Amazon released the Fire HD 8 a few months ago. This tablet is good enough to stream Prime Video content, play light games, read e-books, and listen to Audible audiobooks. However, the overall screen quality leaves something to be desired, and the speakers are not the greatest. For optional audio, you will want to use Bluetooth with wireless headphones. The tablet is available in modern colours like black, hibiscus, and emerald and features a premium textured finish.
Hardware
The Fire HD 8 2024 model features an 8” high-definition (HD) touchscreen with a resolution of 1280 x 800 and 189 PPI. The bezels are relatively thick. An accelerometer automatically switches the screen from landscape to portrait mode, and an ambient light sensor adjusts the brightness depending on the environment.
Underneath the hood is a MediaTek MT8169A Hexa-core 2.0 GHz processor, 3 GB or 4 GB of RAM and 32GB or 64GB of internal storage. There is an SD card capable of an additional 1TB of storage. There are a few cameras on this model. 2MP front snapper with 720p HD video recording and a rear 5MP with 1080p HD video recording. Built-in Bluetooth 5.2 with support for A2DP compatible stereo headphones and microphone. Surf the web, download apps, and buy Kindle books or audiobooks via Dual-band wifi. USB-C is used to charge the device or transfer data. After up to 13 hours of reading, they browse the web, watch videos, and listen to music.
The speakers in the Fire HD 8 are on par with the display—mediocre at best. Two small speakers are found on the screen’s bottom edge when the device is used horizontally. The speakers are hard to hear in a loud environment, even at full volume.
Software and Reading
The Fire HD 8 2024 edition runs Fire OS 8, based on Google Android 11. This is considered the 12th Generation Fire Tablet. Like many Amazon devices, this one has the Alexa voice assistant onboard. And you can operate it hands-free. That’s great for tablet-specific requests (play music, open Netflix, get a weather report) and for controlling any Alexa-compatible smart devices you might have. For example, you can use the Fire HD 8 to turn off a light in another room.
The main home screen comprises several Amazon apps and services. The Amazon Store, Silk Browser, Prime Video, Amazon Kids, Kindle, Amazon Music, Audible, App Store and many others. The For You section is just curated recommendations for apps and other digital content. There are a series of menu options to get recommendations based on Reading, Watching, Listening
There’s a writing assistant that promises to “proofread, polish and adjust the tone of emails, notes and more.” You’ll be able to get natural-language summaries of web pages in Amazon’s Silk browser. And you can get AI-generated wallpaper images.
The reading experience is typical of a Fire tablet, but it is Kindle for Android. You get all of the features found on the reading app, and you can change the background colour, font size, font type, margins, and line spacing. Since this is an Amazon-branded product, you can buy e-books within the app and ditto with Audible audiobooks. This is because, with Fire HD 8, Amazon has their billing system on the tablet, so you don’t have to open up a web browser and buy through that and sync your purchases like you would on a typical smartphone or iOS device.
Reading isn’t great since the screen’s resolution is only 189 PPI, whereas if you read on a modern Kindle e-reader, you get 300 PPI. So, the text looks a bit fuzzy, and some anti-aliasing issues occur. But this tablet shines with digital comics, manga, magazines and newspapers.
Wrap Up
The Fire HD 8 is a bit of a convoluted device, and I’ll explain.
It’s the 12th generation release of the Fire tablets since they abandoned the “Kindle Fire” namesake.
With that comes an endless barrage of incremental releases, varying from 7-in devices up to 11-in Max devices
This unit brings a few things new to the table, like three gigs of RAM and a hexacore processor.
Yes, a hexacore processor
Outside of that, the unit offers nothing different from its predecessor. It’s still a flat black cookie-cutter big-bezel reflective tablet with the same plastic composition as every other unit before, except with a slightly different perforated plateresque appearance on the back, even though it’s just plastic.
Alexa integrated a few generations ago, and this one also utilizes it. However, outside of that, the company’s business is as usual. For now, the new AI features feel like gimmicks instead of game-changers.
The biggest draw for this unit, and this is a big one… Is that this is about 50 bucks to buy into this with ads
That’s Insane at this level. The price point is the only saving grace of this unit.
But with that, it is a good tablet. Getting into something so economically cheap that boasts such impressive specs is not terrible; we wish they did something fun and fresh to revive the brand a little bit, but it seems it’s business as usual.
Amazon Fire HD 8 2024
$69.99
Pros
- Hexacore processor
- 3 GB of RAM
- Lots of Amazon Services
- Can buy e-books and audiobooks in the app
- Affordable
Cons
- Cameras are poor
- Android 11 is very old
- Sound is abysmal
- Interface and UI hasn’t been updated in years
- PPI is weak
Michael Kozlowski is the editor-in-chief at Good e-Reader and has written about audiobooks and e-readers for the past fifteen years. Newspapers and websites such as the CBC, CNET, Engadget, Huffington Post and the New York Times have picked up his articles. He Lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
