The Amazon Fire HD 8 in use Part 1

I recently purchased a 32 GB Amazon Fire HD 8 (with ads) to replace my 5-year old iPad 2 and 4-year old ASUS MemoPad HD7. Admittedly, the Amazon Fire HD 8 has quite a few obstacles that make it a product worth buying:

1. The most obvious argument against getting a Fire tablet is that its tied to Amazons ecosystem. Regardless of the quality of the product and its price, the Fire HD 8 is only recommended for users who live in countries where Amazon services such as Amazon Prime are accessible. Unfortunately, due to economic logistics, Amazon services arent equally served everywhere, despite the popularity of its enterprise arm Amazon Web Services.

Amazon has made efforts to expand its reach, but as anyone who has worked in China (cough) can tell you, having a dedicated amazon.cn web site doesnt necessarily mean you have the same benefits as the fortunate and blessed Amazon Prime users in the US. If you have unfettered access to Amazon then good for you.

2. Tablets, as a standalone product, is plumbing the depths of price points and features. Even the once indomitable Apple iPad is struggling against the tide of smartphones and phablets. Visit ASUS website and go through their catalog of nigh-indistinguishable tablets of various sizes and youll realize its hard to find any killer feature that would make a tablet a better purchase than a very good smartphone with lots of RAM and usable screen size.

An excell ent smartphone, even a mid-range device such as the Moto G4 Plus (2016) can match most tablets in the market.

Moreover, users are convinced that if you wanted a device that had a larger screen than a smartphone, you would go for a hybrid or 2-in-1 such as the Surface Pro.

 3. As many reviewers pointed out, Amazons Fire OS, despite having unique features like Alexa, doesnt have the advantage of stock Android and access to the incredibly vast catalogue of apps from Google Play. In some ways, Amazon Underground, the "free" repository of apps available for Fire OS approved by Amazon feels even smaller than Windows Phones app selections (even before Windows 10 Mobile came and provided support for universal Windows 10 apps).

Note: Anyone who has tinkered with Android can easily sideload apps, set up Google Play, customize Fire OS, use F-Droid, and magicall y transform the Fire HD 8 to a more usable device. Still, mainstream users might not want to go this route.

Why the Fire HD 8?  

As a replacement for my aged ASUS MemoPad HD7 (Android 4.x, 8 GB) and iPad 2 (iOS9, 16 GB), my requirements were simple - I needed a lightweight tablet with competent battery life and updated processor for reading .mobi and large PDFs from sites such as Archive.org and obviously read the few magazines and books I purchased from the Kindle Store. Additional functionality from Amazon apps are a bonus, but my other devices can handle entertainment outside Amazon and productivity tasks.

Note: My Moto G4 Plus can pretty much handle multimedia tasks and more casual reading (scanned 70s comic books). Moreover, I prefer to read epubs from my reliable Kobo Glo, which occasionally seems redundant, but prevents me from staring at lit screens after 10 hours at the office looking at code and tech documentation.

Continued in The Amazon Fire HD 8 in use Part 2