We encountered a good deal of lag when using the Fire HD 8 for just about any and every task. The base storage is still only 16GB, but there is a 32GB model as well (and a MicroSD card slot for up to 400GB more if needed). There’s a 1.3 GHz Mediatek quad-core processor, along with the same 1.5 GB of RAM. The hardware in this year’s Fire HD 8 is nearly identical to the models Amazon released in 20. Performance can be frustrating, but battery life is great We should be clear though - it’s difficult to find another tablet in this price range, and if your budget is under $100, you’ll be satisfied with what you see here. The colors aren’t punchy and are a little muted, but on a more positive note, the screen did get bright enough to see in direct sunlight outdoors. It also has poor viewing angles, so you’ll need to look at the tablet directly to be able to see everything clearly. While Amazon bills the display as “crisp,” it’s anything but: Text on the home page looks fine, but you’ll notice pixels in many other scenarios, from the fuzzy text in books to low resolution movies in Prime Video. The Fire HD 8 maintains the same 1,280 x 800 resolution for its LCD screen. It will hardly fill a quiet room, so don’t expect them to replace your Bluetooth speakers. While they don’t pack a lot of bass and they can sound a little tinny, they’re sufficiently loud when the tablet is directly in front of you. The left side of the Fire HD 8 is home to stereo speakers that support Dolby Atmos. Most Android phones have a Type-C charging port, and it would make things simpler if you didn’t need an extra charger. If you don't use those services, that might become annoying over time.Īt the starting price of $80, the new Fire HD 8 is firmly in the "good enough" category, and that's all most people want from a seven-inch tablet.We’d have really liked to see USB Type-C implemented here.Ĭonsidering the tablet is $80 this isn’t much of an issue, but we’d have really liked to see USB Type-C implemented here. Even if you pay extra for the Fire HD 8 without ads (or pay Amazon later to remove them), the home screen still has tabs for Kindle books, Prime Video, and Audible downloads. It's better than it used to be, but every aspect of the system is still an advertisement for Amazon products. There are also plenty of cases and screen protectors already available, which you can't say for most of the white-label Android tablets in this price range. It handles media playback, games, and web browsing without a problem, and the USB Type-C port is a nice upgrade from previous Fire HD 8 tablets. The new Fire HD 8 isn't a hardware powerhouse, but for $90, there's not a whole lot missing that you could reasonably expect at this price point. Should you buy it? Rating 8/10 Amazon Fire HD 8 (10th Gen, 2020) I also installed the F-Droid app store, so I could download a few of my favorite open-source apps that weren't available on Amazon's store. If you want to check if certain apps are available on the Fire HD 8 before buying it, have a look through the Appstore website. The general selection is more limited than the Play Store, but most of the major media streaming platforms and communication tools are available, and there of course a lot of games. Unlike most Android devices, you get the Amazon Appstore for downloading apps and games, instead of the Google Play Store. There is some missing functionality - the custom DNS setting introduced in Pie isn't available, and Amazon's home screen launcher doesn't seem to support app shortcuts - but most of the functionality that doesn't directly rely on Google services is present. That's a nice upgrade from the Android 7.1-based system on the previous Fire HD 8 tablet, since it includes better battery life (due to more background restrictions), support for notification channels, more explicit permissions for apps, and Picture-in-Picture support for video. This tablet comes with Fire OS 7 out of the box, which is based on Android 9 Pie.
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