Amazon Fire HD 8 tablet, 8” HD Display, 32 GB, 30% faster processor, designed for portable entertainment, (2022 release), Black

Writing this review after having it for a while, This fire 8 tablet is exceptionally durable. Having kids who use this thing from time to time along with myself and it’s still in great shape. Battery life could be a little longer but it hasn’t gotten any worse since new. The screen is decent quality, sometimes it lags every now and then but overall pleased for the price.

This device is ideal for reading and browsing online, and the battery life is exceptional! It's easy to set up and use within minutes.

Well loved absolutely perfect! Great!

I enjoy the books, games, Internet and email. It has enough bells and whistles but I'm very disappointed the Book Store option disappeared. I'm also very disappointed my game scores didn't transfer over to my new Kindle.Note: my previous Kindle only lasted 3 years because the charging port wore out, the magnetic charger works much better.Also I must say in my opinion I like my Kindle 8 better than my husband's Kindle 7. Mine works better.

I cannot live without my Kindle. I use like a computer. I hate the times I have drag out my laptop.

Love it! I got it for the kindle reading app, but we use it for so much more. My kids use it to watch shows and play games. The battery has a long lifespan and it easily connects to our WiFi. It’s the perfect size to put in my purse and easily take with me anywhere. A great buy and a good price.

I own two PC's, an iPhone, an iPad, and a Kindle Oasis. I didn't NEED another device for reading Kindle ebooks, but the Prime Day price was irresistible, as was the price for the tri-fold case. I have been more than happy with this little tablet. It's eight inches instead of seven inches (which I would have preferred, my wife loves the one we bought for her) in size, but it includes twice the memory of the other Kindle Fire I was considering as well as a USB C charging port which the seven-inch Fire doesn't have. I've found the form factor as easy to use as the seven-inch Fire, especially with the tri-fold case, which is very similar in style and function to the original iPad cases, and also an excellent value. Weight isn’t bad either.When you purchase a Kindle Fire, PLEASE UNDERSTAND that you are NOT buying a premium Android tablet, nor are you paying anything close to what a premium Android tablet would cost. This Kindle Fire shines as an ebook reader. It offers more display options for viewing books (including multiple column options) than a Kindle PaperWhite or Oasis, more memory for storing books, and a speaker that allows you to use the “Read Aloud” feature (not quite as nice as a real audio book, but getting better all the time) without having to plug in a headset. The Kindle Fire is significantly lower in cost than a PaperWhite or Oasis (I’m not sure Oasis is still available. If it’s not I think that’s a shame.) I like to read Kindle books on the Fire using a landscape orientation with two columns. The folded tri-fold case provides a nice viewing angle.The Kindle Fire 8 inch offers a halfway decent web browser, which I use mostly to read online newspapers and complete the New York Times’ daily Wordle and Spelling Bee.The Amazon App Store (I don’t believe the Google Playstore is available for Kindle tablets) offers a decent selection of games and other apps, including a version of Microsoft 365 that actually CAN be used. There’s also a Yahtzee app that I really like, especially because the ads are so unintrusive, and a little railroad game that’s more challenging than it looks. Both of these are great for avoiding boredom when waiting for a meeting.The onscreen keyboard is reasonably responsive and easy to use. With all apps, it’s important to remember that, compared to premium Android tablets, a Kindle Fire is SLOW!!! That doesn’t bother me at all when I consider what I paid for this tablet. It’s an EXCELLENT value, in my opinion, better than I expected it to be.

TL;DRThe Kindle Fire HD 8 is a serviceable tablet if you don’t intend to use it for much outside of consuming media, primarily from Amazon’s in-house apps. If you’re interested, I recommend that you wait until they’re on sale before making the purchase.Full Review:I bought my Kindle Fire HD 8 primarily for listening to music. I use Amazon Music (Unlimited subscriber) and it has a headphone jack. Not wanting to deal with the ads from the lockscreen, I paid to have them removed. Over the past few weeks, I’ve been playing around with the device to see what it’s capable of when it comes to media consumption. Here’s what I’ve come up with! I did manage to sideload Google Play and several apps. I’ll reflect on those experiences, though any issues I had from this will not count against the device, as Google Play and the apps from it are not officially supported.Interface and Build QualityYou are pretty much stuck with their stock interface. You can’t remove ANY of the Amazon apps from the homescreen. However, you can hide them away in a folder. This cleaned things up, nicely. Toward the top of the screen, you have a static bar that shows your last 2 apps, as well as some recommended apps. They do manage to sneak a sponsored app in there from time to time. Seeing that I paid to get rid of ads, this annoyed me (though it really doesn’t impact my use.) I actually like typing on this more than I do my Samsung Galaxy Tab S6 Lite or my Samsung S22 phone, which surprised me. One would think they’d make sure their own apps are working on their own devices at least as well as the apps work on their competitors devices.The tablet itself feels kinda cheap, but not as cheap as I expected. The screen’s glass isn’t as smooth as my Samsung devices, but it’s quite functional. You can tell there’s not much power under the hood, as apps take a few seconds to load, and there’s sometimes interface lag when interacting with them. The onboard speakers suck, but I don’t use them. Headphones are the way to go… and since it has a headphone jack, I’m all set. The display is plenty for what I use it for.SupportI’ve reached out to Amazon a few times to ask questions, or to get help. They’ve been incredibly responsive. The reps have always been courteous and informative. High marks here!Audio and Video QualityMusic sounds great through my Audio Technica ATH-M50x headphones, especially HD and Ultra HD from Amazon Music. Strangely, the app does not have an EQ option (I can adjust the EQ on my Windows PC and on my other Android devices.) It supports my Fosi Audio DS1 with no problems. This improves the sound a bit (mostly making things a bit louder.) It did not power up my Fosi Audio K5 Pro, however. Unfortunately, the Kindle Fire HD 8 did not support my Bluetooth Audio Technica ATH-SR50BT’s, which was a disappointment. On the flipside, I was able to sideload 4Stream and the Andover Songbird app to get it to stream HD audio to my Denon D-M41, which was a pleasant surprise.I took some time to watch some streaming video via Prime Video, Netflix and YouTube (sideloaded via Google Play.) Even though it’s not a true “HD” display, the screen is small enough to make it not matter so much. Lord of the Rings - Fellowship of the Rings probably benefited from this, as the movie didn’t age well in our HD world. The audio on it was also quite engaging through my headphones. Ash vs the Evil Dead on Netflix also streamed flawlessly, and looked great on the screen. YouTube videos play just fine as well, even though the app was sideloaded.As an eReaderThe Kindle Fire HD 8 works great as an eReader, as one would expect. Since I don’t plan to read much from it, I didn’t explore it much. Books loaded just fine, and you can interact with them as you’d expect (the Kindle is pretty robust for this, for those who’re interested.)Non-media ConsumptionI tried getting Discord to work on the Fire HD 8. While I was able to install it, the experience was pretty terrible. Browsing the internet with the Silk browser leaves some to be desired, and the mail/calendar apps are not something I’m interested in using. Again, I’m using this primarily for music, so I’m fine with this. However, if I needed to use it for anything productive, I’d be quite frustrated.Google PlayInstructions on how to get Google Play installed are readily available online, and it’s easily doable within an hour’s time. I was able to install an EQ for my music, which works okay (I did have the app crash once.) The Gmail app loaded fairly well, as did Google Chrome. However, I can’t sync Chrome, as my email account was already used to activate the Kindle. There haven’t been any issues with YouTube. Dragon Quest 1 and 2 installed flawlessly and seem to work fine. However, Baldur’s Gate 1 & 2, along with other Beamdog games did not install at all (these aren’t officially supported, but folks claim it works. Not for me!) Again, none of these experiences with Google Play will count for or against my overall rating for this device. I’m simply stating them in case anyone else is interested in tinkering.Ultimately, the Kindle Fire HD 8 is okay for the money (when on sale.) It works for my purposes, but I can tell it’d leave a lot to be desired if I wanted to use it for anything more. The fact that they still advertise apps on the home screen, even after you pay to remove ads is annoying (enough to knock my rating down a star.) I do suspect that the Kindle Fire devices are probably loss-leaders, and any ads they can cram in help generate income.