Best memory cards for Amazon Fire Tablet 2024

Amazon's Fire tablets are known for offering great value for money, but it's also true that they don't exactly come with the most premium hardware. As such, the internal storage offered by these tablets tends to be on the lower side and can get filled up easily with just a handful of apps and some media. But the good thing is that you get expandable storage with all of these tablets, so all you need is one of these best Fire tablet memory cards. Whether you want an affordable 64GB microSD card or a 1TB microSD card that can often cost more than the tablet itself, we've rounded up some of the best options available in the market.

Get these microSD cards for your Fire tablet and never run out of storage

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Expand the storage of your Amazon Fire tablet with the best memory cards

No matter which one of the best Amazon Fire Tablets you buy, you aren't going to get a whole lot of internal storage. Thankfully, these Fire tablet memory cards offer a handy way of getting all the storage you could possibly want. Our top vote goes to the SanDisk Ultra, which comes with 64GB space that should be more than enough for just about everyone. The 100MB/s means you get reliable performance, and the price is just right.

On the other hand, if you have a lot of movies and games to store, you might need something a bit more substantial. In that case, we'd recommend splurging for the SanDisk Ultra 256GB MicroSD Card. If you need even more storage, then there are good microSD card options that offer 512GB or even 1TB of storage in the list above. 

If you have the basic Amazon Fire 7 tablet and want an expansion option that's just as affordable, you can consider Kingston's Canvas Select which offers 64GB storage and even comes with a bundled SD adapter. Samsung and PNY both offer 128GB microSD cards that work great for both storage and running apps, but only get them (or one of the higher-storage options in the list) if you're genuinely sure you'll be needing that much space for your files, apps, and more.

What do those figures and numbers on microSD cards mean?

You might have noticed a lot of proclaimed read/write speeds, something called an 'A Performance' class, the alphabet 'V' accompanied by a numerical figure, and a mysterious 'U' with a number inside on many microSD cards. Here's what all those little letters and numbers really mean. Also, understanding these abbreviations will greatly help you understand storage card specifications and how relevant they are when purchasing a microSD card for your Amazon Fire tablet or Android phone with expandable storage.

  • A1 / A2 / A3: The A Performance class basically indicates the level of performance a microSD card will deliver when running applications off of it. If your microSD card lacks A1, A2, or A3, it won't be able to store and run apps. The fastest class is A3, followed by A2 which is slower, and then A1 which is the slowest rank.
  • V30 / V60 / V90: 'V' indicates the Video Speed Class of a microSD storage card. So, V30 translates into a 30MB per second write speed for Ultra HD video files. In line with that, V60 stands for 60MB/s and V90 for 90MB/s high definition video writing speeds.
  • U1 / U2 / U3: A microSD card's UHS Speed Class can be understood by looking at the 'U' printed on the card along with the number next to it. U3 is the fastest, delivering 30MB/s write speeds. Then you've got the slower U2 20MB/s and U1 10MB/s write speeds.
  • C10: Ever seen a little '10' encircled in the third letter of the English alphabet? That's the C10 logo which was previously used to depict the write speed of an SD card. It is equivalent to the U1 class of the UHS Speed Class. A C10 microSD card has a humble 10MB/s write speed.
  • microSDXC / microSDHC: You may notice that many microSD cards mention whether they fall under the microSDXC or microSDHC category. Don't feel afraid as these names are actually pretty simple to understand. Basically, a microSDHC card has between 2GB and 32GB of storage space. Meanwhile, a microSDXC card has a storage capacity of 32GB or higher, going all the way up to 2TB.

For your typical Android tablet like the Fire HD 10 Plus or the Fire HD 8, you don't require lightning-fast read/write speeds. If you plan on installing and running apps off your microSD card, make sure it has at least an A1 rating. Extremely high Video Speed Class standards are unnecessary for streaming Netflix and playing Candy Crush. Grab something with a V30 class, because you don't really need anything faster.

Lastly, a UHS Speed Class ranking of U1 is sufficient for your Fire tablet. We reiterate, running a cheap Android tablet doesn't require super quick microSD card write speeds. If you don't spot the U1 mark on your card, it'll surely be replaced by the C10 logo instead. Remember, both alphanumerical symbols represent the same 10MB/s write speed, so there's absolutely nothing to fret over.

Andrew Myrick
Senior Editor — Smartphones (North America), Chromebooks & Tablets

Andrew Myrick is a Senior Editor at Android Central. He enjoys everything to do with technology, including tablets, smartphones, and everything in between. Perhaps his favorite past-time is collecting different headphones, even if they all end up in the same drawer.