What does it take to make a tablet more than just a content consumption machine? We’ve been watching Apple’s ideas for productivity tablets evolve for over five years. From the beginning, Microsoft has focused on productivity.
Amazon, on the other hand, seems to have no clue. The company has been selling a “productivity bundle” for Fire tablets for years, and it’s more than just a name, other than the cursory perception that typing on a keyboard is more productive than typing on a glass screen. not from
With the new Fire Max 11, I show that Amazon finally understands what a productivity tablet should be: more than just the big screen you use to watch movies on the couch or entertain your toddler on the plane. I was hoping it would. Perhaps this is the Amazon tablet for those who want to get work done on a budget. After all, it’s $329.99 with keyboard and stylus. (Also available without accessories for $229.99.)
Unfortunately, this is just a continuation of the same old story as the Amazon Fire tablet. The Fire Max 11 is a great device for watching movies purchased on Prime Video (or most other streaming services), but it’s not noticeably better. Even cheaper than the Amazon option. However, it is not recommended for work. Yes, as you can imagine, it’s the software’s fault.
Firemax 11 for sure Appearance Some productivity tablets, especially if they come with a keyboard case and stylus. It has a metal chassis, an 8-megapixel camera in the bezel on the long (or right) side of the screen, a keyboard with an integrated trackpad that attaches to the bottom edge with magnets, and a stylus that sticks to the screen. Magnets are also used on the sides of the tablet. It’s also the first Fire tablet to have a fingerprint scanner built into the power button.
Crucially, the Max 11 doesn’t look like the typical Fire tablet with its plastic back and generally unwieldy case. Amazon has tried to justify the Max 11’s high price with a better design, and they’ve succeeded in that regard. If you squint, you might mistake it for the much more expensive iPad Pro or Lenovo Chromebook Duet 3.
But don’t squint your eyes. It’s easy to see how far Amazon hasn’t done enough. The 11-inch LCD screen has a 2000 x 1200 resolution with punchy colors and wide viewing angles. It’s bright enough for most indoor environments, and might even work outdoors in the shade, just in case. But its 5:3 aspect ratio is cramped when browsing the web or working with documents, and trying to use the Max 11 in portrait is awkward and awkward. Side by side with Apple’s entry-level 9th generation iPad, you can see just how big the iPad’s screen is thanks to its 4:3 aspect ratio.
The keyboard attaches magnetically to the bottom of the Max 11 and is powered by the tablet, so you don’t have to worry about Bluetooth pairing or charging it separately. The keys are well-spaced, have good travel distance, and are lined with function keys for media and system controls.
But the trackpad is frankly the worst. It’s cramped and sticky, making it difficult to scroll and perform gestures with two fingers. It also only supports reverse scrolling (“natural scrolling” in Apple’s terminology), with no option to change to the more traditional scrolling direction.
Like other tablets that use this sort of keyboard case (the 10th generation iPad and the already-mentioned Chromebook Duet 3 are just two examples), the Max 11 feels squishy when trying to use it on your lap. Wobble. To use the keyboard on your tablet, you actually have to park it on your desk or table.
One bright spot here is the stylus. It’s a USI 2.0 pointer with a button on the side that allows you to write smoothly with no perceivable lag. It feels very similar to using the Apple Pencil on your iPad. Samsung’s out-of-the-box writing experience is better with the S Pen, but hardware-wise, I have little complaints about Amazon’s pen.
The 8-core MediaTek processor Amazon uses in the Max 11 is more powerful than the one it uses in its lower-tier tablets, and it shows: Max 11 is snappier and more responsive than others . You can even stream 4K videos of him in your browser, but that wasn’t possible with the Fire HD 10 Plus I tested two years ago. The Max 11 falls short of Apple’s chip when it comes to horsepower, but thankfully it’s not completely bad either.
While Amazon seemed to be focusing on the Max 11’s hardware, it seems that they completely forgot about the software. The Max 11 runs the same Fire OS found in Amazon’s lineup, but other than ensuring stylus and keyboard support, there are no improvements or changes to make productivity work more convenient. Ads will also appear on your lock screen unless you pay an additional $15 to remove them.
The latest version of Fire OS (8.3.1.9) is based on Android 11, a platform almost three generations old. It lacks gestures to navigate the interface, relying instead on his three virtual buttons at the bottom of the screen: Back, Home and Recent apps. You can split screen between two apps, but there are no tweaks or compromises for productivity or multitasking that you find in Android tablets with modern software. No app dock, quick launch tray or popup window.
The home screen is still where Amazon prompts users to purchase content and products from various stores, and it can quickly feel cumbersome and spammy. There are no configurable widgets or news feeds, nothing more than basic folders.
If you know anything about Amazon tablets, you probably know that Google apps and services are not available on Amazon tablets. Max 11 is no exception. This isn’t a big deal if you’re just using your tablet to watch videos (unless the video is on YouTube or YouTube TV). But when it comes to productivity, many of us are complete beginners.
In addition to missing Chrome, Gmail, Google Docs, Google Maps, Google Drive, Google Meet, and more, the Max 11’s app store is missing countless other apps used to get work done. . Aside from Microsoft’s Office suite and Zoom, it’s a ghost town.
The most frustrating part of this is This is the exact same problem I ran into 2 years ago. Save yourself the trouble of writing and just copy and paste what you wrote about the Fire HD 10 Plus in 2021.
Below is a list of productivity apps I use every day at work, but not on the Fire HD 10 Plus (or any other Amazon tablet).
• Sagging
• Asana
• Google Meet
• Feedly (a low rated 3rd party app I tried crashed on login)
• Todoist
• Swift key
• new york times (The Amazon store app is just a bookmark to a website)
• Bitwarden (LastPass, 1Password, Dashlane are also missing. Logging in to apps with passwords requires you to fiddle with your phone and tablet, which is very annoying.)
• Two-factor authentication app
• Pocket (Pocket used to be in the Amazon Appstore, but the company has removed it and now directs Fire tablet owners to sideload apps from their website.)
Today we’re adding Airtable, Instapaper, Evernote, and Apple Music to that list. Aside from the fact that there has been absolutely no progress in the apps available in the last two years, Amazon has never attempted to develop a note-taking or drawing app for the Max 11’s stylus, as it did for the Kindle Scribe. Both Apple and Samsung have developed very capable note-taking apps that leverage the capabilities of their respective styluses, but Amazon didn’t even try. We hope to find something in our own aging app store.
If you want to use Max 11 for drawing and artwork, you won’t find many popular art apps in the Amazon store. No Sketchbook, Clip Studio Paint, Infinite Painter. (There is an app called Infinite Painter is in the Amazon store, but not available for other Android devices. )
Below is another paragraph from a review from 2 years ago that still applies today.
You can work around this issue by sideloading the Google Play Store and its related services onto your Fire HD, but this requires disabling security features, downloading software from unauthorized sites, and installing it in a specific order. is needed. Frankly, this isn’t what most people are going to do, and if Amazon wants to sell what it calls a “productivity bundle,” it could do better in terms of making tablets more useful for work. need to work.
I was able to draft this article in Google Docs via Max 11’s basic browser, and used Microsoft’s Outlook app to manage my inbox. (Amazon’s built-in mail and calendar apps are so bare-bones that I couldn’t even get them to work with my Google Workspace account.) Edit and place. I had to leave my Max 11 behind to take pictures and publish them. These are things that can be done very easily on iPads and Samsung tablets as well.
If my workflow relied more on Microsoft apps like Word and Teams, I could probably use Max 11 for more. But even then, the screen is tiny, the trackpad sucks, and you’d be much better off with a different tablet or laptop.
After all, the Max 11 doesn’t change anything about Amazon’s Fire tablet. Its appeal is its low price. A 6-month bundle of stylus, keyboard and Microsoft 365 is the same price as the 9th generation iPad alone. This argument is fine for a tablet you use just to watch videos, or a tablet you intend to give to your child to entertain him on the plane or in a restaurant. Still, if that’s your planned use case, Amazon has even cheaper options that work just as well for those uses.
But when it comes time to get the job done, I don’t hesitate to spend a little more and get something that actually works.
Photo: Dan Seifert/The Verge
