Amazon Fire HD 8 (newest gen) review

In a world where tech only seems to be getting more expensive, it’s refreshing to see a product that refuses to follow suit.

Now entering its 15th year, Amazon’s Fire Tablet range remains not only one of the most affordable tablets you can buy, but often tips the scales into unbelievably cheap – particularly during one of Amazon’s regular sales events.

We’ve highlighted just what great value these tablets are for years, and so it’s high time we caught up with the most recent version of the tablet family’s middle child, the Amazon Fire HD 8.

While still officially a part of the tablet’s 12th generation, it received a mild spec bump on the 2022 version – absorbing the benefits of the Fire HD 8 Plus and re-released in 2024 as the baseline tablet. But as so often is the case, there are more unwritten improvements here than meets the eye.

Price

While there was a 32GB version of the HD 8 (2024) available at launch with 3GB RAM, at the time of writing you can currently also pick it up in its 64GB variety.

The extra storage is welcome – as is the bump to 4GB RAM – particularly when it currently costs about the same as the 32GB version when you find it in stock. That’s £100 / $130 with ads, or £110 / $145 without ads (it’s currently not available in Australia).

As we mentioned though, it’s well worth keeping your eye out for sales, such as Black Friday and Amazon Prime Day, as well as flash sales that happen throughout the year, for even better prices. The 64GB HD 8 (2024) came down to around £85 / $90 during Amazon’s last Prime Day, and the 32GB was available for less than £60 / $55.

Those prices are just not what you see on any other branded tablet, and although the Fire Tablet HD 8 requires some managing of expectations, it’s really quite hard to grumble at this price.

Design

Nothing much has changed from a design perspective – there is as much plastic here as ever. That means the HD 8 is incredibly lightweight, which isn’t the best at giving an impression of quality.

Still, it somehow manages to avoid feeling fragile; you have the feeling you could chuck this in your bag without a lot of worry. Its new textured back panel also feels nice and grippy.

There’s a pretty sizeable black bezel – remember those? – around the screen, a single 5MP camera lens on the top right corner of the back panel, a centrally mounted 2MP selfie camera and buttons for power and volume on the right-hand side.

There’s also a 3.5mm jack – remember those? – on the bottom right, a microSD card for expanding the storage along the bottom edge, plus a USB-C for charging. You get a cable in the box, but as is the norm now, you’ll need your own plug.

Features

The power at the heart of the current HD 8 (2024) comes from the same 2.0 hexa-core processor as before. However, the biggest upgrade here this time around is the bump up from 2GB to 3GB of RAM for the 32GB version, and 4GB of RAM for the 64GB version.

Having tested Fire tablets for years, we know that the extra RAM is needed, and will help the HD 8 run smoother for longer. Getting 4GB RAM is a good reason to go for the 64GB version, though we’re actually testing the 32GB/3GB version here.

The performance differences between the HD 8 (2022) and HD 8 (2024) are arguably minimal initially – the load times are similar, and you can move around apps relatively smoothly on both. There’s the odd stutter on the older version that we don’t notice on the newer one when playing games through Amazon’s Luna gaming service, but it’s largely negligible.

However, it’ll be as you make this tablet your own, and add more apps that run in the background, that the extra RAM is really going to come into its own.

Cameras are about as good as they sound on paper, which isn’t particularly great considering the quality of camera you probably have on your phone. From the 5MP main camera, there’s not a lot of detail, and pictures look a bit smudgy when you zoom in on anything. Colours are a bit washed out too, and you’ll need good light to get anything passable.

Similarly, the 2MP selfie camera will do its job for video calls, but it’s very soft on detail. Ultimately, these cameras are very much built for function. They’ll do the job well enough to be usable if you need them, and for a tablet at this price, that feels fair.

If this is your first time considering a Fire tablet, it’s worth noting that it runs on Amazon’s own operating system – and it doesn’t support Google’s Play Store. That means the app selection is a little narrower than mainstream app stores, and though it has got much better over the years, there are still gaps. A big sticking point is it still pushes native Amazon productivity apps and doesn’t have access to Google apps such as Gmail or Google Docs, which you may find annoying.

The good news for anyone picking this up for movies and music is that most of the main streaming platforms are there, including Netflix, Disney+, Paramount+, Now, HBO Max and, of course, Amazon Prime Video. There’s sadly no Apple TV though.

Apple Music is missing from the audio side, too, as is Qobuz, but Tidal, Spotify, and Amazon Music are all on board.

Battery life is quoted at the same 13 hours of mixed use as the 2022 version, but at full brightness (which we tend to have this tablet on most of the time unless in a dark room), you’re going to shave a few hours off that.

Streaming from Netflix at full brightness for an hour, the HD 8 drops 11 per cent, which roughly suggests it’ll manage just under 10 hours of movies before it needs a charge.

Charging it back up is slow though – expect it to take as long as five hours to go from empty to full.

Picture

The Fire HD 8 wears its screen specs proudly in its name, serving up an 8-inch screen with a 1280 x 800 HD resolution. That gives the tablet a pixel density of 189ppi, which puts it significantly below the likes of the 8.3-inch iPad Mini at 326ppi. That tablet starts at £599, so it’s not really a fair comparison, but it gives you an idea of some of the compromises you’re making here.

The screen is also significantly less bright than something like the iPad Mini, and far more reflective too. This makes it hard to use in any kind of bright light – inside or outside. To get the best from it, you’ll want to be using it somewhere a little darker.

Considering there have been no claimed changes to the display, you might be surprised to hear that there are improvements to the way the HD 8 handles video. It’s subtle, but it is better.

For a start, the colour tone is different. Where the older tablet skews slightly green, the new one skews a little more blue. That doesn’t make it cooler though – if anything it’s the opposite. Skin tones have a touch more warmth and life to them, there’s a subtler handling of colour across the board, and there’s a squidge more fine detail in there too.

That added detail helps landscape scenes to have a more believable sense of depth and texture, and while the older tablet arguably packs a little extra punch in bright highlights, there’s more detail in those highlights in the new version.

Stepping away from the comparison and simply looking at it on its own, it’s really hard to grumble at what the Fire HD 8 does with video for the price. It’s a clean picture with minimal noise, decent colour handling and detail levels that are perfectly acceptable.

On a pricier tablet you might be hoping for colours with a bit more depth, deeper blacks and better contrast. The Fire HD 8 doesn’t have any HDR support either, which doesn’t help. But considering the fact you can save £500 on this versus the cheapest, most recent iPad Mini, there’s plenty to enjoy – just as long as you can handle the reflections.

Sound

The Fire HD 8 (2024) packs stereo speakers on the top edge (when you’re holding the tablet in landscape orientation). They sound almost identical to those on its predecessor, so they go pretty loud and are plenty clear enough, and since they’re at the top, they don’t get blocked by your hands when you’re watching movies and TV shows. Not all tablet manufacturers think that through.

Unsurprisingly, they’re not the bassiest speakers, so they can sound a bit thin when you push the volume in big action scenes. We would like a bit more forward projection too, though you can help create this yourself by positioning your hands behind the speakers when you’re supporting it. It makes a considerable difference.

Still, the likelihood is that you’re going to use headphones with the Fire HD 8, and there’s the option of the 3.5mm jack for wired headphones, or of course there’s Bluetooth for wireless headphones.

The audio performance with headphones remained pretty consistent from its predecessor, and we’re happy with that – it’s a decent listen. It’s not completely neutral in its presentation – there’s a solid handling of bass that makes the sound a little warmer than that – but it’s never bloated or overpowering. It helps give the sound some body to ensure sharp edges are kept at bay, too, along with a fairly chunky rolling off of the treble.

If you’re listening with a critical ear, then perhaps that can make it sound a bit flat – but this is preferable to a sharp sound that’s hard to listen to.

But since we’re getting into it, yes, dynamic handling could be a little more explicit here too, and yes we’d take more fine detail retrieval. But overall there’s a good degree of clarity, drive and musicality, and it gets enough of the basics right for us to be fairly satisfied.

With movies, that slightly weightier bass helps give the sound some presence during action scenes, with dialogue remaining clean, composed and well projected against the wider soundtrack.

Verdict

If you don’t have £500+ to spend on an iPad, your choice of other good, affordable tablets is getting smaller and smaller. We can’t help but wonder if that’s because other manufacturers simply can’t match what Amazon’s Fire HD tablet line-up can offer.

For £100 (and often much less), the Fire HD 8 absolutely nails the basics when it comes to movies and music – and regularly surpasses them. This is not just a passable performance, but genuinely impressive at times, and all wrapped up in a size that’s perfect for travel.

Sure, we’d love a screen that was a bit less reflective, but when it comes to delivering great value, on a performance-per-pound basis, this tablet is bit of a no brainer.

SCORES

• Picture 5
• Sound 4
• Features 4

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