Hard to beat on price

Android-based tablets come in all shapes, sizes, and price ranges. Thankfully, there are tons of options in the under $ 150 range, which means you can get a decent piece of hardware for very little money. Amazon is perhaps the largest supplier of cheap slates included in the Amazon Fire tablet line, which includes the Amazon Fire HD 8 Plus. If you want to go cheap or give something to your kids, start here.

Continue reading: The best cheap Android tablets

What you need to know about the Amazon Fire HD 8 Plus

• Amazon Fire HD 8 Plus (32 GB with ads): $ 109.99 / £ 89 / € 119
• Amazon Fire HD 8 Plus (32 GB without ads): $ 124.99 / £ 109 / € 139
• Amazon Fire HD 8 Plus (64 GB with ads): $ 139.99 / £ 139 / € 149
• Amazon Fire HD 8 Plus (64 GB without ads): $ 154.99 / £ 149 / € 164

Amazon sells the Fire HD 8 Plus online along with its tablet family. However, you can also pick it up at your local Best Buy or Target store in the US. The Fire HD 8 Plus comes second in the list. It is only being replaced by the Fire HD 10, which has a larger display with a higher resolution. There’s also the Fire HD 8 (less RAM, no wireless charging) and the Fire 7 (smaller form factor, lower resolution screen).

What about the variants? The Fire HD 8 Plus is available in two configurations – 32GB and 64GB – with $ 30 separating the two. Then there are advertisements. You can save $ 15 by serving ads for Amazon and other services. The ads appear on the lock screen as well as on the home screen in a shuffling carousel. Whether or not you want to get into ads is up to you, but I would spend the extra $ 15 to get the ad-free version.

The Amazon Fire HD 8 Plus is only available in black.

What is good?

Amazon did a commendable job with the basic form factor of the Fire 8 HD Plus. Thanks to the 8-inch display, the tablet is compact and extremely portable. It’s small enough for lots of purses and slings. In addition, it offers user-friendly features such as a microSD card slot (up to 1TB) and a headphone jack. Stereo speakers are on the left (or at the top in landscape orientation). They produce a solid sound. The chassis itself is made of plastic, which means it’s kid-friendly.

It’s great to have Amazon Alexa integrated. With voice recognition and Alexa, you have full access to all voice commands and functions of the Amazon assistant. Also, you can put the tablet in display mode so you can see Alexa’s answers to questions about the weather, etc.

A lot of content is available. If you’re an Amazon Prime subscriber, you get free access to some Prime video, audio, and book content. You can always add more through apps like Netflix, Disney Plus, and Spotify. These of course require separate subscriptions.

The battery life is excellent at 12 hours. I just wish it would take less than four hours to charge the thing.

What’s not so good?

The ad is average at best. At 1,280 x 800 pixels, it may deserve the nickname “HD”, but it is a far cry from Full HD. The resolution makes for a disappointing pixel density of 189ppi. To the eye it looks low resolution which is a shame. It’s acceptable for watching movies and TV shows, but some may find that the resolution isn’t sharp enough for reading.

The performance is sluggish. The 2.0 GHz quad-core MediaTek processor with 3 GB of RAM is simply not up to the task. Every experience is choppy and slow. This is the main disadvantage of using the tablet. You’ll see stuttering menus, slow screen transitions, and frustrating performance across the board. It’s time Amazon took performance seriously and provided customers with a better experience, although we understand that it could increase the price.

The performance is sluggish. Every experience is choppy and slow. This is the main disadvantage of using the tablet.

No normal Android runs on the Amazon Fire HD 8 Plus. The user interface of the tablet or Fire OS is heavily adapted by Amazon in order to emphasize its own content. The homescreen experience has three main pages that can be accessed by scrolling left and right. At least you have access to regular Android apps via the Amazon Appstore.

The cameras are also very bad. You can find 2MP cameras on the front and back, but neither are good. The user-centric version is barely enough for video chats that are terribly grainy and dark.

Amazon Fire HD 8 Plus Review: Should I Buy It?

The Amazon Fire HD 8 Plus marks an entry into the world of Android tablets. It covers the basics in terms of features, but is limited by the insufficient hardware required to achieve the low price tag.

The Amazon Fire HD 8 Plus is hard to beat in terms of price.

Amazon’s pricing is perhaps the most adorable feature of the Fire HD 8 Plus. With a startup cost of just $ 109.99, it’s hard to beat. You can boot up the memory and choose between an ad-supported or non-ad-supported experience. I think the ad-free 32GB model is the best option. You save the hassle of ads and can spend the $ 30 upgrade fee for the 64GB model for a much larger capacity microSD card (or case) for the tablet.

If you’re looking for a more traditional Android tablet or something less Amazon-based, then you should check out a few other options on our list of the Best Cheap Tablets to Buy.