Review: Kindle Fire HD10

Boen dropped his Kindle Fire HD8 on the floor and cracked the screen. It was still working, but after more than a year living with the Fire HD8, I'd decided that 16GB of storage was way too little, as was only having 1.5GB of RAM. Amazon had a tantalizing trade-in offer, where your broken tablet would get you a $5 gift card and a 25% off a new tablet coupon. I asked Amazon's customer service if the trade-in could be applied to the current sale price of $120, and the answer was yes, so I went for it.

The device arrives in a very casual, frustration free package that was easy to open. I unpacked it, installed the Google Play store, Youtube, and Google Play Movies, and Hoopla, and we were off to the races. As with the Fire HD8, you can just put in an SD card to augment storage, so there's no reason to go for the 64GB version of the device.

Compared to the Fire HD8, the device is pretty fast. The processor is only 0.4GHz faster, but 0.4/1.4 is 28% faster, and the additional half a gig seems to help a lot, despite the machine having a larger screen. I used it to read several comics, and it's great being able to flip quickly from Landscape mode to Portrait mode. My concern is that it would become slower over time, but so far, so good.

With the bigger battery, the device takes much longer to charge, but in exchange also takes longer to run down. For playing movies, it is loud --- I had to turn the volume down to 50%! It's also surprisingly heavy, at 500g (+ more if you end up buying a case for it) This is not something you're going to carry on a Tour of the Alps, but is fine for driving trips, sailing trips, or long plane flights.

For the price ($90 after trade-in), you really can't beat this device. Google has abandoned the low end tablet space, as has Nvidia, and there's really nothing being put out by the Chinese knock-off companies that can match the Fire HD10's price, performance and quality. For comic books, it's much better than the Fire HD8, and I'd seriously consider buying one for my own dedicated use if I read more comics than I do. I'd try to talk Bowen into trading in his Fire HD8 as well, but he doesn't want to restart his Minecraft or Plants vs Zombies from scratch.

Recommended.