Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I am thrilled with the new Fire HD8 - even before it gets Alexa! At that time I will likely be ecstatic! I am far from a tablet novice - I had the original fire; the $50 fire; the Samsung Galaxy Tab 3; and the Galaxy Tab S 10.5. My phones have always been Samsung flagship phones, currently the S7 Edge. I say this to show that I 1) have experience with kindle fires, and 2) generally tend to have high standards for my most used devices -- I KNOW what is a good tablet and what is a so-so tablet. Admittedly, my previous fires have been "so-so", but I wanted something inexpensive yet adequate to take places with me instead of my Galaxy Tab S 10.5. My HD8 is the 32gb option, with offers. Most users will likely be fine with 16gb and perhaps an added 32gb or 64gb SD card. However, I know how I use my devices, so went with the 32gb option, as well as a 64gb micro SD card. In the 48 hours I have had my new Fire, it has become my device of choice, even over my $500 samsung (more convenient size). I use the large samsung tablet as a computer replacement; whereas the new Fire replaces my two 7 inch tablets as the "go to" device. Before receiving it, I wasn't sure about the low resolution (1280 x 800) on this tab, but honestly, it's not a problem! Sure, it's not bright and beautiful like my Tab S ... but its crisp, clean, and clear. The colors are sufficient, but not vibrant, sadly. (The comparison photo below is the HD8 (2016) and Fire 7 (2015). Sound is quite good, with good volume. The speakers are on the left side when portrait, on top (or bottom) in landscape. I prefer them on top. The sound is good enough that you can enjoy a movie without having to use earphones, unless in a noisy environment, in which case you would likely want to use earphones anyway. Music was okay, but I prefer listening through bluetooth headphones for premium quality, and it delivers there also. Whatever chip is used for the cpu is zippy and responsive. I have tested and used a variety of apps, games, and functions in trying this tablet out, and there has been no lag whatsoever, no hesitation, no hangups. Using the silk browser, surfing the web was quick and easy. At most, there was a half second lag for some graphics heavy pages (note that my high speed router is in my room, but even so, the $50 fire lags, not so this one!) The only feature that is "less than" on this tablet, are the cameras. The rear facing camera is only 2mp, and photos with it are about what I expected ...slightly pixelated, washed out colors, print is readable but not crisp. It's usable in a pinch, when the alternative is no picture/video, or for reference/documentation; but it's not what you would want to use for travel or family photos that are of importance. For reference photos, pet photos, posting to facebook, it's adequate, but "just". Battery life is excellent. I multi-task and heavily use tablets, with a lot of twitter (have found it to be battery intensive on all devices); a lot of web use, music streaming, texting (on messenger) and watching you tube. I've already gone through two battery cycles (100% to 15%) and the first one was ten hours (actual use time) and the second nearly 11, so it's very close to the maximum advertised. Overall, this is a super tablet, and the bargain price makes it that much more so. It has exceeded my expectations and hopes in most all functions, and will be a welcome alternative for throwing in my backpack. UPDATE: October 30, 2016 The Alexa update was pushed to my device on Oct 29th (verified with amazon customer service) and it "bricked" my tablet, rendering it unusable, will not turn on. After several hours on phone with four reps at customer service, it is being returned for a refund. Replacements are always refurbished items, so I chose refund instead. I still think it's a great tablet, but sometimes there are issues, and in the interest of honesty and full disclosure, needed to add this. 2nd UPDATE: November 10, 2016 Okay, apparently this is the "Goldilocks" of my tablets (just right!) and I could not live without it. By the 10th day without it, I was really, REALLY missing it, so I ordered a new one, this time investing in the extended warranty "just in case". I received the new one today, everything is perfect with it, and it feels so, SO good to have a Fire HD8 back in my hands. I know it sounds silly, but even though the specs of this are less than one of my tablets, and slightly better than two 7" ones - the 7" ones now feel too small, and the 10.5" one I have is just too large for most uses. The 8" Fire is just the right size for everything short of computer replacement. In the few hours of use, I've checked everything out and all is well. I will, however, update again, in about two months, to make sure this review is kept current. Right now, despite the issue with one tablet, it's still at least 4.5 stars in my book, but I won't hesitate to revise if that changes. 3rd Update: December 31, 2016 It's now been 7 weeks with my second Fire HD8 tablet. All is working well, and I now rate it a solid 4 stars. I use the playstore and several google apps on my device, and there are no issues. I also had several apps that frequently updated throughout the day, like periscope, facebook, twitter, news aggregators. With all of these apps, the tablet began lagging badly at least once a day, sometimes twice, and even with an app like Cleansweep on it, I would have to reboot. Finally, I uninstalled periscope and the news aggregators; but kept facebook and twitter and a few others similar. That made a huge difference in the lag. There just isn't enough RAM to handle heavy updating every half hour or so, nor does the tablet recover ram well. I also run 10 email accounts on the tablet (I use "bluemail") and set most of them to sync once daily, just two of them sync every hour. With the tweaks I have done, I am happy with the Fire HD8, and it runs smoothly most of the time. 4th update (and perhaps final) and tips -- April 22, 2017 I use the Fire HD8 daily, all day long, going through a battery cycle a day, sometimes more. With recent firmware updates, my Fire tablet is running smooth and fast, and I very rarely experience any lag. I used to reboot it daily, now I do so once a week or less. Apparently the firmware updates made a difference. I also have tweaked this tablet to the max, and thought I would share a few basic tips. (I really feel like, at this point, I should just write a Fire HD8 guide ... but I digress.) Tips: Get to know your tablet. Go through every single setting and sub setting and sub-sub setting and tweak anything you want. You can always go back and change it later. Turn off everything automatic, unless it's a feature you like. Turn off: on-deck, adaptive brightness, automatic navigation, recommendations and most notifications. This streamlines the ram usage. Keyboards are apps, email is an app, if you don't like the ones on the tablet, go to the amazon appstore and install an alternative one.