If you want the best tablet, you should buy an iPad. But if you want something solid and super cheap that you wouldn’t mind breaking, the only good option is Amazon’s Fire tablets.
Amazon has refreshed its Fire HD 10 tablets and it’s an even sweeter deal than before. Not only is it now $100 less than the previous model with a starting price of $150, but it also has hands-free Alexa voice controls, which essentially turns it into a portable and supercharged Echo Show.
The new Fire HD 10 is available in three colors (black, Marine Blue, and Punch Red) and launches on Oct. 11.
Like it’s super cheap $50 Fire 7 tablet, the HD 10 is plastic and designed to be tossed around without any worry. In other words, it’s classic Amazon hardware: durable and inexpensive. For the price, you get a pretty decent tablet. The 10.1-inch screen has a 1,920 x 1,200 resolution. It’s not a bright display, but what are you really expecting for half the cost of an a 9.7-inch iPad and a fraction of the cost for a 10.5-inch iPad Pro?
The specs are mostly what you’d expect, too: 1.8GHz quad-core processor that’s 30 percent faster than the previous model, 2GB of RAM, and either 32GB or 64GB of storage. The latter will cost you an extra $40, so maybe just buy a cheap memory card instead. Battery life has also improved from 8 to 10 hours.
Anyone buying a Fire HD 10 expecting iPad performance is going to be sorely disappointed. Amazon says it tweaked the hardware for media consumption. So, reading e-books and magazines, watching videos, and playing games should typically be a breeze.
That’s why you’ll see a new “For You” screen when you swipe over from the main home screen. This new page displays all of your content neatly with completion bars on the bottom of books, magazines and video covers to show you how much you have left in an e-book or a movie.
There’s also a new “Try This Next” section that offers more tailored content recommendations based on what you’ve consumed, and it learns your interests over time.
The most exciting addition to the Fire HD 10 is the “Alexa Hands-free” mode. Amazon added Alexa to its tablets last year, but it’s now the real Alexa voice controls you know and love from the Echo. Once you’ve turned the setting on, you can start talking to Alexa on your tablet as if it were an Echo.
That’s why you’ll see a new “For You” screen when you swipe over from the main home screen. This new page displays all of your content neatly with completion bars on the bottom of books, magazines and video covers to show you how much you have left in an e-book or a movie.
There’s also a new “Try This Next” section that offers more tailored content recommendations based on what you’ve consumed, and it learns your interests over time. The most exciting addition to the Fire HD 10 is the “Alexa Hands-free” mode. Amazon added Alexa to its tablets last year, but it’s now the real Alexa voice controls you know and love from the Echo. Once you’ve turned the setting on, you can start talking to Alexa on your tablet as if it were an Echo.
Alexa’s implementation in the Fire HD 10 also works on the lock screen when the display is off. This instantly makes it more akin to an Echo Show. Of course, if you’re concerned about the always-listening microphone, you can choose to disable Alexa when the screen is locked.