![]() What’s more, Amazon’s newly updated operating system-dubbed Fire OS 5 “Bellini” and built atop Google’s Android 5.0-vastly improves the user experience. Even non-subscribers get access to Amazon Underground, a collection of free apps and games the company says is valued at over $10,000. You can buy or rent most items, but subscribers to Amazon Prime ($99 annually) get unlimited access to tons of content-including movies and TV shows that can be downloaded for offline viewing. These performance problems are really a shame, because the tablet has a lot of other things going for it: decent front- and rear-facing cameras, a microSD expansion slot for adding more storage (a first for Amazon tablets), Dolby-enhanced stereo speakers that sound surprisingly good, and (perhaps best of all) Amazon’s rich ecosystem of music, movies, books, games, and more. It’s experiences like this that can make the tablet aggravating to use. When you tap in a text field, the keyboard often takes several seconds to appear. Amazon’s own Washington Post app took 10-15 seconds to load, and I sporadically experienced long load times in Amazon’s Silk Web browser as well. ![]() High-definition titles play nearly full-screen, without the thick black letterbox bars you see in tablets with 4:3 aspect ratios.Īs for performance, despite the inclusion of a quad-core processor, I found the Fire HD 10 to be sluggish. In fact, the tablet’s unusually wide form-factor-it has a 16:10 aspect ratio-makes it well-suited for movies and TV shows. ![]() Thankfully, it’s a bright and colorful display, and the low resolution and pixel density don’t have such a negative impact on games, videos, and other visual media. This is not to say the HD 10’s screen is unacceptable, merely that it’s not ideal for reading. Ironically, this is one case where bigger isn’t better: Amazon’s 8-inch Fire HD 8 has the same resolution, but the smaller screen raises the pixel density to 189, thus making text easier on the eyes. Books, magazines, Web pages, and the like all exhibit a noticeable fuzziness. With a resolution of just 1,280 x 800 and pixel density of 149 pixels per inch, the tablet simply can’t render the kind of razor-sharp text most of us are now accustomed to from our mobile screens. Unfortunately, that big screen is also the Fire HD’s biggest drawback. (You can pay an extra $15 at the time of purchase to remove this “feature,” but the ads are so fleeting-you see them for all of a second before your swipe unlocks the screen-it’s money poorly spent.) The tablet comes in black or white, and (like most of Amazon’s models) displays unobtrusive ads on its lock screen. Understandably, it’s also a bit heavier and thicker, weighing in at just over 15 ounces and measuring 10.3 x 6.3 x 0.3 inches. True to its name, the Fire HD 10 boasts a 10.1-inch display, giving you a little more real estate than the 9.7-inch Air and Galaxy Tab. Depending on your intended plans for the device, those low-end efforts may sabotage your fun. In crafting a low-cost tablet, Amazon (AMZN) has elected not to compete in two key areas: performance and screen resolution. The reality, however, is that not everything about the Fire HD 10 is really comparable to those Apple (AAPL) and Samsung (SSNLF) models. Meanwhile, Samsung’s latest tablet offering, the 10-inch Galaxy Tab S2, starts at $499. At those prices, both models are much cheaper than Apple’s iPad Air, which goes for $399 and $449. The math alone is compelling: The 16GB model sells for $229.99, while the 32GB version goes for $259.99. ![]()
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