The Amazon Fire HD 10 (16GB) was easy to use for a wide variety of functions. It was easy to move from screen to screen using finger swipes, and to move app icons among screens. Amazon includes an enhanced user-interface. Home screens have useful custom widgets. The onscreen keyboard may be used in "gesture" mode to type by swiping to each letter.
The rear-facing camera was only fair in performance. Photos can be displayed full height without interference from the navigation bar. Turning from portrait to landscape while reading a book worked well. A voice-typing feature lets you dictate emails and text documents. You can sync and transfer files to and from a PC using USB. The memory card was more difficult than most to insert and remove.
The display quality was very good overall. Colors were accurately reproduced, realistic, and natural-looking. The screen was among the brightest we've measured and readability in daylight was good. Viewing angle was extremely wide in landscape orientation, making it easy to share viewing of photos or video with several people. Viewing angle was extremely wide in portrait orientation, making it easy to view by several people at one time.
Touch response was excellent. The capacitive touchscreen responds to a light finger touch, and allows multiple fingers to perform gesture actions. Moving objects and using finger gestures is easy and precise. Icons were easy to move and place precisely. A special coating on the screen resists fingerprints and makes cleaning easier.
This tablet has some useful features - see the "About" section for more details. The Amazon app market is not as large as Apple's or Google's, so some popular apps may not be available. There is also access to a large media market through Amazon, for downloading movies, music and books.
There are a variety of sensors to provide positional and environmental info to apps and games. These include, an accelerometer to give motion feedback to apps, and a gyroscope to give rotational feedback to apps.
This tablet ranks high in portability among tablets in the 9- to 12-inch category. Its battery life of 9.4 hours is middling for tablets. It's very slim and compact for its screen size, and at 0.96 pounds, it's a very lightweight tablet for its size.
