[ad_1]
Amazon’s Fire tablets are extremely popular thanks to their incredibly affordable price. However, these devices are surprisingly capable for their bargain prices. If you have one, you’ll want to make sure you get the most out of it.
Install Google Play Store
Unsurprisingly, Amazon Fire tablets come with the Amazon App Store. That’s a bit disappointing since the Google Play Store has a lot more Android apps, including Google apps.
The good news is that you can simply install the Play Store on your Fire Tablet. The process is pretty straightforward and mostly requires downloading a few files for your specific model. We have a detailed tutorial to install the Google Play Store on your Fire tablet.
RELATED: How to Install the Google Play Store on an Amazon Fire Tablet
Side loading applications
If you don’t want to go through the hassle of getting the Play Store up and running, you can skip it and just download apps. Sideloading is the process of installing apps from outside of a central app store.
It’s very easy to do this on a Fire tablet. The hardest part is finding the APK file for the app you want to install. We recommend APKMirror.com. If you don’t need a lot of apps, this is a good method to use.
RELATED: How to Load Apps on Your Amazon Fire Tablet
Grab an SD card
Most Amazon Fire tablets include a slot for a MicroSD card. This is great since one of the things that is sacrificed for low prices is storage space. You can add an additional 128GB of storage for less than $20.
After inserting the MicroSD card, you will see a message asking you to format it for the tablet. One of the benefits of an SD card is the ability to put apps on it and free up the onboard storage space. You can do it from Settings> Storage.
Samsung EVO 128GB MicroSD Card
An affordable microSD card from a trusted brand. The Samsung EVO microSD card also comes with an adapter for use in full-size SD card slots.
change the keyboard
Amazon Fire tablets are essentially Android devices, which means you can take advantage of core Android features. Don’t like the standard Amazon keyboard? Use a different one!
You can download a third-party keyboard from the Amazon Appstore or the Google Play Store, if you set it up. Once you have a new keyboard, you can easily enable the keyboard from Settings.
RELATED: How to Change the Keyboard on an Amazon Fire Tablet
Turn it into an echo show
Amazon Echo Show is an Alexa-enabled smart display. It puts Alexa front and center and aims to give you access to the things you might need on a daily basis, similar to the Google Home Hub. Your Fire Tablet can also be an Echo Show.
If you have a compatible Fire tablet, you can switch it to “Display Mode” simply from the Quick Settings panel or by saying “Alexa, switch to Display Mode.” It’s that simple, you have a smart display!
RELATED: How to turn a PC or tablet into an Echo Show
Uninstall preloaded apps
When you first turn on your new Fire tablet, you may notice a handful of apps that have already been installed. You most likely don’t want all of these apps, so let’s remove them.
The easiest way to do this is to touch and hold an icon on the home screen and select “Uninstall app”. You can also choose “Edit Home Screen” from the menu to remove more than one app at a time. Unfortunately, you won’t be able to uninstall all apps.
Remove suggestions from the home screen
Another thing you might want to remove from the home screen is the hints and tips. These are located at the top of the “Home” tab in two sections: “Continue” and “Discover”.
The “Continue” section is for apps you’ve recently used, while “Discover” is basically ads for Amazon products and media. You can long press any item in these sections and select “Remove from homepage” or “I’m not interested”.
Get rid of lock screen ads
This last feature will literally cost you. If you were given a Fire tablet as a gift, you may have ads on your lock screen. These models are popular as they are a bit cheaper. You can remove the ads for a small fee.
To do this, go to the Device Manager page on the Amazon website. Select the tablet you use and choose the “Remove Offers” option. For $15, you can have an ad-free lock screen, a small price to pay, especially if it was a gift.
RELATED: How to remove ads and special offers from your Amazon Kindle
Amazon Fire tablets are small and handy devices, but you’ll want to take advantage of these features to get the experience to your liking. And when you’re done with the tablet, you can reuse it for other things!
RELATED: How to turn an old Android tablet into a self-updating digital photo frame
[ad_2]
