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Amazon has transitioned its Fire tablet lineup into Alexa-centric devices that now feature more premium designs and higher prices. These new tablets are notable for their ability to run all apps available on the Google Play store, marking a significant shift from previous models. The rebranding emphasizes Alexa integration as a key selling point.
Amazon has unveiled a new line of Android tablets equipped with advanced Alexa capabilities, including live conversations and visual recognition. These features, previously unavailable, aim to enhance user interaction with the assistant for tasks like shopping, information retrieval, and object identification. Amazon's VP of devices indicated these innovations address previous product limitations, but declined to comment on potential smartphone development.
Amazon consumer electronics chief Panos Panay told Bloomberg that the company is phasing out its Fire tablet line in favor of new Alexa Tablets running standard Android with full Google Play Store access, unlike Fire OS devices which lacked native Google apps. Amazon will continue providing security updates for existing Fire tablets but will not release new hardware for the line, and Panay indicated more hardware announcements are planned for the fall, excluding any Amazon-branded computer or laptop.
Amazon has updated its Fire TV Stick 4K with a redesigned power connector, moving away from the long-criticized Micro USB port. The device also ships with a newly designed remote control.
Amazon announced a major update to its Alexa Plus AI assistant, adding a dedicated hub on Fire TV devices, improved reasoning, and the ability to factor in cultural context and viewing history when answering questions. The assistant will also gain support for follow-up questions and threaded conversations, and will extend to the Fire TV mobile app. Amazon says some features roll out in November, with others arriving in 2024.
Amazon has introduced a new Fire TV Stick 4K alongside a redesigned Fire TV Remote featuring differently shaped, indented buttons meant to be identifiable by touch. The company says the device is 20-40% faster at powering on and loading content than a similarly priced competitor, and it also outperformed three top-selling 4K smart TVs in Amazon's own testing. The updated stick has a slimmer design, supports Direct Power via a TV's USB port, and runs Amazon's Vega operating system with Alexa Plus built in.
Amazon announced that starting in November, US Fire TV users will get a new Alexa+ hub on the TV interface and mobile app, offering personalized suggestions and more complex reasoning about shows, movies and current events. The mobile app will also let Alexa+ build watchlists from shared article links, suggest titles based on uploaded photos, and deep-link directly into streaming apps. Amazon also added live content from over 40 apps and a Games Hub for cloud gaming, with global rollout planned for early next year.
Amazon has discounted its latest Fire HD 10 tablet to $72.99, a 53% cut from its $154.99 list price, as part of an early Prime Big Deal Days promotion. The tablet features a 10.1-inch Full HD display, a MediaTek MT8186A octa-core processor, 3GB of RAM, 32GB or 64GB storage with microSD expansion up to 1TB, and up to 13 hours of battery life. The discount is only available to Amazon Prime members, though new users can access it via a free 30-day trial.
Amazon does not publish an official lifespan for Fire TV Stick devices, but it does commit to providing security updates for a minimum of four years from purchase date, or until a listed support deadline, whichever comes later. Current models like the Fire TV Stick 4K Select and 4K Plus are covered through at least December 2030.
Amazon has increased prices across its device lineup—including Echo, Fire TV, Kindle, and Eero products—by as much as 60%, citing rising memory and storage component costs. The Echo Dot, for instance, jumped overnight from $49.99 to $79.99, a spike confirmed by price-tracking tools like CamelCamelCamel. Amazon says it absorbed these cost increases as long as possible before passing them on to customers, though it plans occasional promotions going forward.
An owner of a 2021 Amazon Fire HD 10 tablet used it as a always-on smart-home dashboard, but Amazon software kept forcing shutdowns after months of diagnosis with Claude Code hit a wall: three protected Amazon packages held reboot and shutdown permissions that couldn't be disabled without root access, and no public root method existed for this device. Over several months the owner paid $266.15 across four AI coding models—Kimi K3, GLM-5.2, GLM-5.3, and Claude—to find and fix an exploit, with GLM-5.3 finally completing a working root method in a single day.