Should you buy an Amazon Fire tablet with lockscreen ads?

Amazon lets you save a few extra bucks by offering ads on its tablets, but does it actually save you money? Or just open you up to spending even more?

Fire Tablets are a popular product lineup for Amazon, taking the number four spot in market share in 2021 (via Gizmochina) with 9.5% of the market to themselves after selling 16.1 million units. The driving force behind this growth is competitive pricing, and those already competitive prices will drop right down into impulse buy territory on Amazon Prime Day. Fire Tablets are cheap, and most are available at two pricing tiers — with lockscreen ads and without lockscreen ads. So when choosing your tablet, you might be tempted to save extra money in exchange for the ads, but are the savings worth it?

How do the lockscreen ads work?

Source: Amazon

If you go with the ad-supported tier, the ads aren't hard to miss, but they aren't too intrusive either. You won't be bombarded with notifications or popups trying to sell you things. Instead, you'll see a new ad each time you view the lockscreen. The ads are effectively your lockscreen wallpaper, showing you ebooks and products that Amazon thinks you'll want to buy. You can choose to open the ad and view the product or unlock your device as usual. The device's functionality isn't hindered too much, with the inability to set your lockscreen wallpaper being the main difference.

How much will I save?

The saving is consistent across Amazon's range, with the company reducing the price by $15 in exchange for ads. $15 might not seem like much, but if you're on a tight budget, it can make a difference, and it could be used to buy a case and screen protector to keep the tablet safe.

Can I remove ads from a device that has them?

If you've already purchased a Fire Tablet with lockscreen ads and regret your decision, there's no need to worry. Amazon allows users to remove the lockscreen ads for $15, the amount you saved at the time of purchase. Thankfully the process of eliminating them is straightforward:

1. Sign in to your Amazon account and go to your account.
2. Scroll down and open the content and devices menu and then click devices.
3. Click on the Fire Tablet.
4. Click remove offers in the bottom left corner of the screen.
5. A popup will ask if you want to keep the offers or pay $15 to remove them. Click end offers and pay the fee.
6. After the payment has gone through, reboot the tablet.

The ads should be gone, replaced by a default selection of wallpapers from Amazon. Now you can go ahead and use your own image as a lockscreen wallpaper instead.

Should you buy a Fire Tablet with ads?

Ultimately, that decision is up to each user, but we recommend buying the tablet without ads. Amazon knows a lot about its users, and the ads you see will be targeted to your interests. Unless you have a vice-like grip on your spending impulses, these ads could cost you more than $15 over the course of using the tablet. Spending the extra at the point of purchase is the best choice, in our opinion, and if you already own an ad-supported Fire device, then you should consider removing them.

If you're considering one of the best Fire tablets, make sure you understand their limitations, especially regarding the operating system they use. You don't want to buy a tablet only to find that it doesn't support the apps you need.