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Great speakers, smart and durable design, Show Mode dock
So-so screen, bulky case for dock
Cheap tablets aren’t lucrative. You can tell because the kind you can buy at big retailers feel like an afterthought, lumped with old versions of Android, unimaginative design and the bare minimum of features. Which is why the Amazon Fire series is great. Amazon, for its own reasons, takes these things seriously, and while there are still limits to what it can achieve for £80 (£90 if you want one without ‘Special Offers’ on the home screen), the Fire HD 8 is a great little tablet.
This year’s version is just a little better thanks to the addition of the optional Show Mode dock, which effectively turns your tablet into an Echo Show when you drop it in. Considering the new Echo Show costs a whopping £220, the £110 asking price for a Fire HD 8 and a dock seems like a bit of steal, though there are a few caveats.
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A great cheap tablet
As a tablet, the Fire HD 8 has a few important strengths. One is the interface. While based on Android, Amazon gives it a serious makeover. Naturally much of this is focused around Amazon services, but it also makes a lot of sense. The "For You" tab lets you continue watching or reading whatever you were doing last, and there are tabs for books, videos, games and apps just a swipe away. It’s organised in a way normal Android tablets aren’t, and it understands how most people use tablets: for consuming things. This is reflected in the features, too, as you can expand the standard 16GB or 32GB storage with an microSD card to store videos for travelling.
On the hardware side, the stereo speakers are excellent – much better than you’d expect on an £80 tablet. And the word ‘stereo’ isn’t in name only, either. The two speakers, which reside on one of the long edges of the tablet, do an impressive job of creating stereo separation. So, when a gun goes off just off screen, it actually sounds like it did so. Dialogue comes out crisp and clear, and there’s just enough mid-range and bass to give sound a full, rounded feeling. You won’t block the speakers when you’re watching a video since you can turn the tablet so they’re firing upwards, and the volume controls respect which way round you’re holding the tablet so up is always up.
This makes the Fire 8 HD great for watching TV or YouTube videos, though the screen is good enough rather than great. Colours are somewhat muted, but this is more noticeable when browsing the colourful interface than when watching video. Ultimately, asking for a great screen as well as great speakers for less than £100 is just unrealistic. This screen does the job, and that’s just fine.
In a similar vein, while the low (by modern standards) 1,280 x 800 resolution screen is fine for video, books and web pages look a bit grainy. Again, it’s to be expected at this price point, but anyone with a modern-ish phone might feel they prefer using it for reading than the Fire HD 8. If you can’t tolerate this, the Fire HD 10 adds a higher quality screen for around £70 more.
Performance is good. Amazon’s Silk web browser seems a little sluggish, but you won’t encounter any issues playing games. You’ll get around eight to ten hours of use depending on what you do, though the fact the screen looks much better at full brightness than lower settings means you might sacrifice some battery life for the sake of better picture quality when watching video.
Read more: These are the best tablets for any budget in 2021
Good for hardcore Alexa users
The Show Mode dock is simultaneously convenient and a little clunky. The dock itself is great. It’s a surprisingly sturdy stand with a hinge for adjusting the screen angle. It charges the tablet when docked thanks to two magnetic metal contacts, which connect two corresponding contacts on the provided tablet case. It’s simple, but it works – ideal for watching TV in the kitchen, or as a bedside stand. You could purchase an extra dock to have both.
But the case lets the side down. It’s just a bit chunky, turning a svelte and lightweight tablet into something less attractive. Again, it’s hardly a critical problem, but it’s a shame to ruin an otherwise smart-looking tablet – our Canary Yellow version looks smashing – with a generic slab of black plastic. On the plus side, it protects the Fire HD 8 well and this isn’t the kind of tablet you’ll worry about dropping.
Docked or not, the Fire HD 8 is a handy Alexa device, though it’s important to remember it doesn’t have far-field microphones so it won’t hear you from further away. It’s also a little annoying if it responds to your requests when you have another Alexa device in the room, especially if you’re trying to play music. You can get around this by specifying which device to play on, but it would be nice if Alexa could work this out for itself. A reminder, if it were needed, the current smart home can often be anything but at times.
How useful the ‘Show’ elements are depends on how you use Alexa. For example, the ability to call up recipes on screen using Alexa seems like a good idea, but it feels a bit odd since normally you find a recipe and get the ingredients for that recipe, rather than just hanging around in your kitchen on a whim. But the ability to call up cameras, such as a doorbell camera, security camera or nursery camera, if you have them, is quite useful, as is seeing what track is playing. We wouldn't say you need the dock, but if any of this sounds useful to you then it's worth getting.
Verdict
With or without the new Show Mode dock, the Amazon Fire HD 8 is a great little tablet. It’s cheap enough to forgive a slightly so-so screen and does everything else well. The speakers are a particular highlight, and while the Show Mode dock is more nice-to-have than must-have, it’s a cost-conscious option for anyone invested in the Alexa ecosystem.
Price: From £79 | Check price on Amazon.co.uk
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This article was originally published by WIRED UK
