Amazon Kindle Fire HD 6 review

The Amazon Fire HD 6 uses Fire OS 4 “Sangria”. This is a customised version of Android based on 4.4 KitKat. Visually, it’s a big departure from the standard Android experience and, as you might expect, there’s a heavy emphasis on Amazon’s own products and services. This push is most obvious in the lack of access to Google’s conventional Play Store. Instead, you’ll need to use Amazon’s App Store, with its far more limited choice of apps. In fact, unless you want to do much more than check email and surf the web, you’ll be frustrated. There are no standard Google apps such as Gmail, Maps, Drive or YouTube, for example, and no apps for any UK banks or Dropbox. 

The home screen is based on Fire OS’ carousel interface that displays your most recently used apps and media. You can swipe up to access a Favourites list where you can pin your most-used apps and media for quick access. Categories such as Games, Apps, Books, Music and Videos are available from tabs across the top of the screen. Under each category will be displayed content you’ve purchased from Amazon, such as your Kindle book library in the Books menu. The Video menu provides access to Amazon’s Instant Video service where you can stream movies and television shows, and is an example of how Amazon’s subscription service is tied into the OS. 

A shortcut to Amazon’s stores is never far away anywhere in the operating system and you receive recommendations based on items you already own; whether or not you opt for the Fire HD 6 without special offers, you never really escape the adverts – they’re just a bit more subtle. Still, you might find the Amazon integration useful if you’re a regular customer.   

Amazon FreeTime is Amazon’s take on parental controls, and provides a safe parent-defined sandbox for younger users to use. Here you can decide what apps, videos and books can be accessed as well as for how long children can use the tablet each day. You can even set educational goals for the amount of time to spend reading each day, which is a nice touch. 

The Amazon Fire HD 6 has its good points. Its 6in form factor is perfect for slipping in a jacket pocket and, despite being far from a thing of beauty, it feels like it could take some abuse. It also has excellent battery life, managing to last a highly impressive 12 hours 45 minutes in our video playback test. It also has fantastic standby battery time if you turn on Smart Suspend, which disables wireless while the tablet is in sleep mode.  

However, the plastic chassis and huge screen air gap does remind you that you’re buying a very cheap tablet, and the locked-down operating system will be crippling for some users. If you are already an Amazon Prime subscriber and buy your music and eBooks from Amazon, the Kindle Fire HD 6 makes for a great central hub for all your content, but we’d still rather save up for the Tesco Hudl2.