Amazon Fire HD 8 (2018)

The 2018 Amazon Fire HD 8 isn't much different from the 2017 model, but it's still the best tablet you can get for under $100.

Colorful Back

The Fire HD 8 comes in blue, yellow, red, or black, with a 2-megapixel camera on the rear.

Old Ports

This is a pretty basic tablet, so yes, there's an old micro USB port here, along with the headphone jack.

MicroSD Slot

The Fire HD 8 supports microSD cards up to 400GB.

Speakers

The tablet has dual speakers along the bottom.

User Interface

Amazon's tablet interface has always been very easy to use, but also very oriented toward viewing Amazon content.

Reading Books

The tablet is great for reading smaller-format, color books like travel guides and comics.

Apps

Amazon's app store isn't anywhere near as good as Google Play, but the tablet comes with basic mapping, email, and web browsing apps.

About Our Expert

Sascha Segan

Former Lead Analyst, Mobile

My Experience

I'm that 5G guy. I've actually been here for every "G." I reviewed well over a thousand products during 18 years working full-time at PCMag.com, including every generation of the iPhone and the Samsung Galaxy S. I also wrote a weekly newsletter, Fully Mobilized, where I obsessed about phones and networks.

My Areas of Expertise

US and Canadian mobile networks
Mobile phones released in the US
iPads, Android tablets, and ebook readers
Mobile hotspots
Big data features such as Fastest Mobile Networks and Best Work-From-Home Cities

The Technology I Use

Being cross-platform is critical for someone in my position. In the US, the mobile world is split pretty cleanly between iOS and Android. So I think it's really important to have Apple, Android and Windows devices all in my daily orbit.

I use a Lenovo ThinkPad Carbon X1 for work and a 2021 Apple MacBook Pro for personal use. My current phone is a Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra, although I'm probably going to move to an Android foldable. Most of my writing is either in Microsoft OneNote or a free notepad app called Notepad++. Number crunching, which I do often for those big data stories, is via Microsoft Excel, DataGrip for MySQL, and Tableau.

In terms of apps and cloud services, I use both Google Drive and Microsoft OneDrive heavily, although I also have iCloud because of the three Macs and three iPads in our house. I subscribe to way too many streaming services.

My primary tablet is a 12.9-inch, 2020-model Apple iPad Pro. When I want to read a book, I've got a 2018-model flat-front Amazon Kindle Paperwhite. My home smart speakers run Google Home, and I watch a TCL Roku TV. And Verizon Fios keeps me connected at home.

My first computer was an Atari 800 and my first cell phone was a Qualcomm Thin Phone. I still have very fond feelings about both of them.

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Amazon Fire HD 8 (2018)