ALL FIRED UP
There once was a time when you couldn’t go anywhere without tripping over a new device from Amazon – but the online giant has been pretty quiet this year… until now
T MIGHT be a relatively modest release from Amazon, but the three new tablets launched this week by the online shopping giant, show the company is not resting on its laurels.
It certainly is the dominant player in the low-end tablet market, and continues to refine its offerings to maintain that advantage.
So this week we have three new entries – all updates for the Fire 8 HD line. They might not be the cheapest in the line-up – that honour goes to the £49.99 bargain that is the Fire 7. Nor are they the most expensive – the Fire HD 10 at £149.99 is the top of the line. But the Fire HD 8 sits in the sweet spot right in the middle. Not lacking the power or breaking the bank.
Here’s the lowdown on the new devices hitting Amazon’s website this week.
IAMAZON FIRE HD 8
THE basic model of the HD 8 comes in at £89.99 and is better in almost every way than its predecessor.
It’s faster – 30% faster with a 2.0 GHz quad-core processor and 2GB RAM. And it has a better screen, with a resolution of 1280 x 800 across its 8ins. That’s more than a million pixels.
There’s more storage on board, too, with options for 32GB or 64GB (for £30 more), plus support for up to 1TB of storage via microSD.
The switch to USB-C for charging is also an upgrade, and could mean one less cable if your phone uses that kind of connection.
Like all Fire tablets, the 8 HD runs an Amazon-flavoured version of Android, with tight integration to Amazon services (Kindle books being the most obvious) – and the Amazon app store holds all your favourites.
Then there’s the Alexa voiceassistant – which comes as standard these days.
On top of that, of course, you can access a ton of content from many sources besides Amazon – Netflix and Disney+ are available if you plan to use the device for video.
The built-in cameras are barely usable – you won’t want to take photos with this. But they are more than adequate for video calling, which is another thing that this device is all about.
So, all in all, this is a very solid upgrade to an already fantastic device – and if your usage is more about watching, reading, playing and communicating than it is about creating stuff you’ll be onto a winner.
AMAZON FIRE HD 8 PLUS
THIS device is more or less the same as the cheaper HD 8 above – same processor, same screen, same cameras.
But it differs in three important ways – it has 3GB of RAM instead of 2GB (so faster and better for doing more than one thing at once). It’s also more expensive, at £109.99 for the 32GB model, £30 more gets you 64GB.
Its killer USP though is that it supports wireless charging, a feature Amazon has chosen to exploit in a very useful way.
Spend another £30 on either model and you can bundle your HD 8 Plus with a wireless charging dock (they’re £39.99 stand-alone).
That might not sound all that revolutionary – you’d be hard pressed to buy a mobile that doesn’t feature wireless charging these days. But in the case of this device, the dock is transformative – literally. While charging on the dock the Fire HD 8 Plus switches into Show mode – it becomes an Alexa-powered always-on smartscreen.
So for your money, you are more or less getting two devices in one.
AMAZON FIRE HD 8 KIDS EDITION
WHILE the device itself is identical to the Fire HD 8, there are some important additions to the Kids Edition to make it safer and more durable.
First there’s a protective case, which includes a kickstand. It’s ready for almost anything kids can throw at it. There’s also a kids’ mode to the software, which introduces easy-to-use parental controls to help you make sure safety online is assured.
The £139.99 price-tag also includes a year of Amazon Fire for Kids. This brings thousands of age-appropriate books, Audible books, educational apps, games, and videos to the device, including Wishenpoof, PINKFONG Baby Shark, PJ Masks: Racing Heroes, The Octonauts and Whale Shark, Pony Sisters Pet Hospital and Sonic
Dash. If you want to carry on with the subscription, it costs £1.99-a-month for Prime members, or £3.99 for everyone else.
WHAT’S THE COMPETITION?
YOU really will struggle to find devices that match Amazon’s offering in this space at this price.
The tight integration with Amazon’s services is unique to Fire, but there are a couple of options you might consider if you’re dead set against spending money with Amazon.
The Lenovo Tab E7 is perhaps the closest equivalent – costing £59.99 it can’t match the Fire HD 8 for specs, but full access to Google’s Play store makes it a very versatile and costeffective device. It runs the slimmeddown version of Android – Go, so there’s more space for apps. You’ll need that as the entry-level device has just 8GB of storage.
Spend a bit more for the
Samsung Galaxy Tab 8 (8in) – if you can find one: they are very popular – and you get an upgrade in specs, power and performance, and all that Android brings with it in a durable device at a good price.
The Galaxy Tab A costs £139.99 for the wi-fi version with 32GB of storage.
TWITTER CONTINUES ITS EVOLUTION
TWITTER continues to add options to its service as it tries to rise to the challenge of reducing the amount of abuse, fakery, and all-round irritation in the social space.
A new feature being trialled at the moment is the ability to control who is able to reply to your tweets.
With this feature enabled, you can set one of three different levels of possible interaction when you tweet.
You can set it so that anyone can reply to it (the current option and the default), limit replies to only people you follow, or only allow people mentioned in the tweet to reply.
This will make it easier to streamline conversions, and not have people joining in that you’d rather not. In short, it seems like a great way to drown out some of the noise.
If people want to start their open conversation about your tweet, they can still retweet it with a comment. Standard retweeting and liking is also possible.