Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

This is just an awesome tablet! I thought the Fire 7" was pretty great, but this HD8 is sooo much better. Lets start with the obvious things. The Price- When I bought the $50 Fire 7" when it came out, I was reluctant to try the HD8 because of its price of more than double that of the 7". I thought there's no way it's more than double the tablet at more than double the price. When the updated model with more RAM came out at just $90, I thought it was worth a shot. And boy is it ever worth it! The Screen- The biggest difference between all the Fire tablets is the display. The HD8 has a beautiful display! In my opinion, for every day practical usage, it's as good as an iPad mini retina. I know, I know, it's not technically as good, but trust me, it looks awesome in person. The DPI and the resolution are more than adequate for what it is. Any higher resolution, and you have to do a cost benefit analysis. Do you really get that much better of a user experience with something like an iPad with the higher DPI? The size is spot on too. Any bigger and it starts to feel big...and heavy...like my iPad Air. Yes I have two iPads with Retina displays. The HD8 is now my go-to tablet and I'm not missing out on anything. The Fire 7" display is just a tad on the small side. I found myself holding it close to my face and pinch zooming a lot to see detail and small print. The HD8 totally solves that problem. Now for the less obvious stuff. The Feel- This HD8 is to me the perfect size. It's about the size you'd want a book to be for reading. You can pick it up and hold it with one hand easily and comfortably for long periods of time because it's so light. The texture of the plastic on the back is very nice in the hand, and it doesn't get dirty or smudgy. I can pick up this tablet with one hand and use my thumb to scroll for reading blogs or browsing. It actually feels lighter than the 7" because you get so much more tablet in your hand for nearly the same exact weight. The Sound- Watching a movie with headphones is really amazing. The sound processing in this thing is great. The stereo speakers have a real kick too! The Battery- Like any tablet or mobile device, if you do a lot of gaming or video it will put a strain on the battery. However, if you're like me and you do a few hours a day of browsing, a little gaming, some YouTube, and checking social media, you'll get a good 2-3 days out of this thing. Yes 2-3 DAYS! Plus it charges surprisingly quickly with the included 5W charger. And thank the gods!! Amazon included a much longer micro USB with the HD8 than with the Fire 7". It's actually useful. The Fire OS- I like the Fire OS. If you read anything on any forum about a Fire tablet, it seems to just be complaints about the ads and all the Amazon-ish stuff on the tablet. You know what? I like it! The ads don't bother me. I mean really...they're only on the lock screen. They don't get in the way, and how much time do you really spend staring at the lock screen? I also like the integration of the Amazon services. I use a lot of them quite frequently. Video, music, books etc. I really like the second screen feature where you can opt to play the movie or show on the Fire TV and control playback as well as having all of the X-Ray info available. So if you want a basic Android tablet, go buy one. Don't buy a Fire and complain that it has Amazon stuff on it. For me this tablet is an extremely good value! iPads are beautiful things, and they seem to just work really well all the time. But they are so expensive! The only way to get a cheap one is to get an old one. Same thing with Android tablets. The nice Samsung tablets are expensive. You can get a cheap Android tablet, but then you're left with a cheap tablet...poor quality displays, questionable hardware, limited support. I think Amazon hit the spot with their line of Fire Tablets - this HD8 in particular. It's good quality, has a great display, it's quick and snappy, has great battery life and looks great in blue ;) Also being an Android based operating system, there is flexibility like accessing storage, side loading third party apps, even installing Google Play (for those who begrudge the lack of that feature, it can be done). Much more flexibility than you get with an Apple product, at a much lower price than the industry standard Samsung etc. Coming from using Apple products for so long, this thing is really convincing me that there are really viable options other than Apple, and especially for the price, its a great introduction to a different platform. Not only that, it's genuinely a good product!