![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Some of the pages include Books, Video, Shop, Music, and Audible. Instead of finding all of your apps on the home screen or in an app drawer, Fire OS is separated into different pages that primarily highlight different Amazon products or services. Fire OS is set up a bit differently than the typical Android operating system to which you may be accustomed. Other than the new For You tab that directs you to recently accessed media and apps, this year’s Fire OS update doesn’t look much different than previous versions. We often ran into the issue of trying to side load apps that weren’t compatible. Amazon pushes out regular updates to its tablets, but the main issue is compatibility with newer third-party apps you may attempt to side load outside of Amazon’s App store. It’s 2018, but the latest version of Fire OS is still based on Android 5.1 Lollipop - a version of the Android operating system that was released in 2014. The front two-megapixel camera is just okay for video calling, but that’s about it. ![]() While both cameras on the Fire HD got a slight bump up to two-megapixels, photographs are still very low quality. It’s unlikely you’re buying a tablet for its camera, and if you are, you should know what to expect with an $80 piece of hardware. Disappointingly, there’s no quick charging option. Once the battery is drained, it took six hours to get a full charge, which is a little ridiculous. You can go for longer if you’re just using the tablet to read or browse the web. It’s a bit optimistic, but we had no problem getting six-and-a-half to seven hours when streaming Hulu and Netflix, with 15 percent battery life to spare. Even turning a page on a book wasn’t as fast as we’d like.Īs for the battery, Amazon claims you’ll get 10 hours per charge. It’s not unbearable, but it can be frustrating when you just want to quickly get into an app to read or watch something. Third party apps are even worse: It took nearly five seconds for the New York Times app to open, and nearly as long for Hulu and a recommended Sudoku app to load. From the Prime Video app to the Bookstore, every app takes some time to open. We encountered some amount of lag when using the Fire HD 8 for just about any and every task. 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. 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. ![]()
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