Buying a cheap tablet is no easy task, but here we bring you this analysis of The Amazon Fire HD 8, one of the most interesting models that you can have thanks to an 8″ screen» IPS with HD resolution, a 4-core processor with 1.5 GB of RAM, and a large capacity battery.
A tablet for everyone
With an offer limited to only two models, the great trick that Amazon tablets have always played has been in their excellent value for money. And is that for the price of the Amazon Fire HD 8 few tablets we can find that offer all the features that this one includes.
But succeeding in the low cost tablet niche is no easy task, and must be offered in addition to a product with good performance, guarantees of good performance and reliability. And it is this aspect that the Amazon tablet stands out, thanks to its support and logistics.
Design
We know what we have on our hands. So here we will not look for delicacies in when designing and finishing, since we will not find them. Instead, we will have a very robust tablet, although time passes, and in this section they have also sharpened the design.
It has dimensions of 214 by 128 mm, dimensions not too high for a tablet of 8″, and that together with 9.2 mm thick allows us to take this tablet with one hand. These dimensions are not too far from the Fire 7, even the Fire HD 8 is thinner, although of course, here we are talking about a tablet that we can buy at the moment for 50 euros. For something, he’s the big brother.
The matte black finish it presents is quite sober, with rounded edges that facilitate its grip, and a slightly rough surface that offers good adhesion. Another positive point we’ve seen in this review of The Amazon Fire HD 8 is the back-to-back fingerprint resistance. This is something we cannot say about the front glass, whose oleophobic protection is improveable.
The distribution of connections is unusual, although it is still functional. On the one hand we have at the top all the connections of the tablet, with the micro USB jack and the audio jack.
On this same side we also have the buttons of power and volume control, also made in plastic, but painted in a silver color, highlighting as the only elements that move away from black.
Close to all these connections we find the front camera located in the center of the top edge, while the main camera is cornered in the upper right corner, just above the Amazon logo with a glossy piano black finish.
This concentration of elements in the upper area leaves practically clean the rest of the edges, where we find on one side a lid to expand the storage capacity with a micro SD card that can reach 200 GB of memory. We don’t need any tools to remove this lid, although if some morning and patience, since there are times when it is difficult to hook it.
On the opposite side we have the outputs of the two speakers that this tablet incorporates, and that add the Dolby Audio certification, synonymous with sound quality, although we will see this in another section of this analysis of the Amazon fire HD 8.
Screen
When we turn on the Fire HD 8 we get a pleasant surprise in terms of the brightness of the screen. Something we appreciate from the first moment, with a proper content display even with the brightness set to 50%.
This brightness is endorsed by an IPS panel that gives us a good chromatic quality and that allows us to display the colors quite faithfully as long as we do not turn the screen too much, since although IPS technology allows good viewing angles, in practice the reflections produced together with a somewhat high distance from the panel to the glass produces a certain loss of color.
With a resolution of 1280 by 800 pixels, this 8-inch screen achieves a density of 189 pixels per inch, a figure that still ranks above many computers, but that on tablets starts to sound small. But finding a higher number is not something that we can easily find in models of this range, and we would have to go to much more expensive tablets.
Apart from the panel itself, the software includes some features to improve the user experience, such as Blue Shade, a blue attenuator that includes for a more comfortable reading and with less visual fatigue.
Connectivity, audio and camera
We don’t have any new elements in the connectivity section, as we have the already classic data connections and micro USB charging next to the headphone jack. In the wireless section we also have bluetooth and WiFi connection.
If we want to highlight the inclusion of a dual-band receiver for 2.4 and 5 GHz, which allows us to have better coverage. It does not include the possibility of having 4G connectivity nor do we have GPS, although if we can have location through the WiFi connection.
If we talk about audio, we are talking about one of the sections where it is most different from the competition, offering two stereo speakers with an above average quality, and at the level of much higher models.
Here we can not expect miracles, nor that we can use this tablet as a high fidelity equipment, but the quality is more than enough to be able to hear a video clearly or play a song with certain guarantees. If we connect a headset, the sound quality offered is sufficient, although we can realize that here we do not have any dedicated DACs for these needs, and the power and depth of sound looks somewhat resentful, something that happens in practically all tablets.
Tips for buying bluetooth speakers
And we will talk very quickly about the camera, because during our test of Amazon Fire HD 8 we have been able to verify that it is also not worth reviewing in too much detail a section that does not contribute much to this tablet, and whose use will be as merely anecdotal.
We are talking about a main sensor of 2 Megapixels, along with a VGA front camera with which we can make video calls. If we talk about the main camera, its main problem is the lack of sharpness.
It does not have too many speed problems when capturing or focusing, although it does not over itself. With good light conditions, you can make some decent capture, although this one will remain for the memory, nor will you use it as a wallpaper.
Software
Although Fire OS is still a very customized version of Android, the truth is that the differences with it are more than noticeable, and of the latter there is little more than the notification panel and the 3 icons of start, back and multitasking at the bottom.
What is clear is that the main focus of this tablet is to prioritize multimedia consumption. With a home page where we have the list of applications installed, you can see almost immediately that this section is not where this system wants you to put the spotlight.
Your intention is that you navigate through the dedicated menus of books, music, games and video available to the software. Navigating them is quite easy and visual, with quite large icons and thumbnails, and they offer a presentation that draws the view.
The trade-off for this visual is the use of basic system applications solely and exclusively from Amazon. Thus, we don’t have any of Google’s apps, and we can’t even install them, as the Amazon app store doesn’t include them, along with many other apps that aren’t available.