Amazon Fire HD 10 (2023) evaluation: Low-cost and principally cheerful

‘iPad’ may be the catch-all time period for ‘tablet’ lately however even the cheapest iPad Apple sells is pricey at £369 – and it got here out approach again in 2021. So which model do you flip to if you’d like a genuinely low-cost pill in 2024?

It might be Amazon. We’ve been utilizing the newest model of the Amazon Fire HD 10 to see if this £150 slate is as much as the duty. It retains the worth down by being made with plastic, being comparatively low-powered, and peppering you with adverts.

The Fire HD 10 additionally doesn’t run full Android like different tablets can as a result of it doesn’t have the Google Play Store, so you may’t use Google apps plus a number of others which are lacking. In some ways the Fire HD 10 exists to make sure you preserve watching movies, studying books, and shopping for stuff from Amazon.

But all in all if you’d like an reasonably priced pill for your self or your youngsters to make use of to primarily watch TV exhibits and movies on numerous streaming companies, learn ebooks, or play video games, it is a nice choice.

• Rounded plastic again
• Volume and energy buttons
• Front and rear cameras

The Fire HD 10 has an extremely plain and easy plastic design. In the black model we reviewed it actually has no eye catching seems – there’s a purple or blue choice should you want. The black model picks up fingerprint smears fairly rapidly, however they wipe away simply sufficient.

There’s an embossed Amazon smile emblem on the again and a small digital camera up in a single nook, and that’s it apart from a quantity rocker and energy button, USB-C port, and headphone jack, the latter of which is a godsend if you wish to give this to a baby – merely plug within the headphones, no want for Bluetooth.

On the highest as you maintain the pill in panorama are the 2 audio system, with a central selfie digital camera for video calls. You additionally get a microSD card slot on the underside edge if you wish to enhance your storage.

You shouldn’t discover the 433.6g weight an excessive amount of in a bag.

As the identify Fire HD 10 suggests, the pill has a high-definition (HD) 10.1-inch LCD display. Though many trendy telephones use brighter, usually sharper OLED screens, most tablets nonetheless use LCD – and the one right here is surprisingly nice contemplating the worth.

Netflix exhibits look nice, and akin to the £369 10.2-inch iPad by way of brightness and total high quality. It solely sometimes seems At this measurement, the 1920 x 1200 greater than sufficient, although it’s lower than the iPad’s 2160 x 1620. The display doesn’t have a excessive refresh fee, however most tablets don’t.

Though the thick black bezels across the fringe of the display make the gadget look much less cutting-edge than another tablets, it’s truly fairly helpful to have this house to carry onto. A thumb or two gripping the sting received’t cowl any of the show, and we sat for a number of hours whereas testing the HD 10 with little hand fatigue because it’s comparatively light-weight.

The twin stereo audio system get a lot loud with out distorting and do a pleasant job for TV and films should you don’t need to plug headphones in. Radio or podcast playback additionally sounds good, however you’ll need to seize these earbuds if you wish to hearken to music as that is the place there’s an absence of high quality.

• Good sufficient efficiency
• 32GB or 64GB storage
• Multi-day battery life

As talked about, Amazon sells a keyboard case and stylus pen individually that work with the Fire HD 10. We weren’t in a position to check them, however their existence means Amazon says the pill can be utilized for work and productiveness. Without them, that is virtually unimaginable – typing on the on-screen keyboard isn’t any solution to get work achieved.

But most individuals shouldn’t purchase this pill to work with. It’s for casually watching movies, primarily, and it excels at that. The restricted energy of the processor underneath the hood isn’t apparent when all it’s essential to do is stream Netflix over Wi-Fi or browse the online, however after we had a number of apps open it might typically grind to a halt and freeze. We needed to shut all apps to get it to behave once more.

You should buy the Fire HD 10 with both 32GB or 64GB inside storage, however the microSD card allows you to add a card as much as 1TB if you wish to obtain and preserve tons of music or movies.

Battery life can also be nice, significantly on standby. Many instances we’ve picked up an iPad after not utilizing it for 3 or so days to seek out it lifeless. Not so with the Fire HD 10, which clings onto energy admirably when the display is locked. Using it naturally sees the battery drop, however we used it to look at movies casually on most evenings and located we solely needed to cost it each three or 4 days.

• Alexa nicely built-in
• No Google apps
• Amazon adverts are annoying

The Fire HD 10, like all Amazon tablets, runs Fire OS – principally Android with out Google apps or companies. If you need to use Gmail, Google Maps, Google Chrome, and Google Docs, this isn’t the pill to purchase.

The Amazon Appstore has Microsoft apps reminiscent of Microsoft 365 and Outlook, however not Word or Excel, although agency favourites Facebook, Messenger, Instagram, X, and Zoom are current and proper. In phrases of common streaming apps you will get Prime Video, Netflix, Disney+, Now TV, Freevee, BBC iPlayer, ITV X, and Channel 4. There’s no Apple TV+ or Paramount+ or YouTube – the latter a giant miss.

The Appstore isn’t nice at displaying you mainstream apps you would possibly need to obtain, preferring to push vibrant video games nobody has heard of in your face. Popular titles reminiscent of PUBG Mobile, Minecraft and Roblox are all right here to maintain the children entertained, although.

Speaking of, you can too create a baby’s profile to regulate the settings and restrict what your little one can do on the pill. You may even add as much as 4 of those profiles so your younger ones can share the gadget when wanted.

Amazon apps and companies are everywhere in the Fire HD 10 to an annoying diploma. If you solely subscribe to Amazon Prime Video and skim Kindle books then you definitely may not thoughts, however we discovered it irritating to have a bar of prompt content material on the homescreen always, making an attempt to get us to look at one thing new or purchase one thing we had beforehand considered on the Amazon Shopping app.

There are even adverts on the lockscreen, just like the beneath one for a automotive. If you don’t need these adverts, you must purchase a model of the pill that prices £10 extra. Amazon’s insistence on both displaying you adverts or having you pay extra to not see them is insulting if you’ve purchased the gadget. We advise paying extra to not have adverts, however you shouldn’t must.

What makes up for that is with the ability to use Show Mode that turns the Fire HD 10 into a sensible display gadget just like an Amazon Echo Show. This means it might probably sit propped up and you may ask the Alexa voice assistant to go looking, play music or radio, or the rest you’d count on of such a tool. Getting two completely different pill modes for the worth of 1 is a little bit of a steal, and it really works rather well.

There is a good sufficient 5MP digital camera on the entrance (similar because the again) so that you can make video calls in your app of alternative too, together with utilizing Show Mode to Alexa name different Echo gadgets.

The Amazon Fire HD 10 costs from £149.99 for the 32GB storage model with adverts. We advocate spending £159.99 for a similar mannequin with out adverts.

Amazon additionally commonly has the pill on supply and may typically be discovered for as little as £109.99.

View the Amazon Fire HD 10 on Amazon here

Because it is a pill primarily for streaming video and taking part in video games, we bought by with simply 32GB on our evaluation mannequin. But if you wish to obtain numerous content material you might get the 64GB model with no adverts for £189.99 – or purchase a microSD card.

The Amazon Fire HD 10 has a number of good options however at its core it’s a video streaming pill – and it does this very nicely. Download all of your favorite streaming companies and log in as soon as and this gadget will go well with you right down to the bottom. With good battery life it’s the right reasonably priced display to purchase for the commute or airplane journeys.

But if you wish to do something greater than that, the Fire HD 10 isn’t for you. Amazon says it’s for work if you wish to, however with out Google apps this received’t work for many individuals, plus the pill usually grinds to a halt if you attempt to do multiple factor on it because it’s fairly underpowered.

You get what you pay for at this worth level however that’s no unhealthy factor if all you want is a pill for movies and video games, plus you get the helpful Show Mode and it might probably make video calls. If you discover the iPad line up complicated and overpriced, the Fire HD 10 is a stable different. Just don’t count on the world of it.