All-New Fire HD 8 Tablet

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(4304 customer reviews)

• All-new Fire HD 8, now with up to 12 hours of battery life, 2X the storage, and 50% more RAM for faster performance - made for all day entertainment
• Stunning 8" HD display (189 ppi / 1280 x 800), a fast 1.3 GHz quad-core processor, stereo speakers with Dolby Audio, and rear and front-facing cameras. Available in four colors.
• Now with Alexa, a cloud-based voice service that provides quick access to the entertainment you want, including music, games, audiobooks, and more. Ask questions, shop, find news, weather, and more - just press the home button and ask. (Coming soon)
• Amazon Underground, a one-of-a-kind app store experience where over 2,000 apps, games and even in-app items are 100% free - including extra lives, unlocked levels, unlimited add-on packs and more
• Enjoy millions of movies, TV shows, songs, Kindle e-books, apps and games - including Netflix, Facebook, HBO, Pandora and more
• Prime members can choose from thousands of Prime movies and TV episodes to download for offline viewing - at no additional cost
• 16 or 32 GB of internal storage. Free unlimited cloud storage for all Amazon content and photos taken with Fire devices. Add a microSD card for up to 200 GB of additional storage.

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Product Description

All-new Fire HD 8, now with up to 12 hours of battery life, 2X the storage and 50% more RAM for faster performance – made for all day entertainment.

Engineered by Amazon

Fast and responsive

Enjoy your entertainment with a fast 1.3 GHz quad-core processor. Fire HD 8 now delivers faster performance thanks to a 50% increase in RAM over the previous model.

Beautiful HD display

Fire HD 8 features a widescreen 1280 x 800 high-definition display with over a million pixels (189 ppi) and a bright, vivid picture.

No more worrying about storage space

Now with 2X more internal storage, Fire HD 8 comes standard with 16 GB. Expand your tablet’s storage by up to 200 GB using a microSD card, and keep photos, movies, and compatible games and apps with you.

Power when you need it

Now with up to 12 hours of mixed-use battery life, Fire HD 8 gives you the flexibility to go where the day takes you.

Capture life's moments

Fire HD 8 features a 2 MP rear-facing camera for taking photos or shooting 720p video. The front-facing VGA camera is perfect for Skype calls with friends and family.

Stands up to everyday life

Amazon engineers Fire tablets to hold up against everyday life. As measured in tumble tests, Fire HD 8 is 2X more durable than iPad Mini 4 (and costs a lot less too).

Designed for Entertainment

Read

Choose from millions of Kindle e-book and magazine titles. Connect with the largest online community of book lovers on Goodreads. Discover over a million titles with a Kindle Unlimited subscription. Also, listen to your favorite books with Audible.

Watch

Enjoy all your favorite movies and TV shows on Amazon Video, Netflix, HBO NOW, and more. Discover hundreds of thousands of TV episodes and movies, plus fling Amazon Video content to your TV using Second Screen.

Play

Over 300,000 apps including favorites like Facebook, Twitter, and Spotify. Plus Amazon Underground, a one-of-a-kind app store experience where over 2,000 apps, games, and even in-app items are 100% free. Play great titles like Frozen Free Fall, Angry Birds Slingshot Stella, and Sonic Dash from developers like Disney, Gameloft, Rovio Entertainment, and more.

Meet Alexa - coming soon

Alexa comes to Fire Tablets

Alexa provides quick access to the entertainment you want, including music, games, audiobooks, and more. You can also ask Alexa questions, check your calendar, get news, find sports scores, and even control your smart home. All you have to do is press and ask. Alexa will be available via a free over-the-air software update in the coming months.

One Press. Millions of Possibilities.

When connected to Wi-Fi simply press the home button for 2 seconds then ask. Alexa will respond to you and will even show visual responses to certain questions.

Everyday tasks made easier

Alexa on Fire tablets helps make the everyday easier. Just press and ask to set alarms and timers, check traffic, your calendar, to-do or shopping lists, and more.

Be Entertained

Whether you’re looking for your favorite playlist on Spotify or need a quick joke, you can ask Alexa.  Just press and ask for a song, artist or genre, and stream directly over Wi-Fi.  Alexa also provides voice control for Pandora, Spotify, TuneIn, IHeartRadio, and more.

Stay Informed

Now you can ask Alexa a question and get an immediate voice response. When you press and ask, Alexa can pull up your flash briefing, Wikipedia articles, news, sports scores, and more.

Control your smart home

Alexa works with devices such as lights, switches, thermostats, and more from WeMo, Philips Hue, SmartThings, Insteon, Nest, ecobee, and Wink. Switch on the lamp before getting out of bed, turn on the fan or change the temperature on your thermostat while reading in your favorite chair, or dim the lights from the couch to watch a movie—all voice controlled from your tablet.

Fire OS

Fire OS 5.4 - coming soon

In addition to Alexa, our next Fire OS update will also allow you to quickly access great game play directly from the Games tab with Twitch, the world’s leading social video platform and community for gamers. Fire tablet owners will also have easy access to over 65,000 recommendations from ComiXology, which provides an unrivaled library of comic books, graphic novels, manga and more.

Find the things you love easier

Fire OS is the best entertainment experience on a tablet with quick access to the things you do most. The home screen includes dedicated content pages for books, games, and apps, video, music, audiobooks, and Newsstand, making it quick to pick up right where you left off. Powered by Amazon’s recommendations engine, you can quickly browse books, movies, TV shows, music, apps, and games suggested just for you.

Apps that are actually free with Amazon Underground

Fire tablet owners have access to a one-of-a-kind app store experience where over 2,000 apps, games, and even in-app items are 100% free. Experience titles from top developers including Disney, Rovio Entertainment, Gameloft, Zeptolab, and Sega of America without ever having to pay for the app or in-app purchases.

Share content with Family Library

Family Library links your Amazon account to that of your spouse or partner so you can easily share apps, games, audiobooks, and books, and it now allows Prime members to share their Prime Video content. Access your family's content across devices—both Amazon devices and free Amazon apps for other platforms, including iOS and Android.

No more waiting

With ASAP (Advanced Streaming and Prediction), Amazon movies and TV episodes are ready for you to watch instantly. ASAP dynamically adapts to your viewing habits.
On Deck automatically downloads Prime Video (for Prime members) and the first episodes of Amazon Original Series while your device isn’t in use, ensuring that there is always something new to enjoy instantly, even when offline.

Integrated on-device tech support

Screen Sharing brings Mayday-powered customer service to Fire tablets. Simply call customer service and Amazon experts can connect to your Fire tablet to co-pilot through features by drawing on your screen, walking you through how to do something yourself, or doing it for you—whatever works best.

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #12 in Amazon Tablets
• Size: 16 GB
• Color: Blue
• Brand: Amazon
• Model: PR53DC
• Released on: 2016-09-20
• Dimensions: .40" h x 5.00" w x 8.40" l, .75 pounds
• Display size: 8

Features

• All-New Fire HD 8, now with up to 12 hours of battery life, 2X the storage, and 50% more RAM for faster performance - made for all day entertainment
• Stunning 8" HD display (189 ppi / 1280 x 800), a fast 1.3 GHz quad-core processor, stereo speakers with Dolby Audio, and rear and front-facing cameras. Available in four colors.
• Coming soon: Alexa, a cloud-based voice service that provides quick access to the entertainment you want, including music, games, audiobooks, and more. Ask questions, shop, find news, weather, and more - just press the home button and ask.
• Amazon Underground, a one-of-a-kind app store experience where thousands of apps, games and even in-app items are 100% free - including extra lives, unlocked levels, unlimited add-on packs and more
• Enjoy millions of movies, TV shows, songs, Kindle e-books, apps and games - including Netflix, Facebook, HBO, Pandora and more
• Prime members get unlimited access to over a thousand books and magazines, more than a million songs, and thousands of movies and TV episodes - at no additional cost.
• 16 or 32 GB of internal storage. Free unlimited cloud storage for all Amazon content and photos taken with Fire devices. Add a microSD card for up to 200 GB of additional storage.

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Customer Reviews

Most helpful customer reviews
The new HD 8 differs from the old version as follows:

BEST NEW FEATURE:
The price has been reduced! The 16 GB version of the old device cost $169.99 with special offers (ads). The new 16 GB version costs 89.99 and you can get a 32 HB version for $30 more.

SECRETLY REMOVED:
Amazon has removed the ability to mirror your display on Miracast devices such as TVs. Now that feature is now only available on generation 4 and 5 Fires including last years HD 8. However, you can still cast Prime videos to a FireTV or Fire Stick.

WHAT COMES IN THE BOX:
The HD8 Fire, a short 3-foot USB cord and a power adapter so you can charge and use the device right out of the box.

SIZE:
The new HD8 is a fraction thicker than the 2015 HD8. Leather cases for the old HD 8 will fit the new HD 8 but hard shell cases will not. However the auto wake feature of some older cases won't work.

One complaint I had about the earlier versions was that the back was very slick and slippery to hold without a case. The new version is finely matted or textured so it is much easier to hold without dropping it and is no longer a fingerprint magnet on the back.

DISPLAY:
The resolution of the screen is the same 1280 x 800. However, the new HD 8 seems to have darker blacks with more contrast when compared to the older version. The display is nice and bright but still barely readable in bright sunlight. Amazon has added adaptive brightness to the new 2016 HD 8. When enabled, the brightness of the display changes depending on the level of light in the room. Practically speaking, this is only useful indoors when adjusting for night time reading because it is difficult to see the display in bright outdoor sunshine.

I do like that you can choose your own wallpaper! It comes with 9 stock images and if you don't like one of them, you can choose your own image in your Amazon Photos folder.

PROCESSOR:
Both the new and old HD8 use a System on chip (SoC) platform where the CPU, GPU and Bluetooth are integrated on one chip platform. The new HD 8 has a faster MediaTek MT8163V/B 64-bit quad-core processor advertised as running at 1.3Ghz. Tests show that this processor operates with a CPU frequency of 1300 MHz max and 600 MHz min.

The old processor was a MediaTek MT8135 32-bit processor which was advertised as having one quad-core processor operating at 1.5GHz. Tests reveal that operating speeds were 1200 MHz max and 364 MHz min frequencies.

The GPU (graphics processing unit) on the new HD8 is an ARM Mali-T720 versus the older PowerVRg6200. Overall, the newer chip operates faster than the old chip.

BLUETOOTH:
Bluetooth version has been upgraded from 4.0 LE to 4.1 LE.

STORAGE:
The HD8 is now available with 16 GB and 32GB instead of 8 GB and 16 GB and Amazon still has a slot where you can insert a microSD card. The 2016 HD 8 accepts a MicroSD card up to 200 GB instead of the maximum 128 GB on the 2015 HD 8.

I recommend purchasing the 32GB version instead of ordering the 16 GB and adding an SD card. You will probably not need an additional card with the 32 GB version, but if you find that you are running short of space, you can always add one later. If you do add an external card, I do not recommend installing apps on an auxiliary card for several reasons. 1) Some apps WON’T install on auxiliary cards and those that do, use space on the internal drive as well as the microSD card. 2) the Fire apps seem to run faster on the internal drive. 3) If your SDcard goes bad, you are going to have devote some time reinstalling all your apps and resetting your settings.

RAM MEMORY:
More importantly, the new device has 1.5 GB of RAM versus 1.0 GB. Because of these upgrades, the new HD 8 is much snappier than the old version.

WEIGHT:
It is heavier: 12.0 ounces vs 11.0 ounces thanks to the larger battery

BATTERY LIFE:
The battery life is a big improvement. The new battery has been sized up to 4,750 mAh from the previous version which had a 3,210 mAh battery. The older model was rated at 8 hours but the new model is rated at 12 hours of mixed use. My biggest criticism of the old version was the battery which ran down very rapidly. I just kept the thing plugged in all the time because I could only use it for about 5 hours, not 8 hours, without being plugged in. The new version is definitely improved and it seems to last about 50% longer than the old one. Your own results may vary from mine depending on use.

WIFI CONNECTIVITY:
Sadly, Amazon installs a single antenna and has removed the 802.11ac wireless protocol from the new HD 8. What does this mean? In a nutshell, speed.

802.11 ac WiFi is much faster, but its peak speeds are not really the selling point. Its speeds at long range are. The AC protocol factors in “beamforming.” Beamforming is a “smart signal” which detects where connected devices are and increases signal strength specifically in their direction. So the performance as well as higher speed of 802.11ac are maintained far better at long range. Speed is not a factor for really short actions such as downloading books but if you plan on downloading movie videos, plan on taking a long lunch break.

When testing both my old and new HD8 devices from a far corner of my house, the new 2016 HD 8 connected at 65 Mbps but the old 2015 connected at 433 Mbps.

As you can see, the results show how much faster 802.11ac operates.

CAMERA:
The new HD 8 has been reduced to the same camera specs as the basic Fire. The camera quality is not as good on the new HD 8 as the old HD 8. Instead of maintaining a 720 HD front-facing camera with a 5 MP rear-facing camera with 1080p HD video recording, the new HD 8 comes with a VGA front-facing camera with a 2 MP rear-facing camera with 720p HD video recording. The quality of the new camera is obviously inferior and it shows when taking pictures. The image inferiority is really obvious when used in indoor settings. There is no flash so the pictures often come out very grainy when used indoors.

SOUND:
This is where the HD 8 shines. Amazon includes Dolby Atmos and dual stereo speakers. The HD 8 has one of the best sounds, both in quality and loudness, as any tablet I own.

UPDATE October 14, 2016. I need to clarify my comment about the sound. The speakers are terrible on all the Fires, including this one. This has become so second nature to me that I always use headphones, bluetooth speakers and occasionally even pair up my device to my Amazon Echo. When connected to an alternate speaker device, the sound quality is excellent.

The volume buttons are placed along the top of the HD 8 along with the power button, the headphone jack and the power receptacle. So all the buttons you would touch are on top. No buttons are on the sides or bottom.

The nice feature of the volume buttons is that they are “sensitive” to the orientation of the tablet. So if you are watching a movie in landscape mode with the volume buttons on the left, the upper button increases volume and the lower button decreases sound. If you flip the tablet 180 degrees so that the buttons are now on the right, most devices will use the same buttons for volume but in order to increase volume, the button you will need to press is now the LOWER button. The Fire HD 8 is smart enough to reverse the functions so that the upper button still increases the volume.

Atmos is a surround sound technology, developed in 2012, that expands upon the current 5.1 and 7.1 set-ups. With Atmos, each speaker has its own feed, enabling new front, surround and ceiling-mounted height channels. I was watching a movie with cheap headphones and thought I heard helicopters fly by my house. It took me a minute to realize that the sound was from the helicopters in the movie. It really sounded like they were coming from the left and moving to the right OVERHEAD. Wow, I was impressed!! (Note: I used Bluetooth headphones to test the Atmos quality of the sound.)

GPS:
The new 2016 HD 8 location services are only WiFi-based. Some older Fires such as the HDX 7 and the HDX 8.9 also included GPS and a-GPS. Assisted GPS (a-GPS) significantly improved startup performance of a GPS satellite-based positioning system.

What this means is that location services in the new HD 8 really does not exist because there is no GPS location service utilizing satellites. Instead, the device approximates your location based on your WiFi IP address. When WiFi is turned off or not available, apps that utilize location services such as mapping apps do not work. This is a real bummer because I use my older devices in the car while traveling with downloaded maps and would like to replace them with the HD 8. The older Fires work so much better than my phone because of the larger screen size. This was a feature I really miss in the current Fires. I could connect to my car Bluetooth to listen to music and Audible books and receive driving instructions at the same time. I could also set my HERE map app to let me know when I was driving over the speed limit to ensure that my foot didn’t become a little too heavy.

CURRENT OS:
2016 HD 8 is Fire OS 5.3 based on Android 5.1.1, API level 22. 2015 HD8 is based on Android 5.1, API level 22. Effectively, the settings menus are slightly different.

FINAL IMPRESSIONS:
I like the new HD 8. It is a good basic tablet for those who love the Amazon experience. Even though it has some features that have been degraded, overall it is a snappier and brighter tablet at a very reasonable price. I cannot evaluate the Alexa enhancement nor On Deck for Prime members feature as they have not been released for any Amazon Fire yet.

The 8-inch size seems a good balance for those who want only one device. It is slightly larger than the basic Fire but not so cumbersome as the HD 10. If you only want one Amazon tablet, I would recommend this one, especially if you are an avid Amazon prime customer. If you have the older HDX 7 or the 2014 HD 7, it is probably not worth the upgrade unless you are running out of storage space.

If you want a device to read books, I recommend that you get the Paperwhite or the Voyage. They can be read ANYWHERE, even in bright sunlight, have incredible battery life and have a few features specific to reading that are not available on the Fires.
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