Amazon Fire HD 8 (2022) review: The best £100 tablet?

While the likes of Apple and Samsung dominate the higher-end of the tablet market, the budget arena belongs firmly to Amazon, and the new Fire HD 8 (2022) is no different. This latest refresh comes with a minor price increase, coupled with small improvements to performance and battery life to compensate.

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Even with these advancements, this is still very much a budget tablet, so performance will feel laboured compared to most modern smartphones and the display is fairly outdated as well. Still, it’s hard to complain too much at this price; If you’re looking for a cheap tablet to use occasionally, or an entry-level device for your kids, the Fire HD 8 (2022) is a solid bet.

Amazon Fire HD 8 (2022) review: What you need to know

Iterative advancements are generally par for the course with Fire tablets, but even by this standard, the Fire HD 8 (2022) feels intensely familiar. The 8in display has the same 1,280 x 800 resolution and is wrapped in a matching chunky matte plastic frame with near identical measurements to its predecessor – albeit slightly lighter, at 337g. Both front and rear cameras remain at 2MP and despite a decent bump in stamina, the battery still takes around five hours to recharge.

The most notable upgrade comes from the new Hexa-core chipset, which purportedly achieves performance up to 30% faster than the 2020 version. This is paired with the same combination of 2GB of RAM and your choice of 32GB or 64GB of storage, with the microSD slot once again allowing you to expand that up to a further 1TB.

Amazon Fire HD 8 (2022) review: Price and competition

In keeping with its 2020 predecessor and the refreshed Amazon Fire 7 from earlier this year, it comes as little surprise that the 2022 refresh of the Fire HD 8 bears a £10 price increase. That means the base model with 32GB of storage now costs £100. You can double that to 64GB for £130, and you also have the option to remove the ads from the lock screen on both models for £10, making the most expensive iteration £140.

Even with these price increases, the Fire HD 8 is still pretty much without competitors, with the only real challenge coming from its own predecessor. There’s not much of a difference in it, but if you want to save that extra £10, you can get the 32GB with ads model of the 2020 Fire HD 8 for £90. Expect to sacrifice battery life and efficiency for the privilege, though.

Amazon Fire HD 8 (2022) review: Design and key features

Amazon tablets were never winning any awards for style and that trend doesn’t change with the Fire HD 8 (2022). The matte plastic casing and thick bezels around the screen don’t make for the sleekest aesthetic but the build at least feels rugged enough to survive an accidental drop or two. Colour selections are more limited than the previous generation, with Black, Denim and Rose to choose from.

In keeping with both the previous Fire HD 8 and the latest Fire 7 tablets, the 2022 Fire HD 8 is designed to be used primarily in landscape orientation, with the 2MP selfie camera set along one of the long edges. Positioned with the camera at the top, you’ll find the power and volume buttons on the right-hand side, along with the USB-C charging port and 3.5mm headphone jack. The top edge houses a pair of upward-firing speakers while the bottom is home to the MicroSD slot, which takes cards up to 1TB in capacity.

Amazon Fire HD 8 (2022) review: Display

While the rest of the design has received a couple of nips and tucks, the 8in display is exactly the same as the previous generation, with a resolution of 1,280 x 800 and a pixel density of 189ppi. Compared to modern smartphones and pricier tablets, this is fairly low quality, but it’s adequate for casual viewing of things like YouTube, Prime Video or Netflix.

While the mechanics of the display haven’t changed, the Fire HD 8 (2022) at least sees a slight bump in colour reproduction, covering 78.7% of the sRGB gamut, as opposed to the 2020 model’s 70.8%. This still isn’t outstanding, mind you, so don’t expect the richest and most vibrant colours. The contrast ratio also scored higher, measuring 1,826:1 in our tests, and the peak brightness of 457cd/m2 is a notable improvement.

Amazon Fire HD 8 (2022) review: Performance and battery life

The biggest change in the Fire HD 8 (2022) is the new hexa-core 2GHz MediaTek MT8169A processor, which claims to deliver up to 30% faster performance than the previous model.

The results of the Geekbench 3 CPU tests certainly seem to support this, with the Fire HD 8 (2022) showing roughly a 27% increase in single-core performance over the 2020 version. Multi-core performance sees an even bigger leap – helped along by the two additional cores – with a whopping 59% edge.

In practical terms, the Fire HD 8 (2022) can still feel quite sluggish to use, with pauses that feel just a little too long when opening apps. More importantly, the standard Fire HD 8 (2022) performs practically identically to the more expensive Plus variant, meaning that you don’t get a drop in performance by opting for the cheaper model.

Due to some difficulties with app availability on the Amazon Fire app store (more on that in a moment), it’s not possible to assess the Fire HD 8 (2022)’s GPU capacity with our standard GFXBench test, but you should temper your expectations here. High-quality 3D gaming is off the table – as you’d expect for something this cheap – but simpler titles like Candy Crush will run reasonably well.

Battery life is another area in which the Fire HD 8 (2022) shows notable improvements over the 2020 model. In our standard video rundown test, it lasted for an impressive 19hrs and 33mins, which is roughly 24% longer than the 2020 version managed. Even better, it’s a good half an hour longer than the Fire HD 8 Plus (2022) lasted.

Unfortunately, the charging speeds haven’t seen the same improvements as battery life, with the provided 5W charger still taking around five hours to juice the battery back up from empty.

Amazon Fire HD 8 (2022) review: Fire OS and Alexa

Like the rest of the Amazon family of tablets, the Fire HD 8’s software is based on Android – in this case, Android 11 – with the brand’s own Fire OS 8 launcher plastered over the top. All the usual perks and drawbacks of Fire OS are present and correct here, so how ingrained with the Amazon ecosystem you are will determine how well you get on with it.

From the home screen, you swipe left and right to access your Kindle content, Prime Video selections, Amazon Music tracks and more. Hands-free Alexa also returns from the 2020 iteration, offering you all the regular features of Amazon’s voice assistant, such as weather updates or TV show recommendations, without pressing a button, just like with an Echo device.

These perks all carry over from the previous version, and so, unfortunately, do the issues. The Amazon app store is the main culprit, with missing games and apps that are otherwise readily available on the Android and Apple storefronts. As an example, we use the GFXBench app to test GPU performance, but the version available on the Amazon app store is too outdated to run. The lack of Google apps is also particularly grating, meaning you can’t carry bookmarks or saved data across from your Chrome profile.

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Amazon Fire HD 8 (2022) review: What about the Fire HD 8 Plus?

As with the 2020 iteration, the Fire HD 8 (2022) launched alongside a slightly beefier Plus version. This model uses the same hexa-core 2GHz MediaTek MT8169A processor but is paired with 3GB of RAM instead of 2GB. You also get a slightly improved 5MP rear camera, wireless charging support and a faster 9W power adapter that can allegedly fully charge the device in around three hours – which in my view is still a very long time.

You get the same assortment of options to choose from, ranging from the cheapest (32GB of storage and lockscreen ads) at £120, to the priciest (64GB of storage with no lockscreen ads) at £160. Unlike the standard Fire HD 8 (2022), there’s only one colour choice, pairing the black bezels around the screen with grey plastic on the sides and rear. The rear is also slightly textured with a cross-hatch impression, which feels a little more premium than the standard model.

Amazon Fire HD 8 (2022) review: Verdict

There are plenty of things about the Fire HD 8 (2022) that can be counted as negatives – Fire OS is still unnecessarily restrictive, the screen feels outdated and the charging speeds remain sluggish – but even with these flaws, you’ll struggle to find a better tablet that costs this little.

Just about managing to justify the £10 price bump with sizable leaps in performance and battery life, the Fire HD 8 (2022) inches ahead of its predecessor to be the best choice for this budget. You can go even cheaper and pick up an Amazon Fire 7 for as little as £60, but if you have £100 to play with, your money is better spent on the Fire HD 8 (2022).