Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Note: This review is done with the 32GB Fire Tablet with No Special Offers I've been searching for a cheap yet functional Android 10" tablet for a while now. With the Black Friday sales lowering the price of the HD 10 to $100, I had to give this a try. It has some flaws, but overall I am very happy with the HD 10. **Pros** * Value: You absolutely cannot beat the value on this tablet. For $130 out the door ($100 base + $15 for no ads + CA tax + environmental fees), I couldn't find anything that beat this tablet. It is the perfect intersection of performance, battery, functionality, and cost. * Display: The site advertises this as a 1080p tablet but the screen is actually a 1920x1200 resolution. In other words, it's even higher resolution than advertised (this is a good thing!). The screen has great brightness and good colors at a very nice resolution. Absolutely more than worth the cost. * Performance: It lags when I'm actively using the tablet while installing new apps, but otherwise I haven't had an issue with it yet. I don't install apps all the time so I don't see this as a regular use problem. Keep in mind that my use is light compared to some others. My typical tablet use involves reading newspaper articles, listening to music, watching Netflix, and browsing the internet. This tablet is more than powerful enough for all of that. The CPU isn't the strongest but it holds up well to my daily use and it makes for a good battery life. Speaking of: * Battery: When I received my Fire HD 10 at 9AM this morning, it was at 80% battery. Four hours later after various app installs, launcher changes, and testing, the battery is at 56%. I'm very happy that four hours of continuous hands-on use only drained the battery by 34%. Under normal use for me (reading newspaper articles, browsing the internet, listening to music), I can easily see this lasting all day for me. The compromise on the CPU power is worth it for me considering the battery life I get out of this. **Cons:* * Build Quality: I know this is a $100 tablet but even then I was expecting better build quality. I was expecting build quality to be on par with my Moto G5 Plus, but this tablet is inferior to that. The plastic on the back feels very cheap and thin. There's some creaking play with the display and the back of the tablet on the left side in portrait mode. It's nothing I can't live with but I do wish the tablet felt more solid. * Camera: Listen to the other reviews. The camera on the back is *terrible*. Even in decent lighting conditions the image looks very grainy with aggressive noise reduction leading to soft images. This camera will absolutely only be used as your last possible option. If a camera matters to you, you need to look elsewhere. This camera just isn't useable to me. **Neutral** * Software: This is a tricky one. Bear with me here: Personally, I'm not a fan of Fire OS at all. I don't mind the Amazon content but I do mind that the OS favors selling items over usability. For example I'm really not a fan of how all your apps are lumped on the Home tab. I much prefer the standard Android layout where you can put your most used apps on the page and have the rest accessible from the drawer. The way FireOS is done would be if the app drawer is your home screen itself. I'm also not a fan of the default FireOS apps. The Silk browser in particular had issues properly displaying websites and for some reason wouldn't load mobile versions of certain websites. That said, this is all easily changed. A quick Google search will yield four easy .apk downloads to install Google Play's services and store on your HD 10. This means you get access to Google's library of Android apps. I'm now using Gmail, Chrome, Google Search, Google Docs, and Google Keyboard. If you feel like diving in even more, you can change the default launcher so you're no longer using the standard FireOS launcher. My tablet is now running Google Now (Android's current default launcher), and the method I used is also compatible with Nova Launcher if you prefer that. **Summary** Overall, I'm very happy with this purchase. The build quality isn't great and the camera is terrible, but at the end of the day I have a $100 10" tablet that does everything I need it to while using Google's Android apps and Now Launcher. Absolutely the best value 10" tablet out there. If you're looking for a media consumption device with excellent battery life, usability, and might want to slap an Android interface on there down the road for as little money as you can get away with, this is the tablet for you.