Amazon Fire HD 8 (2020) Review
Editors’ Note: There is a new version of the Fire HD 8 available. Check out the Amazon Fire HD 8 (2022 Release).
Amazon has sold its low-cost Fire tablet lineup for years now, and it isn’t shy about making it clear that it’s a way to enjoy Amazon content on the go, letting the company offer a quality product for a relatively low price. The Fire HD 8 ($89.99) is a cute, easy-to-use 8-inch tablet that works entirely within Amazon’s walled garden. For basic streaming video, picture books, kids’ games, and Zoom calls, it’s the best sub-$100 tablet available today, with a faster processor and more RAM than the 2018 model. But because Amazon restricts the Fire HD 8 to its own inadequate app store, you don’t get nearly the range of services you’ll find on other Android and Apple tablets.
Our Editors’ Choice overall for an inexpensive tablet is the bigger Fire HD 10. It has a faster processor and more RAM, giving it better performance all around, although it uses the same limited app store.
Nội Dung Chính
Features and Performance
The Fire HD 8 comes in black, blue, purple, or white. The base $89.99 model has 32GB of storage and ads on the lock screen; you can remove the ads for $15, or upgrade to 64GB of storage for $30. (All models have a microSD card slot for media storage that supports all current card capacities.) You can add wireless charging and more RAM, making the tablet a Fire HD 8 Plus, for an extra $20. There’s also a Kids’ Edition, with a rugged case, an extended warranty, and an Amazon Kids+ content subscription, for $139.99.
The plastic back panel seems relatively tough
The tablet has a tough little plastic body, at 8.0 by 5.4 by 0.4 inches (HWD) and 12.5 ounces, with a decent, but not great, 1,280-by-800, 189ppi screen. This is the first generation of Amazon tablets to charge via USB-C, although that doesn’t necessarily mean speedy charging; it just means you can charge it with the cable for your recent Android phone.
With a Mediatek MT8168A chipset running at 2GHz and 2GB of RAM, the tablet turns in unimpressive benchmark performance. It got 4448 on the PCMark Work 2.0 benchmark and 101.32 on the Basemark Web browsing benchmark, both of which can be likened to a low-end smartphone. The Fire HD 10 gets 50% faster results on web benchmarks.
Performance is a bit sluggish. The user interface is designed to work well on this tablet, but you can tell that scrolling complex pages gets a bit janky. It’s not at all an unusable experience, but it’s definitely a low-end one. Games are a mixed bag. An older action game, Asphalt 8, played smoothly, but another one, Riptide GP 2, dropped frames significantly; it functioned fine on the Fire HD 10. Kids’ games, such as the Toca Boca series, were OK.
Amazon Fire HD 8 (2020) Review
Amazon Fire HD 8 (2020) Review
The tablet has dual-band Wi-Fi, and performance is fine. On a 5GHz Wi-Fi 6 network using a 100Mbps symmetrical connection, I got around 70Mbps down and 55Mbps up, as compared with about 85Mbps down on a premium Android phone, the OnePlus 8 Pro. On the 2.4GHz band, I got 30Mbps down and 10Mbps up, with similar performance on the OnePlus 8 Pro.
Battery life is very good, at 9 hours, 25 minutes of video playback over Wi-Fi at maximum brightness, fulfilling Amazon’s promise of 12 hours with the brightness turned down a bit.
See How We Test Tablets
Amazon’s operating system is now based on Android 9, and the most recent update radically simplified its collection of home-screen tabs. Where Fire tablets used to have a launcher with types of content across the top—books, video, etc.—there are now three main tabs: For You, Home, and Library. Unlike on other tablets, you can’t add widgets or customize the interface.
Home is the app grid you expect from any Android device. Library is a stack of carousels of different kinds of content you’ve downloaded from Amazon: Kindle books, audiobooks, apps, Prime Video, Amazon Music playlists. For You is a slightly annoying algorithm-generated stack of things you’ve used recently followed by things Amazon would like you to buy based on what you’ve previously used.
In the lower left corner of the interface, there’s a little house icon. Press it and you get a device dashboard with all of your Alexa-enabled smart home gadgets and Alexa routines.
Video is one of the best uses for the Fire HD 8
A Media Marvel
On the plus side, Amazon’s interface makes it easy to select and download Amazon Prime video. The tablet’s app store also offers Netflix, Hulu, Sling, Disney+, Philo, HBO MAX, Starz, Showtime, and others. (Apple TV+ and YouTube are missing.) You can also load your media onto a microSD card and use the VLC app to play it.
Amazon’s Kids+ service locks the tablet into an age-appropriate content mode for kids under 12, with content from Disney, Nickelodeon, Sesame Workshop, and various popular toy-related video and book franchises.
The two speakers on the top of the Fire HD 8 are uncommonly rich and powerful for something this small. I wouldn’t use the tablet as a dedicated speaker, but it’s just fine for watching TV in bed or in the car, and the standard headphone jack and Bluetooth connection offer other listening options.
The tablet supports hands-free Alexa, turning it into a sort of Echo Show. You can ask Alexa to play music or videos, set timers, or walk you through recipes hands-free. That makes this a great little kitchen tablet. It costs $10 less than the Echo Show 8; the Show 8 has better sound, but you can’t throw it in your bag for the kids to use in the backseat.
The dual 2-megapixel cameras get basic video calling done, but that’s about it. Expect photos in any sort of low light to be dim and indistinct, and noise and frame rates to really drop in inadequate lighting. But that’s not a big deal for an $89 tablet. The most important takeaway is that with decent lighting, Zoom works fine, and that’s primarily what you should be using the camera here for.
The Fire HD 8 is a fine ebook reader
A Kindle Replacement?
One other reason you might be consider the Fire HD 8 is for a color ebook reader. I don’t love reading regular books on a tablet: The glowing LCDs don’t have the same restful vibe as an E Ink reader, and the batteries don’t last as long. But for children’s books, comics, magazines, and the like, you want something with color.
The 8-inch screen here works well for children’s books. Comics suffer from the low resolution; while single pages work well, two-page spreads are hard to read. Manga work better because they rarely have spreads. Magazine pages can be difficult to read if there’s small type. For a sharper view, you want to look for a tablet with 1,900-by-1,200 resolution, but they’re more expensive—the Samsung Galaxy Tab A 8.4, for instance, costs $264.
Comics are OK until you hit two-page spreads
The screen includes a blue light filtering option, so it can be more restful if you’re looking at content late in the evening.
The App Gap
The Fire HD 8’s biggest problem is how weak Amazon’s Appstore has become. The system UI prevents you from easily accessing apps purchased with any other store.
Apps are under a Games and Apps header on the home page. Tap on Your Games and Apps and you get an Appstore Library of everything you’ve ever downloaded from Amazon.
Amazon’s store lacks many apps that are in Google’s Play store or in other third-party stores like APKPure. Most importantly, there are no Google apps. There’s also no Kayak or Expedia for travel booking; no Headspace or Calm; no Marvel Comics or Marvel Unlimited; and more. It’s an impoverished app experience compared with any other Android device (and especially compared with an iPad).
The interface doesn’t look like Android at all
Amazon tries to fill the gaps left by Google services with its own multipurpose email, calendar, and contacts apps; they’re all slow but work fine.
You can sideload apps as APK files via USB or cloud services, or load the APKPure store onto the tablet. But it’s a clumsier experience than on tablets with better built-in app stores. The situation is even worse with Google apps, because Google actively doesn’t want you using them on this tablet. You can hack Google Play services onto the Fire HD 8, but it’s liable to break at any moment.
You can remove the built-in ads for $15
Conclusions
For years now, I’ve recommended Amazon’s Fire line as my favorite affordable tablets. The current Fire HD 8 continues that legacy. Don’t buy the 7-inch Fire, which has inadequate RAM; if you’re getting a small Amazon tablet, the Fire HD 8 is a much better bet. (The Fire HD 8 Plus adds wireless charging; get that one if you intend to use it primarily as an Echo Show in a dock.)
But I feel like the value equation has wobbled as Amazon’s Appstore continues to lack important apps. That means you’re going to have to make the call based on what you want to use your cheap tablet for, and it isn’t as clear as it used to be. If you’re satisfied by Amazon’s content library, plus the streaming services supported here, go for the Fire HD 8. Otherwise you’ll sacrifice some battery life, but gain considerable flexibility with Walmart’s $64 Onn. 8-inch tablet, which has the standard Google Play store.
Amazon Fire HD 8 (2020)
3.5
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Check Stock
$44.99
at Amazon
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MSRP $89.99
Pros
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Cons
The Bottom Line
Amazon’s inexpensive Fire HD 8 tablet continues to be an excellent value for the price, but its poor app store is really starting to feel limiting.
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