 This is Amazon's Fire HD 8 Plus tablet. It is running Android. Well, technically it's Amazon's Fire OS, but we'll get to that. The base model of the Fire HD 8 costs just 90 bucks, and this model with a little more RAM and wireless charging is 110. And you can also get it with a wireless charging dock that turns it into a little Echo Show for 140 bucks as a bundle. And you know what? This thing is great. I mean, it's terrible. It's juddery and it's slow and it's really limited in app selection without a bunch of hacking, but also it is great. It's just not terribly great. Look, you get what you pay for with this thing, sure, but what you pay for isn't just $110 for this tablet. It's maybe also $120 a year for Amazon Prime. And if you pay for Amazon Prime, this tablet gets much more interesting. If you've ever watched me talk about tablets on video before, you've probably seen me take a swipe at Android tablets. I mean, like a joke swipe, not like a literal interface swipe. Look, there just aren't that many Android tablets left anymore, especially here in the US, where even Samsung has struggled to get any kind of real traction with them. Google's also basically given up on Android tablets. The last thing they really tried was this right here. This is the Pixel Slate running Chrome OS, but also Android apps, and it really didn't go so well. The best, and in my opinion, the only truly great Android tablet, was the Nexus 7, the second generation one, from all the way back in 2013. And really, that thing was only good because it acted like a big phone, and that's basically what you've got here with the Fire HD 8 Plus. It is kind of like a really big phone. So it's sort of acts like a big phone, but it doesn't really have the specs you'd expect from a big phone. It's got a quad-core MediaTek MT8168 processor in it that runs at 2 gigahertz. This Plus version has 3 gigs of RAM and 32 gigs of storage, but you could upgrade to 64 if you want, or you can put in your own microSD card in the slot. The screen is 1280 by 800, which at 8 inches is not the most pixel-dense thing you're ever gonna see. There are a couple of cameras, they're both 2 megapixels. You should only use them for video calls, if at all. They're pretty bad. There is USB-C for charging, finally, and a headphone jack. Hooray! If you know Android, you know that those specs are enough to launch some apps and run most of your apps, but it's not nearly enough to make any of it feel fast. And again, this thing runs FireOS, which is Amazon's version of Android, and that also means it uses Amazon's App Store instead of Google's, so a lot of the time the app that you're gonna need just might not be there. I mean, it's got the basics. I've got Messenger and Zoom and some games, but you can't get Google apps without doing some hacking, and that's a huge pain. But again, this costs 110 bucks, and I think that the bundle that costs 30 bucks extra to get you the wireless charger is totally worth it. It puts a tablet into show mode, which turns this into a Echo smart display with, you know, keys into speakers for a tablet, but it won't be as good as an Echo Show. But for me, it's just so much more convenient to have a wireless charger, and it makes this thing feel like it's a part of my home in addition to the added Alexa functionality. Okay, so why would you get this thing over, say, an Echo Show? Well, two words, consuming content. If you are an Amazon Prime subscriber, it's easy to forget just how much free stuff you get as part of your subscription. Amazon Prime Video has all of their Amazon Prime originals, but it also has a bunch of TV shows and movies that they've licensed from other studios, and a bunch of them are bad. Like, you can stream the entire series of Psych, which is the most wholesome show from the late 2000s, or Burn Notice, also wholesome. Anyway, they're great. You can also get Prime Music, which is a totally respectable radio-style music streaming service. It's not Spotify or Apple Music or anything, but it's included. You can get Amazon Photos, which is a totally respectable photo storage service. There's Prime Reading, which gives you a bunch of free books, and again, some of them are bad. I am also a Kindle user, so you know, it has my entire Kindle library. So, Amazon Good, free stuff on a cheap tablet. And it doesn't really matter that it's kind of a slow tablet, because all you're really doing is getting to the video or the book or the music. And actually, most of the video apps you care about are available. Netflix and Hulu and HBO, whatever it's called now. There is a YouTube app, but it's a web app, and it works. But also, Amazon bad, because there is a lot of upselling going on on this tablet. I'm already a $120 a year Prime subscriber, but they want me to sign up for Kindle Unlimited, which is a book subscription service, or maybe sign up for Starz or some other cable channel via their cable channel subscription service, or get Audible, a audiobook subscription service, or Prime Music Unlimited, a music subscription service, or get subscriptions to newspapers or magazines through Amazon. It's just a minefield of upsells. And also, speaking of selling stuff, the home screen has the Amazon store right on it, which is very dangerous for me. It is a whack-a-mole for ways that you could pay Amazon more money, but instead of trying to hit the little buggers, you're trying to avoid them. All right, Amazon good, Amazon bad, Amazon... Amazon actually really good, because the Fire tablets have a kids mode that has really strong parental controls. In fact, Fire tablets fully support multi-user accounts, and so this tablet can really feel like it belongs to the entire family. You can have like a default everybody account that uses the Alexa stuff. You can also have a separate account for each person who might want to use it with all of their personal email and whatever else. The iPad still can't do that. So, you get an inexpensive knock around tablet that runs a... and feels like it's a part of your house instead of your tablet that you have to loan out to your entire family. Oh, and you know what? Battery life is really good. Depending on the screen brightness, which isn't that high, you should expect eight to ten hours of watching video. That's what I'm getting. And it also charges a little bit faster because it's got USB-C here. The 9 watt charger that comes with it charges this thing up 20% in a half an hour. A faster charger can get you an even faster charge. $110 tablet that lets me watch basically any video or read any book, what's not to love? Well, you know, using it to do anything other than open up a video app or a Kindle book, because again, it's slow. If you can afford it, even the lowest end $329 iPad has a bigger screen, runs circles around this thing in terms of speed, and has more and better apps. The Fire HD 8, it's gonna feel slower than your phone, even if your phone is a few years old. But look, slow is okay if you're just using it to open up Prime Video or Netflix or a Kindle book. And slow doesn't matter for running a Lexa in show mode, it doesn't need speed. If you try and do more than that stuff, this thing is terrible. But if you don't, it's actually pretty great. Hey everybody, thanks so much for watching. I really hope I didn't set off your smart speaker. I did my very, very best not to say, uh, Lexa. Let me know in the comments if I did. And if you're looking for other great videos to watch, Verge Science just made a really good video about how SpaceX sent humans to the International Space Station.
 This is Amazon's Fire HD 8 Plus tablet. It is running Android. Well, technically
 it's Amazon's Fire OS, but we'll get to that. The base model of the Fire HD 8
 costs just 90 bucks, and this model with a little more RAM and wireless charging
 is 110. And you can also get it with a wireless charging dock that turns it
 into a little Echo Show for 140 bucks as a bundle. And you know what? This thing is
 great. I mean, it's terrible. It's juddery and it's slow and it's really limited in
 app selection without a bunch of hacking, but also it is great. It's just not
 terribly great. Look, you get what you pay for with this thing, sure, but what you pay
 for isn't just $110 for this tablet. It's maybe also $120 a year for Amazon Prime.
 And if you pay for Amazon Prime, this tablet gets much more interesting.
 If you've ever watched me talk about tablets on video before, you've probably
 seen me take a swipe at Android tablets. I mean, like a joke swipe, not like a
 literal interface swipe. Look, there just aren't that many Android tablets left
 anymore, especially here in the US, where even Samsung has struggled to get any
 kind of real traction with them. Google's also basically given up on Android
 tablets. The last thing they really tried was this right here. This is the Pixel
 Slate running Chrome OS, but also Android apps, and it really didn't go so well. The
 best, and in my opinion, the only truly great Android tablet, was the Nexus 7, the
 second generation one, from all the way back in 2013. And really, that thing was
 only good because it acted like a big phone, and that's basically what you've
 got here with the Fire HD 8 Plus. It is kind of like a really big phone. So it's
 sort of acts like a big phone, but it doesn't really have the specs you'd
 expect from a big phone. It's got a quad-core MediaTek MT8168 processor in
 it that runs at 2 gigahertz. This Plus version has 3 gigs of RAM and 32 gigs of
 storage, but you could upgrade to 64 if you want, or you can put in your own
 microSD card in the slot. The screen is 1280 by 800, which at 8 inches is not the
 most pixel-dense thing you're ever gonna see. There are a couple of cameras,
 they're both 2 megapixels. You should only use them for video calls, if at all.
 They're pretty bad. There is USB-C for charging, finally, and a headphone jack.
 Hooray! If you know Android, you know that those specs are enough to launch some
 apps and run most of your apps, but it's not nearly enough to make any of it feel
 fast. And again, this thing runs FireOS, which is Amazon's version of Android, and
 that also means it uses Amazon's App Store instead of Google's, so a lot of
 the time the app that you're gonna need just might not be there. I mean, it's got
 the basics. I've got Messenger and Zoom and some games, but you can't get Google
 apps without doing some hacking, and that's a huge pain. But again, this costs
 110 bucks, and I think that the bundle that costs 30 bucks extra to get you the
 wireless charger is totally worth it. It puts a tablet into show mode, which turns
 this into a Echo smart display with, you know, keys into speakers for a tablet, but
 it won't be as good as an Echo Show. But for me, it's just so much more convenient
 to have a wireless charger, and it makes this thing feel like it's a part of my
 home in addition to the added Alexa functionality. Okay, so why would you get
 this thing over, say, an Echo Show? Well, two words, consuming content. If you are
 an Amazon Prime subscriber, it's easy to forget just how much free stuff you get
 as part of your subscription. Amazon Prime Video has all of their Amazon Prime
 originals, but it also has a bunch of TV shows and movies that they've licensed
 from other studios, and a bunch of them are bad. Like, you can stream the entire
 series of Psych, which is the most wholesome show from the late 2000s, or
 Burn Notice, also wholesome. Anyway, they're great. You can also get Prime
 Music, which is a totally respectable radio-style music streaming service. It's
 not Spotify or Apple Music or anything, but it's included. You can get Amazon
 Photos, which is a totally respectable photo storage service. There's Prime
 Reading, which gives you a bunch of free books, and again, some of them are bad. I
 am also a Kindle user, so you know, it has my entire Kindle library. So, Amazon Good,
 free stuff on a cheap tablet. And it doesn't really matter that it's kind of
 a slow tablet, because all you're really doing is getting to the video or the
 book or the music. And actually, most of the video apps you care about are
 available. Netflix and Hulu and HBO, whatever it's called now. There is a YouTube
 app, but it's a web app, and it works. But also, Amazon bad, because there is a lot
 of upselling going on on this tablet. I'm already a $120 a year Prime
 subscriber, but they want me to sign up for Kindle Unlimited, which is a book
 subscription service, or maybe sign up for Starz or some other cable channel
 via their cable channel subscription service, or get Audible, a audiobook
 subscription service, or Prime Music Unlimited, a music subscription service,
 or get subscriptions to newspapers or magazines through Amazon. It's just a
 minefield of upsells. And also, speaking of selling stuff, the home screen has the
 Amazon store right on it, which is very dangerous for me. It is a whack-a-mole for
 ways that you could pay Amazon more money, but instead of trying to hit the
 little buggers, you're trying to avoid them. All right, Amazon good, Amazon bad,
 Amazon... Amazon actually really good, because the Fire tablets have a kids mode
 that has really strong parental controls. In fact, Fire tablets fully support
 multi-user accounts, and so this tablet can really feel like it belongs to the
 entire family. You can have like a default everybody account that uses the
 Alexa stuff. You can also have a separate account for each person who might want
 to use it with all of their personal email and whatever else. The iPad still
 can't do that. So, you get an inexpensive knock around tablet that runs a...
 and feels like it's a part of your house instead of your tablet that you have to
 loan out to your entire family. Oh, and you know what? Battery life is really
 good. Depending on the screen brightness, which isn't that high, you should expect
 eight to ten hours of watching video. That's what I'm getting. And it also
 charges a little bit faster because it's got USB-C here. The 9 watt charger that
 comes with it charges this thing up 20% in a half an hour. A faster charger can
 get you an even faster charge. $110 tablet that lets me watch basically any
 video or read any book, what's not to love? Well, you know, using it to do
 anything other than open up a video app or a Kindle book, because again, it's slow.
 If you can afford it, even the lowest end $329 iPad has a bigger screen, runs
 circles around this thing in terms of speed, and has more and better apps. The
 Fire HD 8, it's gonna feel slower than your phone, even if your phone is a few
 years old. But look, slow is okay if you're just using it to open up Prime
 Video or Netflix or a Kindle book. And slow doesn't matter for running a Lexa
 in show mode, it doesn't need speed. If you try and do more than that stuff, this
 thing is terrible. But if you don't, it's actually pretty great.
 Hey everybody, thanks so much for watching. I really hope I didn't set off your smart
 speaker. I did my very, very best not to say, uh, Lexa. Let me know in the
 comments if I did. And if you're looking for other great videos to watch, Verge
 Science just made a really good video about how SpaceX sent humans to the
 International Space Station.