Amazon Fire HD 8" (2016) Tablet

For me, the Fire HD 8 tablet with 32GB RAM is a great balance of convenience, power, and price.Already an owner of a Fire HD 6 and a Fire 7, the new 2016 Fire HD 8 is my favorite. It's running smoothly and handling all the applications I need. This past week I needed to commute by train downtown one hour each way, and I enjoyed watching Amazon Prime and Netflix videos offline that I'd downloaded to the SD card. A new feature I've been enjoying is Alexa, especially listening to my flash briefing as I brush my teeth each day. I also use it for web browsing, listening to music, playing Hearthstone and other games, and reading my Time magazine. Other apps I've installed include Facebook, Skype, Reddit is Fun, Olive Tree's Bible Study, ES File Explorer, YNAB, Any.DO, apps for 4 banks or credit cards, and Covenant Eyes.A couple of times I used this tablet to read a book I was reading on my Kindle device. Amazon knew which page I was on and I did not have to search to find my place. That's a nice feature, but to be honest I greatly prefer reading books on a Kindle; there is less glare, and it is much easier to read, especially in sunlight. Also, I have the Amazon Photo app installed on my Samsung smart phone; it was a pleasant surprise to see all my photos and videos from that phone appearing on my Fire tablet without any action from me other than signing into my Amazon account. These are a couple of ways Amazon has optimized this tablet for Prime members.Amazon has done a great job at making compromises to a tablet’s specifications to keep the cost down while still producing a tablet that is good enough for most purposes. Premium tablets such as Apple’s iPad Mini 4 or Samsung’s Galaxy Tab S2 outperform the Fire HD 8, no question; but while they cost four times as much as the Fire, their performance is not at all four times better. On the other hand, the Fire out-performs many tablets that cost much more. My own personal experience is that what the Fire 8 is capable of makes it a real bargain at the price. It runs the apps I need it to run, plays the games I want to play, and is sufficient for productivity in terms of documents, spreadsheets, presentations, e-mail, and video-conferencing. (The included Docs app is capable enough I'm considering getting a cover with keyboard for taking notes at meetings.) Note that my Fire HD 6 doesn't really run Hearthstone well at all, for example, and it runs a bit too slow for me on the Fire 7; the performance improvement on this Fire HD 8 is noticeable.Where this tablet risked losing a star is in the efforts made by Amazon to make it a platform for consuming Amazon content while steering the user away from Google. The Fire OS (based on Google’s Android OS) has no Google Play store, so only apps available on Amazon’s own store are available for download. Popular Google apps—including Gmail, Chrome, Youtube, Drive, and the like—are not offered from Amazon’s store, although they all work well enough through the Silk browser (which does allow you to set Google as your default search engine).I get why Amazon steers users away from Google in such a heavy-handed manner: the Fire tablet is a loss-leader, sold at cost to stimulate the sale of Kindle books, Amazon Prime, and videos. But I really don’t like it when companies intentionally gimp their technology products like this. Will the Fire’s attractive price outweigh your desire for the Google Play store, services, and apps? That should be your prime question when considering the Fire HD 8, in my opinion. For me, it was worth it, and that's saying a lot.It is possible to install Google’s Play store, services, and apps. Many people do. My experiences with a previous device were not entirely positive--sometimes updates don't apply as one expects, undocumented app interactions get you, or things just don't work as expected. As an Amazon Prime member wanting a Fire tablet primarily for consuming media I made the decision for myself not to modify the Fire OS. I take this tablet on its' own terms, and I like it.I do recommend you become comfortable with one or more ways to side-load apps onto your Fire tablet. Although many of the apps I want are actually available from Amazon’s app store, I want too many apps on my tablet that are not available, such as apps for depositing checks to my bank accounts, YNAB, Dropbox, and the VPN I pay a fee to use on all my devices. Sometimes an app that is available in Amazon’s app store doesn’t seem to work, while the same app from Google’s Play store does. I load these apps by side-loading them. Let me add that the Fire's Email app capably handles several of my Gmail accounts and it is not difficult to switch between them, but it has a different "look and feel" from the native Gmail app I use on my other devices. Likewise, I can access Gmail and Google Drive fine via the Silk browser.To side-load an app, the main thing that’s needed is the app’s apk file. These are often available for download online, but because I’m so suspicious of malware I tend to use the apk’s I have from the apps on my Android mobile phone that originated from Google's Play store. I use ES File Explorer (a file manager available from both Amazon’s app store and Google’s play store) to “back up” the apps in question on my phone, which provides me with a usable apk; then I transfer that to my Fire tablet via e-mail (if it’s small enough), Google Drive (remember you can access it via the Fire’s web browser), or Dropbox (once you’ve got it installed), or one can save the file to an SD card on the phone and then insert the card into the Fire tablet and run it from there. (It's not enough to have the APK on the tablet--it must be "run" to install the app.)I’ve just spent the last couple of paragraphs describing ways to live with Amazon’s decision to keep us away from the Google Play store, and considered dropping a star for that reason. But Amazon fully discloses its' "Fire OS" rather than claiming to be plain Android, and did I mention the price? (I got my 32GB Fire HD 8 for $89 on Black Friday.) Another minor annoyance that did not manage to knock off a star was the screen glare (makes it difficult to watch videos while on a train--I had to choose my seat carefully). Other compromises you should know about are the screen resolution (720p rather than today's higher-resolution choices), cameras (still good enough for Skype or depositing checks), and processor speed.My bottom line: This tablet is huge in terms of bang for your buck. On top of that, the compromises it does make don't prevent me from doing what I need to do. I'm so glad to have such a powerful and affordable tablet solution for my needs!