.
i use aftv just a media center to run xbmc, i am not prime member.
They are forcing auto updates on AFTV and the latest firmware are not root able as of today. At this point they have 4 options, either wait and see if user will pay for could storage or released a firmware updates which will allow user to use the external storage via USB or come out with AFTV2 with bigger hard drive or discontinue the AFTV.
I for one will not pay could storage or will pay for apps, why do i have to pay for the same app again if i already bought it on google play store, Amazon probably notice that user are not willing paying for the same apps 2x, which is why they offered that $220 free apps bundled during the holidays to keeps folks happy cuz most folks were probably going to return it cuz that $99 device will cost you more cuz u have to buy all the apps again.
Thank you
tekweezle said:
just wondering, are any of those large games actually supported by the AFTV(as in downloaded directly from Amazon's limited Fire TV app store)? or are they ones that exist on other platforms(and not vetted to run on the AFTV) that you side loaded?
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This is a very good point. I have not added any Mods to my Fire TV the only games come directly from Amazons Store. Little experiment: load all of your standard TV apps. Then go into the Amazon store and just see how many games (Amazon only) you can download and install? Many are rather large 500MB+? Then if you are not technical I would bet many would find it hard to dig down into settings to find how to uninstall? Yeah your games are in the cloud but the bandwidth to keep downloading these games is crazy? In addition I stream ALLOT about 1.2TB a month and I pay extra after 1 TB so every time I download it again its costing me money.
Mrreg said:
Check out this guide for moving app data/obb files to external storage (requires root): http://www.aftvnews.com/how-to-move-and-run-amazon-fire-tv-apps-from-an-external-usb-storage-drive/
This lets you have more than just one or two big games at a time.
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I think your missing the point New boxes are un rootable by software alone and even so Jo Public should not have that necessity to buy games on a "games console" 1 or 2 big games and your stuffed. D
As it stands it does not fullfill the promise.
That would be me!! lol. Amazon made me an offer I couldn't refuse -$159- I got the free year of prime- I paid for it last year by accident and ended up getting a lot of use out of it, so this made it easy. And the phone was $60 (after putting $99 towards prime), and I opened an amazon CC which gave me $40 in an instant credit- so this phone was $20 in the end!! plus taxes of course.
Before I pulled the trigger I looked to XDA to see where development was for this phone- and it looks like it is picking up and starting to move- so I will be getting this new fire phone tomorrow!!! I have to confess I have been using an iphone 5s (JB of course!) for the last year and a half and have been missing the challenge of rooting, romming, and making the best out of the hardware that is lacking due to poor software.
My plan is to put on the latest update and add google play market- leave it unrooted for now and see how it goes. But I am keeping my eye on beta CM11 and seeing how far it goes with CM 13 possibly in the future!!
@ggow- you seem to be very ambitious with this phone!!!! You are doing some great work and I am following your development closely :good::highfive:. I have never used safestrap before, but I may just have to give it a whirl. You make it very tempting
Why was I interested in this Fire Phone??? I bought a kindle 7 hdx last year and hacked that to run google market and it turned out to be a pretty great tablet that I also got a great deal on. It has the fire OS running along side google market with a great launcher running to swap back and forth. So kindle, instant videos, amazon music, and all the google apps too. It's specs were very close to the ipad mini and was a third of the cost. I gave it to my daughter to use in NYC running on att and she has had no complaints with how I modded it. And she is not very techy! :silly:
I am getting a little bored with my 5s and wanted a bigger screen- I passed on the 6+ since we are no longer getting subsidies and $850 for a phone seems ridiculous!! I don't know if 0.7 inches will make much of a difference, but for $20, I just had to find out
I have a Fire Stick TV also and I want to see how they work together. Very excited to receive this phone tomorrow.
Even after all the horrible reviews I read and watched on you tube!! Hopefully these modifications developed here will make it great!
Geez!!!! 75 views and no comments? Come on people- loosen up and let me know if you love your fire phone or hate it or Hate me cause I got it so cheap:silly: Please share your experiences with your Fire Phone. By now it's a year old, but still looks like a great phone for $60. I am basically a really cheap bargain hunter and wait for things to go on sale. This was really a good one.
Share what you did to make it a great phone! Would love to benefit from your experiences.:highfive: Do you love the Fire OS? Do you love the Market? Or CM11? Please share And I thank you in advance:good:
Great phone for the money. If throw yourself into the Amazon ecosystem the fire OS works quite well but I think only Jeff Bezos has done that so far. I'm using it with a custom launcher at the moment but when cm11 is final I might adopt it.
sashusmom said:
Geez!!!! 75 views and no comments? Come on people- loosen up and let me know if you love your fire phone or hate it or Hate me cause I got it so cheap:silly: Please share your experiences with your Fire Phone. By now it's a year old, but still looks like a great phone for $60. I am basically a really cheap bargain hunter and wait for things to go on sale. This was really a good one.
Share what you did to make it a great phone! Would love to benefit from your experiences.:highfive: Do you love the Fire OS? Do you love the Market? Or CM11? Please share And I thank you in advance:good:
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Since you asked:
The hardware is incredible for the price. The antutu benchmark puts it slightly faster than a galaxy s5. However, the bells and whistles (extra cameras, 3D, etc) are irrelevant at best. -- The os is terrible. It works well enough but is far behind other smart phones' os. Also, Amazon's wish to completely control your "experience" gets in the way of good hardware. If you root and then add gapps and the google now launcher, the phone is better to use, but still feels wrong, especially when certain apps can only be added through amazon's app store. -- Finally, I'm still irked by the locked bootloader. It was at this stage I put it in the drawer to use as an emergency backup - or maybe a "mini-gamer" for kids.
Then came ggow and his work to bring CM11 to the phone. Thanks to him, I now use it as my daily driver. I have added Xposed Framework with a few modules, all my favorite apps, and the phone is great! The only annoyance is that there are very infrequent random google play services stops which quickly correct themselves leaving a msg that needs to be swiped away. This is no big deal and ggow might have this fixed by the time you read this. Ggow also mentioned bypassing lollipop (CM12) and looking to "M" for his next major upgrade. How this will happen with a locked bootloader I don't know, but all praise to the person who brought my firephone backed to life.
Enjoy your firephone.
I bought the Fire Phone 6 months ago (I think, don't remember), when it was $189 (and a year of Prime). Having a phone with those specs at $90 was a great deal and hard to refuse. Bought it, got it, and the first day of using it I was amused with how different it was from stock Android. I had a Nexus 5, which got stolen, and I wandered with a low-end phone until I bought the Fire Phone. The Fire Phone couldn't be more different from the Nexus 5, software-wise. I saw the lock screen, toyed with it and thought: "Wow, it moves depending on where I look it from, nice!" (my first lock screen was the one with the time made from the stars and the moon with below it) but also "Did Amazon really need 4 cameras just for that? It might drain my battery" and "Which real-world use could I give to this feature?"
Yes, it was nice to see how things moved thanks to the Dynamic Perspective feature, at least at first; then, like all novelties, my attention to it faded and eventually I disabled it. Having my battery drained wasn't worth for a feature I wasn't paying attention to and which the only real-world use I could think of was showing it to some friend to surprise them a for a little time. And because this phone doesn't have a removable battery, I couldn't afford to lose it for some gimmicky feature.
Then I saw the Carousel, which is the home screen where the most recent apps are shown, with the notifications below it. They were affected by the Dynamic Perspective too. I hated that dotted pattern they used for the Carousel, and then I tried to change it for, say, whatever picture this phone could've come with.
I went to Settings, and was surprised to see, first, that that annoying dotted pattern was there too, and then that there wasn't a way to change the wallpaper. I thought "Come on, it's 2015, every OS in the friggin' world has a way to change the wallpaper. It's the most basic form of customization. Even Apple (which I don't hate), with all that walled garden feeling, allows you to change the wallpaper." But Amazon's FireOS didn't (I haven't ever seen a Kindle Fire tablet). My phone shipped with version 3.6.8, and we had to wait until May to see such a basic feature with the upgrade to 4.6.1. I got annoyed by that, but there was nothing I could to about it.
I checked the pre-loaded games, which make heavy use of the same Dynamic Perspective. I half-liked the Planet Blocks game and played it for a while. After that, I forgot I had it and remained hidden.
Then I went to the Appstore to see what was new. I knew the Appstore didn't have any Google app, and understood it. Amazon had an equivalent to every Google app and, even though I didn't like how they looked, they got the job done, and that was what mattered. Downloading and installing was what I was used to, and updating was a breeze.
But I guess I missed some apps that weren't on the Appstore and was lazy to not sideload all of them. I needed to see good ol' Google on this phone, so I went to XDA and checked if there was a way to sideload Google Play Services. After all, underneath all the Amazon skin and no traces of Google, FireOS was Android at the heart (3.6.8 was based on Android 4.2 Jelly Bean, which was pretty outdated even then). There was a way to install Google Play Services, and there was a way to root the phone too, but only if you were brave (and foolish) enough to downgrade to 3.5.1 (it was a bad idea, because if you did that, there would be problems with the Amazon account registration and also some nasty overheating issue). So, I stayed with just installing Google Play Services. It went smoothly and finally got Google. With the Play Store I'd be able to download and install SwiftKey and maybe Google Now Launcher or Nova Launcher.
I got no luck with SwiftKey. It installed, but then you couldn't use it unless you activated it via ADB. After that, got SwiftKey. And about launchers, they worked, except for widgets (which weren't supported in FireOS) and the wallpaper (there was a way to change the wallpaper in Nova; you could choose the image, but it never worked; you had to like the black background because it was the only option). I checked other launchers, some supported widgets (not all widgets, but some) and some found a way to change the wallpaper. I stuck with Buzz Launcher, which made the phone look and work most similar to Android.
I hoped Amazon would sometime hear what users here at XDA (and everywhere else) had to say. The Fire Phone was a great piece of hardware, but its software was a bummer. People were trying to google it but all you could do was sideload Google Play Services. The bootloader was locked (and still is), and the Towelroot method for rooting didn't work for 3.6.8, so downgrading was the next stage for googling up the device. I remember seeing some guys here at XDA offering some money to the first person to unlock the bootloader, and some people sending a letter to Jeff Bezos himself to unlock it and then also a Change.org petition, taking the example of the HP TouchPad tablet (it saw new life after HP unlocked its bootloader, after which people flashed Android instead of the built-in webOS, becoming the second-most selling tablet of 2011). It never happened.
Then it was the question if the phone would ever receive a FireOS 4 update (based on Android 4.4 KitKat), given its lackluster sales. It finally happened on May, and came with very necessary changes to help customize the phone.
This new version would eventually be rooted via Kingroot, which is a very shady-looking app for rooting. It worked, and then there was a way to change it for SuperSU, a more reliable root app. With all the long wait, knowing a developer found a way to flash a ROM even with the locked bootloader was a relief. I flashed it as fast as I could. Now I'm using Cyanogenmod 11 and it's great (no trace of Amazon). It's still beta (the developer uploaded the first build just 4 days ago), but it works pretty well right now, and it'll only get better.
Now we can use a phone that has a great price and good specs with a great OS to match. To the people out there wondering if the phone is worth the price (right now it went back to $449 and comes with a year of Amazon Prime, with $99 alone, so the phone's real price is $350), no, it's not, you could get a OnePlus One at that price (which comes with Cyanogen OS), or a Moto X, or a Xiaomi Mi4, or many other great phones below $350 (and then if, and only if, you want Amazon Prime you can subscribe). When it gets a big discount, which happens from time to time (last one was this week and the price went down to $159), it gets more attractive (especially if you were going to subscribe to Amazon Prime). The phone has many gimmicky features which are really useless, uses an OS that is difficult to adapt to, and is overpriced most of the time (no wonder Amazon failed to sell it at launch at $199 with AT&T contact, or later at $649 unlocked, or now at $449), but may be a great deal when bought at discount (this week the real price of the phone was $60, and at that price you cannot get any smartphone off-contract) and if you're willing to tinker with the phone and flash a ROM (Cyanogenmod 11 is the only one right now, but might be more in the future), it makes a pretty good phone.
A quad-core Snapdragon 800 CPU, with Adreno 330 GPU and 2GB of RAM, a 13MP rear camera and 2.1MP front camera, 1080p recording, 32GB of built-in storage and now the ability to flash Cyanogenmod 11 for just $60? I'd buy it.
Wow!! Great responses guys. I thank you for taking the time to offer your opinions and I really look forward to receiving my Fire phone
Got my Fire phone!!
I really like the screen- overall size of the phone is not really bigger than my 5s but the screen real estate is a little bigger. It's not so lite that you will drop it or so thin you will drop it either. When I use my 5s bare, I have a hard time hanging onto it. It's in a wallet case that I can get a good grab onto. I like a little heft to it and it does feel good in your hand.
I have the incipio folio case on this fire phone that I got for $10 from ATT online store. That was a really good deal. Also did a screen saver just because I like them and the protection from minute scratches they provide.
So, on my Amazon account it was registered to me and the free prime was added on. When I went to set up the phone it requires you to register again to your account and I got all errors that it couldn't be done at this time, blah blah blah. I researched it and apparently this was a big problem at launch too.
So I updated it to the latest of 4.6.1 (820) and tried again, same deal. It just wouldn't register. So I de-registered it on my computer, and tried again on the phone, no go. You can't use the phone without it being asso. with an amazon acct- no apps at all are usable, even the preinstalled ones. So I chatted online, they couldn't help me and wanted to have their Fire Team support call me back- but I couldn't at that time so I will deal with it tomorrow. I'll have to search this forum and see if there's any info about it.
In the meantime I got the google apps working so now I at least have a pretty good list of apps, but no amazon services working yet. I still have to add a sim card and check the basic call functions- since it is a phone.
The benefit of picking up a phone that is a year old is you guys have already tackled the tough parts of rooting, modding, roms, etc. I checked out this forum before purchasing and was pleasantly surprised that you just made the break through just this week for CM. I may have to check that out! I have the att Mega and that poor orphan phone is so crippled most guys just walked away. I Love it for it's 6 inch screen size. The iphone 6+ was in my thoughts but can't justify that price tag. My mega was a penny when we still did subsidies.
I thank you all for your perseverance and hard work and your stick-to-it-ive-ness:good: This could actually be a decent phone with all the modifications. I am hoping I can leave it as is and swap between the Fire OS and the Nova launcher. Hopefully I'll get it registered correctly tomorrow. It's nice getting back into android after apple. I like them both- but I do get bored.
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So even though it is 3 am here, I just got off the phone with fire phone support and I was told it was a system wide outage and there are many people having this problem. They will get back to me!! I won't hold my breath here
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Talked again to amazon and I am "on the list" to have this registration fubar sorted out. She took additional info- my mac address on the phone specifically, and supposedly this will be fixed OTA magically. We'll see.
I do have a working sim in and phone calls work fine. I have issue with the tinny sounding speakers that are suppose to be stereo- Sounds terrible- especially with music clips ringtones. Pandora sounds bad too. I did read the reviews about the sound and it appears to be true.
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So Amazon finally fixed the registration problem OTA. I can now access my Amazon stuff. Problem solved.
I am new to Fire TV and don't currently own one.
Whats the deal with the jailbroken fire tv units being sold on flea bay? Are they a waste of time & money?
They claim to provide live TV channels to replace cable etc.
As far as I know there was never a "jailbreak" for this device.
Only certain software revision Fire TVs can be rooted. The current ones at amazon and best buy cannot. It's really hard to find ones that are rootable. I can sell you mine. Thing is a serious POS. First it's as closed off as an apple product when stock. Which wouldn't be so bad, if it actually functioned. Alas, Netflix cannot play smooth on the device at all. I don't know if intentional that amazon does it so you'd use their services or what. At any rate. Buy the shield TV. It's $100 more, but it's at least powerful enough you shouldn't have an issue. I'm unloading mine asap to buy the shield.
supremekizzle said:
Only certain software revision Fire TVs can be rooted. The current ones at amazon and best buy cannot. It's really hard to find ones that are rootable. I can sell you mine. Thing is a serious POS. First it's as closed off as an apple product when stock. Which wouldn't be so bad, if it actually functioned. Alas, Netflix cannot play smooth on the device at all. I don't know if intentional that amazon does it so you'd use their services or what. At any rate. Buy the shield TV. It's $100 more, but it's at least powerful enough you shouldn't have an issue. I'm unloading mine asap to buy the shield.
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It's no worse than the kindles, at least towelroot works. If you're so eager to get rid of yours, sell it to him cheap...
ldeveraux said:
It's no worse than the kindles, at least towelroot works. If you're so eager to get rid of yours, sell it to him cheap...
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That's what I was implying, but I'm pretty sure xda rules perhibit private sales. This thing has been nothing but frustration. My $25 Chromecast? Plays Netflix flawlessly. There's no reason that this device shouldn't be able to.
supremekizzle said:
That's what I was implying, but I'm pretty sure xda rules perhibit private sales. This thing has been nothing but frustration. My $25 Chromecast? Plays Netflix flawlessly. There's no reason that this device shouldn't be able to.
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You're kidding me right? You can side load kodi (hell...you can side load anything). Can't do that on ATV. Its got much better specs. You can use an external drive. And up until a short time ago it retailed for the same as apple TV. Chromecast? Its like a decent tool but what it is able to do doesn't make up for what ftv stick does and the price is the same.
This thread seems kind of trollish.
supremekizzle said:
That's what I was implying, but I'm pretty sure xda rules perhibit private sales. This thing has been nothing but frustration. My $25 Chromecast? Plays Netflix flawlessly. There's no reason that this device shouldn't be able to.
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No, I wasn't agreeing with you[emoji1] . I've had no problems or issues at all with mine, sorry. Everything plays exactly as planned...
KLit75 said:
You're kidding me right? You can side load kodi (hell...you can side load anything). Can't do that on ATV. Its got much better specs. You can use an external drive. And up until a short time ago it retailed for the same as apple TV. Chromecast? Its like a decent tool but what it is able to do doesn't make up for what ftv stick does and the price is the same.
This thread seems kind of trollish.
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I don't think you really follow. I'm not claiming the Chromecast as being more feature rich or powerful than the FTV. I'm saying that if a $25 device can play Netflix smoothly, it's absurd that the FTV can't. Go ahead and Google "fire TV netflix" and it'll return results from tons of people saying that Netflix playback on the device is crap. Netflix is BY FAR and away the most used streaming service. There shouldn't be problems using it on the FTV, but there are. So let me revise my stance: OP, 'jailbroken' or not, if you plan on using the fire TV for Netflix streaming, seek other options. If you're undeterred from broken Netflix, then rooted FTV's are worth it for the extra functionality. Especially the larger partition HDD, since amazon deemed having larger than 4gb would condone piracy since external HDD are apparently only to be used for apps and games, not your media collection.
supremekizzle said:
I don't think you really follow. I'm not claiming the Chromecast as being more feature rich or powerful than the FTV. I'm saying that if a $25 device can play Netflix smoothly, it's absurd that the FTV can't. Go ahead and Google "fire TV netflix" and it'll return results from tons of people saying that Netflix playback on the device is crap. Netflix is BY FAR and away the most used streaming service. There shouldn't be problems using it on the FTV, but there are. So let me revise my stance: OP, 'jailbroken' or not, if you plan on using the fire TV for Netflix streaming, seek other options. If you're undeterred from broken Netflix, then rooted FTV's are worth it for the extra functionality. Especially the larger partition HDD, since amazon deemed having larger than 4gb would condone piracy since external HDD are apparently only to be used for apps and games, not your media collection.
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I heard you fine. Your Netflix issues are just like the ones I've documented/complained about in the past year & change. I was focusing on your 1st post where you called AFTV a "POS" then made a reference to chromecast. I've said many times that its a great media device for the price but Netflix not working is unacceptable. Amazon's heard my complaints but unless I want to shell out $200 for nvidia or upgrade to an htpc, I think this is still the best media center for under $100. Even though my laptop had less trouble with Netflix back in like 2006. My apple TV plays Netflix flawlessly and with better resolution but will remain in storage because although amazon is restrictive, apple has no equal in terms of being locked down.
Btw--what do u mean it won't play? Not at all? Or are you often greeted with an "unable to play title"/loads to 99%...which is usually resolved by quitting the app, worse case reboot.
KLit75 said:
I heard you fine. Your Netflix issues are just like the ones I've documented/complained about in the past year & change. I was focusing on your 1st post where you called AFTV a "POS" then made a reference to chromecast. I've said many times that its a great media device for the price but Netflix not working is unacceptable. Amazon's heard my complaints but unless I want to shell out $200 for nvidia or upgrade to an htpc, I think this is still the best media center for under $100. Even though my laptop had less trouble with Netflix back in like 2006. My apple TV plays Netflix flawlessly and with better resolution but will remain in storage because although amazon is restrictive, apple has no equal in terms of being locked down.
Btw--what do u mean it won't play? Not at all? Or are you often greeted with an "unable to play title"/loads to 99%...which is usually resolved by quitting the app, worse case reboot.
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Ok. Glad we're on the same page. I concur that at $100 it's the best option save for Netflix, closed ecosystem, HDD. With the XDA community it had accomplished quite a bit. So I will agree to disagree and retract my POS comment. Yes. Netflix is almost unusable. I get loading to 99% and unable to play, somewhat frequently. However, the worst problem is the video getting all choppy and stuttering while the audio plays fine. Then the video has to speed up to " catch up" to the audio. This happens ALL OF THE TIME. I've cleared cache, rebooted wayyyyy more times than should have been necessary with this thing.
supremekizzle said:
Ok. Glad we're on the same page. I concur that at $100 it's the best option save for Netflix, closed ecosystem, HDD. With the XDA community it had accomplished quite a bit. So I will agree to disagree and retract my POS comment. Yes. Netflix is almost unusable. I get loading to 99% and unable to play, somewhat frequently. However, the worst problem is the video getting all choppy and stuttering while the audio plays fine. Then the video has to speed up to " catch up" to the audio. This happens ALL OF THE TIME. I've cleared cache, rebooted wayyyyy more times than should have been necessary with this thing.
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You ever consider the fact that it may be network handshake issues? Or speed issues? Wireless vs wired? It seems to work fine for me and all the other people that haven't chimed in, there's no reason it shouldn't for you too!
And realistically you can google any device, paired with any problem, and you'll see threads and threads on that topic. Look how many people can't follow simple instructions with towelroot!
Netflix has always worked fine on my Fire TV connected via ethernet and on my Fire Stick connected via 5GHz wireless. Check for interference or a bad ethernet cable. Change your router to use 5GHz instead of 2.4.