Yes, it was done for performance! This was obvious once you look at the tablet offerings Amazon has now, none of which are designed for anything more than consumption.
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I tried to use it as an android tablet, I was able to come up with most of the apps needed but in the end it was little things like lack of configuration that just made it useless to me. Not being able to change the keyboard and such.
Now it's only used by my daughter for content and solarium mobile.