Amazon Fire HD 8 review

Amazon is trying to find the perfect mix of quality and price to capture the low-end tablet market. The updated £90 Fire HD sees the company break new ground, but you’ll need to make another decision before you buy

PRICE WHEN REVIEWED

from £89.99

AMAZON FIRE HD 8 REVIEW

For over a decade, Amazon has been the king of online shopping. Need a book with a few quid off? Amazon. Emergency fancy dress outfit? Amazon. The company has wisely decided that it should not try to compete with the best high-end tablets, but instead make affordable devices that are windows to all its best online content. The updated Amazon Fire HD 8 tries to perfect a combination of function and value, but whether or not you’ll agree it does depends on whether you are willing to invest in an Amazon Prime membership. Here’s our Amazon Fire HD 8 review.

AMAZON FIRE HD 8 REVIEW: PRICE AND WHERE TO BUY

Predictably, you can buy the new, updated Fire HD 8 direct from Amazon. It is well priced for the specs, starting at £89.99 with 16GB of storage, double the previous generation.

There’s also a 32GB option that costs £109.99. These two options display adverts on the lock screen for games, books, films and music from Amazon. If you don’t want ads (we didn’t) they will cheekily charge you £10 extra for the pleasure. Still, we think £99.99 for a 16GB tablet is a great deal.

AMAZON FIRE HD 8 REVIEW: DESIGN AND BUILD

The updated Fire HD 8 has a different design from its predecessor, which had a black bezel and glossy black back panel. The new tablet again has an 8in screen with black surrounding bezels but this time a matte plastic rear casing in four colour options: black, blue, tangerine (orange) and magenta (purple).

We’d say that the black version is preferable, simply because it does not give away the tablet’s cheapness. Our blue review sample, while not horrendous in appearance, did keep reminding us it only cost ninety quid. Then again, if you like bright colours or you’re buying for a child, the colours are quite appealing. The unit as a whole measures 214 mm x 128 mm x 9.2 mm, a form you will barely notice in a backpack or handbag.

While the plastic back is not premium in any way, the device overall is surprisingly sturdy. There’s barely any give or flex in the plastic, giving the tablet a reassuring heft. The front of the device has no physical buttons, all of which are reserved for its top edge. It needs only three; a lock/power button on the top right next to the micro-USB port and microphone, and a volume rocker on the top left next to the headphone jack.

On the rear is a 2Mp camera, while the front is a very low-res VGA lens for video calling and (very grainy) selfies.

There is also a welcome micro-SD card slot on the top right edge of the Fire HD 8 that supports up to an additional 200GB of storage – excellent to see on such an affordable device. The two speakers, one at the top and one at the bottom edge of the left edge as you hold it portrait give away the preferable landscape orientation that Amazon has in mind. It starts to give away the fact Amazon is expecting you to watch Amazon Prime videos on the Fire HD 8.

AMAZON FIRE HD 8 REVIEW: DISPLAY

A device called the Fire HD 8 obviously has an HD screen, with a resolution of 1280 x 800 and 189ppi. Also promised is HD video playback, which thankfully holds true and looks excellent. We streamed some episodes of Mr Robot using our Amazon Prime account, and the picture was razor sharp – but we had to have the screen brightness pretty much on maximum. You’ll find you’ll need to do so for most use cases on the Fire HD 8, as otherwise the screen looks quite murky.

Although video playback is HD, text and icons display slightly pixelated. This does not detract from readability, but Fire HD 8 reserves its best display capabilities for HD content direct from Amazon Prime. In our use, even streaming videos from YouTube were normally slightly grainy compared to our experience on more high-end tablets.

However, this wasn’t too noticeable and as with much of the experience of the HD 8, we were reminded that this did only cost £90 – but this ends up being a positive reflection rather than a nagging disappointment. At this price point, there is always compromise, and with the Fire HD 8 there is an acceptable level of it.

AMAZON FIRE HD 8 REVIEW: SPECS, PERFORMANCE AND FEATURES

At its heart the Fire HD 8 is a streaming device. Amazon pre-loads it with apps for Kindle, Amazon Video, Amazon Appstore, Amazon Games, Amazon Music… you get the idea. While a decent enough web browsing tool, the Fire HD 8 is intended as a portal to Amazon content. An Amazon Prime membership is therefore not just preferable; it’s pretty much essential. Without one, you’re locked into the Amazon ecosystem without the key to unlock anything.

The specs of the device reflect that it’s best used for media streaming or low-requirement games. The processor is a 1.3GHz quad-core with 1.5GB RAM – basically enough for the types of content you have access to. The tablet is generally responsive, but its quickest when dealing with Amazon’s own apps. Stray into apps like Facebook or the Silk browser and things chug a little slower.

We used the trial month of Amazon Prime that is promoted when you set up the tablet, and found that it was a breeze to boot up tons of films and TV shows, sync all of our existing Kindle books and hook it up to our (non-Amazon) email account.

AMAZON FIRE HD 8 REVIEW: SOFTWARE AND APPS

As the tablet runs Amazon’s own Fire OS, you don’t have access to the full wealth of content available to users of Apple’s iOS or Google’s Play Store. This isn’t to say that the Amazon Appstore is limited, it just takes us back to the necessity of an Amazon Prime membership should you wish to justify purchasing the Fire HD 8.

However, if you really didn’t want to buy into Prime but like the price, apps available to you from the Amazon Appstore such as Facebook, BBC iPlayer and even Sky Go or Netflix mean that you can still use the HD 8 as a basic Internet device with third party streaming services. But given the prominence of Amazon’s services in the interface and the ease at which it allows you to access them with a subscription, we’d still recommend pairing the HD 8 with Prime.

At this point it’s worth noting that Google apps are not available from the Appstore. This means it’s hard to recommend the Fire HD 8 as a work or productivity tool (although the Evernote app is available) because you can’t sync existing Google calendars, Google Drive and, importantly for casual users, YouTube. You can still access YouTube through Amazon’s Silk browser, but the browser is a bit clunky and unrefined, and highlights again that the Fire HD 8 is best when simply streaming via Amazon apps.

Nor can you download popular apps like Microsoft Word. However, if you want a tablet that allows easy streaming of your favourite TV shows with the bonus of access to social media, Skype and online banking, the HD 8 is well worth considering.

A good feature of the Fire HD 8 is Amazon’s Fire for Kids app. Should you wish to entertain your children with the tablet, you can set up a separate profile for them to use. This allows you to set parental controls, limit what content they can access and even set time limits to prevent square eyes. It cleverly time limits games and videos but leaves unlimited time for reading, helping you to encourage the right balance of learning through a tablet they might want to regularly get their hands on.

This and other features, such as a kids camera mode and a Bed Time feature which encourages routine make the Fire HD 8 a good choice for a parent who wants access to their own Prime subscription with the ability to mould their child’s use of the tablet around different, web-safe preferences.

One thing to note is that Amazon cheekily (or maddeningly, depending on your temper) doesn’t let you give your child access to specific Amazon Prime content without first signing up to Fire for Kids Unlimited. It starts from £1.99 per month, but given you already may spend £79.99 per year on Prime membership, it’s pretty annoying. It does highlight how often Amazon’s adverts and extra payment options encroach unpleasantly on the user experience.

OUR VERDICT

The Amazon Fire HD 8 ticks a lot of the right boxes. It’s affordable, well built and plays back video to an exceptionally high standard. But we’ll say it again – you need Amazon Prime to fully enjoy it. It’s not that it is a complete necessity, but the prominence in the operating system of Amazon’s own apps and services means without a Prime membership it’s a frustrating user experience. This caveat aside, it’s an incredibly priced media consumption tablet that exemplifies Amazon’s place in the low-end market – this over makes it an attractive, interestingly unique option.