Editors' Note: Amazon no longer offers the Fire HD 10 Productivity Bundle. See our review of the standard Fire HD 10.

Amazon’s Fire 10 Productivity bundle combines the new Fire HD 10 tablet with a generic Bluetooth keyboard case and a year of Microsoft 365 Personal for $219.99. But the apparent savings are false economy unless you feel savvy enough to hack Google’s Play Store onto the tablet, as Amazon’s Appstore lacks far too many apps you might need for work or school.

Taps Without Apps

Amazon has repackaged the 2021 edition of the Fire HD 10 several ways to reach different demographics. Here's the rundown of the various options:

We have a full review of the new Fire HD 10 that focuses on using it as an entertainment tablet. It’s a good one; Amazon has the world’s best bookstore and a decent array of video streaming apps. The Fire HD 10 Kids curates that content for younger readers and watchers, including through an excellent subscription library. The tablet also works as an Alexa smart display and smart home control panel, especially if you get the Fire HD 10 Plus.

The question is whether Amazon can turn this media device into a snappy little $219 computer for students and home workers by adding a keyboard and Microsoft Office, and the answer is no. From a hardware perspective, it delivers, especially if you get the Fire HD 10 Plus Productivity Bundle, which has the HD 10 Plus' extra gigabyte of RAM. But the lack of apps—especially official Google apps—puts it well behind every other Android tablet, Chromebook, and iPad as a productivity tool.

The tablet snaps into the top half of the Bluetooth keyboard case from Fintie, which is stiff enough that it can stay open over a short range of angles. It's a real case, not just a keyboard, so the whole setup stays stable in your lap in a way that tablets with kickstands generally don't. The case has bumpers in the corners, and though it isn’t truly rugged, it’s certainly protective. (The plastic Fire HD 10 tablet isn’t that fragile, anyway.)

The case's battery, which powers its Bluetooth connection, charges by USB-C. A full charge lasts at least a week of normal use. The case can't be used to charge the tablet. This feels like a missed opportunity for the Fire HD 10 Plus Productivity Bundle in particular, since the Fire HD 10 Plus has wireless charging. Instead, the case blocks it from charging off a wireless dock, so you'll have to plug it in just like the base model.

The tablet’s USB-C port is left exposed by the case. Depending on what you’re doing, you might need to plug it in while using the keyboard, or you might not. In our tests, an hour’s worth of pure Microsoft Word only reduced the battery by 6%; flipping back and forth in a web browser and installing a lot of applications had an 11% impact. Our standard battery test (which you can read about in our base-model Fire HD 10 review, along with other details of hardware and software) indicated battery life of 12 hours, 48 minutes, and using the keyboard doesn't noticeably reduce it.

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The keyboard is a little undersized to match the size of the 10-inch tablet. The space between the edge of the “Q” key and the beginning of the “E” key is 13/16 inch; that gap is 1/16 inch bigger on Apple’s Magic Keyboard and 1/8 inch bigger on my Lenovo laptop. The scissor-switch keys do not in any way feel premium, but they have decent throw and don’t wobble too much. There’s a scant palm rest but no trackpad, so you'll have to frequently take your hands off the keyboard to poke at the screen.

Along with letters, numbers, and arrow keys, there’s a row of function keys that include Home, Back, brightness and media controls, and quick jumps to the file manager, the default email program, and your browser of choice. As a separate retail product, a similar Fintie keyboard gets 4.6 stars on Amazon. The whole thing isn’t bad, as cheap tablet keyboards go.

Hand in Hand With Microsoft

This bundle's other substantial addition is a yearlong subscription to Microsoft 365 Personal, which would otherwise cost $69.99. The Android Office app on the tablet can be used for free, so this is a puzzling choice. The main perks of the subscription are more OneDrive space for your files (1TB vs. 5GB) and the ability to use Office on a desktop PC or Mac, along with some other added bells and whistles.

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The basic Android Office app includes Excel, Powerpoint, and Word; you can download OneDrive, Outlook, and Teams from Amazon’s app store to complete the set.

I’ve written this whole review in Word on the Fire HD 10 Productivity, and as a single-tasking writing tablet, it's perfectly capable. Words appear without delay, and the relatively low-distraction Word interface keeps you focused on your writing. Excel spreadsheets display formulas and charts without a problem.

There’s one annoying behavior: When you split-screen Word, it doesn’t adjust the text wrapping, so lines of text will run under the edge of the smaller window. That makes it hard to read what you’re writing.

Limited Appeal

All of the Fire HD 10 models are significantly limited by Amazon’s app store, and you'll feel that the most with the Fire HD 10 Productivity. If you're using the Fire HD 10 as an entertainment device, you can find plenty to read and watch, but once you get into school or work needs, you'll run into a lot of situations where someone wants to collaborate with you in an app you can't install.

First and worst, there are no official Google apps in the store. (Our review of the Fire HD 10 explains why.) Docs and Sheets documents, Gmail, and Google Classroom all have to be used through the browser, and even that is a less fluid experience than it could be because you can’t download Chrome. And if you depend on browser bookmarks or browser-based password management, you're out of luck: Amazon's Silk browser won't sync with whatever your desktop browser is.

There are other huge gaps in app availability. Last week I wanted to figure out how to get somewhere, rent a car, and pick a hotel. So I started by trying to download Rome2Rio—nope. Maybe use a map? No mapping app on here by default. So, okay, the Avis car-rental app—nope. Then Booking.com or Expedia—nope.

Does your team stay in touch with Signal or Slack? You can't do that on here. Joining a Google Meet meeting? Use your browser. The only major communication apps are Skype and Zoom.

Yes, it’s possible to find many of these apps scraped on web sites like APKMirror.com. Others have web versions, and someone will figure out how to install Google Play on this tablet like they did with all previous Fires. (Because of the new version of Fire OS, previous instructions I found on the web don’t work.)

But none of that changes that this is a worse experience than on any standard Android or Apple tablet: less intuitive, with more annoying workarounds.

An Un-Appy Conclusion

For $219.99 (or $249.99 for the Plus version), the combination of a decent tablet, an acceptable keyboard case, some nice roomy cloud storage, and the ability to use Microsoft Office on your primary computer looks like a really good deal. But the whole thing is soured by the lousy Amazon Appstore, which repeatedly gets in the way as you try to find the apps and services you need.

Lenovo’s Chromebook Duet, our Editors' Choice for a 2-in-1 Chromebook, costs a little more right now ($257.59), but if you don’t need the Microsoft subscription, you get a lot more all around: 4GB of RAM as opposed to the Fire HD 10's 3GB, 64GB of storage as opposed to 32GB, and Google Play. If your work requires anything more than typing words into a Microsoft Word document, go with the Duet and leave this "productivity" bundle on the shelf.