Amazon Fire Max 11 tablet (newest model) vivid 11” display, all-in-one for streaming, reading, and gaming, 14-hour battery life, optional stylus and keyboard, 128 GB, Gray, without lockscreen ads

I come from a 2021 10 plus for reference.This tablet has better graphics, brighter, sharper...hands down. It does everything the 10 plus did plus more and it is faster. The charging port is a PD C port. This means that I can plug in various flash or external drives (the fire has to format them and prepare them first to work with it so go in bare and let it do that). These drives can STILL be used with your regular computer too after that per usual. I made a flash drive of various things that I'd want during a power outage for that purpose as my fire is my go to device in that situation. The pen...oh my, the pen. I bought one when I got the Max 11. It is the best thing I've ever done and the reason I also bought an 11 and pen for my disabled son. Lets talk at some length about the pen being used with the tablet as that is a major upgrade.It writes better on this tablet than any stylus I've ever used on any device. The palm rejection is GREAT..it only very rarely makes a small mistake. I tried every major stylus apps on my 11 (after sideloading the play store of course- if that ability goes away I will quit buying these as the provided app store is meager and pathetic- sorry amazon, it's true. It's super easy to do, google it and there are simple instructions to install 4 programs with links where to get them- very simple). The two that came out on top is Inkredible and Squid. Inkredible lets you buy what you want and need without having to get the whole thing. Brownie points there. I want fun and rich backgrounds to write on mostly for household notes. I have small papers all over with various notes I've taken and this will solve that mess. I tried doing it with adding a picture and sizing it over the provided area. That worked only somewhat ok. When I'd touch the stylus to make a dot for like the top of an i, it would stop writing and you had to fuss with it to get it to write again (that is a thing with the program and not the stylus). I figured out how to fix it though. I made the background what I wanted IN inkredible then exported it out of inkredible to a file as a .pdf (I sent it to my main computer), then I put the file back on the 11 and imported that pdf back into the inkredible and it was now an embedded background and it was fine, great...no more problems. They have writing enhancement in the inkredible that makes your writing still yours but cleaned up a touch to look nicer and smoother.On Squid, they want a continuing payment to unlock things like importing. It works very well but they don't have the enhanced writing so how you write is what you get raw. I was going to pull the trigger until I figured out how to make inkredible work for the backgrounds, now I don't need to I don't think. Squid has pages for a large variety of uses and needs though- graphing, music and the like. If I end up needing something that inkredible doesn't provide me I'll do Squid for the cost.The only thing I WISH I had on the 11 is the ability to mark over pages in the web browser and other programs that are similar. My HP laptop has that and it is fun and amazing to be able to markup stuff on webpages and save it as a screenshot essentially to send where you will. Other than that the stylus functioning is nearly perfect. I am SO jazzed, this is what I've been waiting for a very long time.With the play store sideloaded this becomes a great tablet. I don't know how productive it is for business people but for the average user it is productive enough. This is my brain cell and my babysitter. I take it with me out and it keeps me entertained or working on stuff while I wait in waiting rooms. It keeps notes for me, now easier than ever as I don't have to hunt and peck on the keyboard popup, I just write it, and it looks good while doing it. It will now stand in for the tablet/s I keep on my desk for taking notes while on the phone AND I don't have to scramble looking for the recent notes when I have a need to refresh my memory as they will be saved right on my 11. My son needs to keep notes as well as a function of his disability. The thing is he is disorganized and never has ready paper and a writing instrument, but he lives life with a fire in his hand- literally he's almost never without it. I got him a case that holds the pen too and now at any moment he is ready to take a note and he's absolutely loving that.Our 2021's were working fine, but because of the stylus capabilities I decided to try the Max 11 and I am so glad that I did. For us it is a major jump in enjoyment and productivity and disability mitigation. I think it is well worth upgrading to.

I bought this specifically to read comic books and graphic novels, and I was not disappointed. I was concerned about some reviews for this function because a few people complained they could not get the comixology app on this device. Comixology and Kindle Unlimited are under the same Kindle app, just different subscriptions (if you want those subscriptions. The app itself is free), so I had no issue searching, buying, downloading, or viewing my comics. The sizing and graphics specs for this tablet are perfect for comics, streaming, and basically any other entertainment need, at home or on the go. I keep a large organizer tote bag most of the time, with this tablet in it wherever I go. The battery lasts a very long time, through several several hours of reading. This tablet was waaaay cheaper than the alternatives through my phone plan or other stores for getting a nice quality tablet. I can also use it for work, which is great.

UPDATE: I've been using this Fire for about a year (got it on Prime Day 2023) and I still like it a lot. It is a bit heavy for relaxed reading, so I also got the Fire 10 HD (13th gen) this year, 2024 Prime Day. Indeed the 10 is significantly lighter even thought the size difference between the two is fairly small (same width but 11 is taller when in portrait, so it is wider screen in landscape). It is nice to have both. I will keep using the 11 with the keyboard it came bundled with and I will not get a keyboard for the 10. The keyboard is awesome and having the 11 be wider than the 10 allows the keyboard to be very comfortable. So if you touch-type, and want the attached keyboard, I recommend the 11 over the 10. I've used the keyboard extensively and it really is great (other than accidentally touching the touch pad occasionally, and unintentionally change my typing location).Also, I noticed that the 10 is annoyingly slower than the 11 when rendering all the icons on my home screen. Occasionally the icons disappear and you have to wait for them to reappear. It is only a couple of seconds but I don't recall ever seeing that on a "regular android" device, so it is a Fire OS issue that is more apparent with the slower 10. But the main reason I decided to write an update is the SD card issue that some other reviewers mentioned.I thought others had issues because they set up the card as "internal" which is essentially (but not quite) like having a bigger internal space for everything including apps. This is dangerous and there is a reason why you can no longer do this with newer versions of Android. So unless you have a zillion apps and really need bigger internal space because of your apps, you really should set up the card as Portable Memory instead (no apps on the card, only media and other files, etc.). Then you can decide what types of files to put there AND you can safely remove the card and access it on another device like your laptop (that's why it is called "portable"). You can choose to have the Kindle app, Prime Movies, etc download to the card. Most people need expanded memory for media, so this makes sense, and again it is safer. You also have good control over what gets stored on an SD card vs internal storage.But, setting up the card as Internal isn't the reason people had issues, because today for the first time I had the issue that others complained about, which is that my card supposedly unmounted and the Fire asked me to re-format. (This would be a bigger problem if I had set it up as "Internal" rather than "Portable"!!). I shut down the Fire, removed the card, and mounted it in Windows. Windows told me there was a problem with the card and I should scan and fix it. I did. Windows showed it as then fine, no further issues. And I had no trouble copying out all the folders from the card to Windows. Returning the card to the Fire still showed the screen for formatting the card, but I'm wondering if this is because the Fire tends to show screens that were on when you shut down. Or else the card was somehow marked as needing a format. The super weird thing, is, when I said to format as Portable Memory, it did so without removing anything. Doesn't formatting a card mean erasing it (or showing it as blank) so you start over with it fresh ?!?!? I was going to format it however Fire likes to format, and then return the original folders. But I did not need to copy back anything. It is working fine now. So apparently it would have re-formatted only if I had decided to swap from using it as "portable" to "internal." Probably every time you unmount ("eject") the card, you will get this message, and it won't really erase everything and reformat, unless you opt to change how you want to use the card. So all is okay with the card, but this situation should not have happened. It probably happened because some function was writing to the card and another function (an update??) dismounted it, thus interrupting the write. This is why Windows had to fix it.So, I think the card issue almost certainly has nothing to do with the particular card, so others' comments are correct about that. (I've been using a new high-quality Samsung Pro Plus card, overkill for a Fire tablet but it was on sale). When the card issue surfaced, I was trying to do some updates from the Appstore and it seemed frozen. (There is still a problem with the Appstore!). So the Fire was not in a good state. It may be a good idea to reboot it occasionally once in a while (I probably hadn't rebooted for about a month). I was also thinking maybe it was trying to update and that broke its normal functionality. Could be. My biggest suspicion. It is on Fire OS 8.3.2.4, from July 3, 2024. I checked for updates even though it showed as last checking today, and it said to tap to install an update, but when I did, everything froze. I eventually went back to the updater, and now it said I have 1 update (rather than a bunch of gibberish that suggested some pieces were still downloading, and with a broken button for installing, as initially happened). Now I was able to install the update, and when I re-checked for updates, it showed "no updates found," and the Check Now button reappeared as normal. So all seems fine. Other than the fact that my OS still shows as 8.3.2.4. And it still shows it as being from July 3 (today is Aug 7). And I did not get the usual message that my system has updated. It was a secret undocumented thing, or the old update re-installed (why??). Perhaps it was not a Fire OS update but an update of some other built-in component (like the Apstore, or some such thing). The Appstore still seems hung on the page where I update apps. The other parts of it work. It is an issue with the app, because F-Droid can install and update just fine. And my new Fire 10 also works fine, so it is not the server for the Appstore. I'm now thinking it got a corrupted (interrupted?) update and won't work until Amazon has a newer update that I can install on top of it.Amazon, if you are listening: please please be normal about updates. Let your users know there is an update and let them pick when to do the update. If control-freak Apple can do this, you can, too. I do not want to be using my device while it is trying to update (or shutting it down to remove a corrupted card...). That's just asking for trouble. I want to have it plugged in and keep my hands off it for a while. This is a problem with other Amazon devices as well. Okay, you're gonna force an update whether I like it or not, but please, if you don't want to cause a lot of grief, just let people have some control (and awareness!!!!!) when the device needs to be updated. My guess is that even when there is only a minor update (as seems to have been the case for me), the Kindle is not fully functional but pretends to be, and since it is not fully functional (it quits some processes), some unexpected quits will cause corruptions/crashes/SD card issues.....But otherwise it is a good device. Truly. I'm still happy to have it. I love the whale background :-)Initial Review:I got the productivity bundle and I am super pleased. I needed something to take notes with in classes, that also had a touch screen for drawing, and this is great for that. (Amazon Appstore has OneNote and Squid and both are great for notes with this.) In my experience it DOES matter which app you use with the pen because a paint app I tried worked but was slow (so I blame the app, since OneNote and Squid are fine). There is also a fairly new open source app called Saber that seems great (I still need to experiment with that one -- available on F-Droid). I'm thinking that some of the professional reviews (on other web sites) got an early or different version of the pen because the harsh criticisms of it do not match my experience. It works great.This is my 2nd Fire tablet, and I like it so much better than my first one, Fire 8 HD from 2017. I wasn't unhappy with the old tablet when I got it (because I got it on sale for a great price) but I just almost never used it because the screen was so unpleasant and stressful to look at, plus the device was annoyingly slow. Not so with this new tablet -- I am very pleased with the screen quality, and the speed is good for how I'm using it.The pen and keyboard are truly awesome. I wasn't sure at first whether I liked the aspect ratio/shape of the tablet but actually it makes sense. The longer shape allows for nearly full-sized key spacing on the keyboard while not causing the tablet to be unnecessarily large and heavy, as it would be with the iPad's aspect ratio. Someone said they prefer the snap-in clamshell keyboard that is available for the 10, but I much prefer this thin-and-light keyboard (didn't have the 10 but considered it and looked at pics of its keyboard). It is super easy and fast to pull off and snap on the keyboard and it does not need batteries. At home (where I have "real" laptops) I use the tablet mostly without the keyboard, and half of the keyboard case stays on it, protecting the back and the camera, and giving the tablet a nice non-slip feel, plus I can use the fold-out stand. I don't use it on my lap at school, and at home I use a lap desk so I don't mind that I can't put it directly in my lap while typing. Really, I have no complaints at all about this setup. Perfect.Well, maybe I can complain a little about Fire OS but it is mostly okay. I would hate it for a phone but it is fine for a tablet. And it is much improved over what I had on my old Fire, especially the settings (I like to have control and info). I put Google Play on my previous Fire but I'm not sure I will do so on this one. I mean I have an Android phone that has things I'd like from the Play store, like my calculator collection and bank apps and whatnot. I don't need to replicate that on this tablet. I've installed F-Droid so I can still easily put a bunch of nice apps on it. I have a Linux terminal app (Termux) and will probably install a small Linux distro with desktop which will further expand the usability. Plus I have a Microsoft 360 subscription from work and it is nice to have an app for that on this tablet too. It has the most critical work apps like Zoom and Teams and Office and Outlook. So it already has what I really need on a tablet. Oh, and Kindle, of course. I think in the past it was almost necessary to side-load Google Play but the Amazon Appstore now has my most critical apps, at least for a tablet. (Yea, it generally is not great and not well maintained, with tons of outdated apps.) Don't be mad at Amazon about Google Play Store, YouTube, etc. It is a Google policy. Google does not want others to take the open source piece of Android and build their own thing on top of it, with no control from Google. There are penalties for doing that. And Amazon couldn't sell its media to you directly on regular Android, so it kind of has to make a separate OS. This is your tradeoff for getting a subsidized tablet. I'm poor so I will accept the tradeoff, especially for a tablet as nice as this one.I paid to get rid of the ads, and I do that on every Kindle or Fire (I value discounts a lot, but aesthetics even more) and now this tablet is a pleasure to use. And soooo much less expensive than a similar setup would have been from Apple.