The Amazon Fire HD 8 2016 (16GB) was easy to use for a wide variety of functions. It was easy to move from screen to screen using finger swipes. It was difficult to move app icons among screens. Home screens have useful custom widgets.
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. 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 fair. Viewing angle was extremely wide in landscape orientation, making it easy to share viewing of photos or video with several people. Viewing angle was quite wide in portrait orientation, making it easy to share the screen with another person.
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. Repositioning icons was not as easy as with most tablets. 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, a gyroscope to give rotational feedback to apps, and an ambient light sensor to reduce the screen brightness to extend battery time.
This is among the most portable tablets in the 7- to 8-inch category. Its battery life of 15.9 hours lets you use it all day without recharging. It's compact for its screen size, and at 0.74 pounds, it's a lightweight tablet for its size.
