Amazon Sets Alexa Up On Cheap Date With Faster, Longer Lasting Fire HD 8 Tablet For $90
For the first time, Amazon's Alexa voice service is headed to a tablet. It's one of the standout features of Amazon's new Fire HD 8, a budget slate built from the ground up to offer users all-day battery life, faster performance, and double the onboard storage of previous versions Fire HD tablets. The kicker here is its $90 price tag.
While not without its competitors, it's fair to say that Amazon dominates the low-cost tablet market with its highly popular Fire HD line. The new Fire HD 8 won't do anything to compromise Amazon's position in the tablet market. Just the opposite, its poised to bolster Amazon's stake by offering up to 12 hours of mixed use battery life by way of a capacious 4,750 mAh battery.
The Fire HD 8 tablet's 8-inch HD (1280x800) IPS display is powered by a quad-core 1.3GHz processor and 1.5GB of RAM, the latter of which is 50 percent more than the previous generation Fire HD 8 and will pay dividends when playing games and launching apps.
It also has 16GB or 32GB of onboard storage expandable via microSD (up to 200GB), VGA front-facing camera for Skype calls and selfies, 2-megapieexel rear camera with 720p HD video recording, dual-band 802.11n Wi-Fi, dual stereo speakers with Dolby Atmos, and of course Alexa. It's not the most fully featured tablet out there, but for the price, it's pretty robust.
"We believe in a different approach to tablets—providing premium products at non-premium prices—and customers love it. In fact, we’ve seen Fire tablet sales more than double year-over-year as a result," said Kevin Keith, General Manager, Fire Tablets. "The all-new Fire HD 8 packs more battery life, more storage, faster performance, plus Alexa—all for less than $90."
Alexa works on the Fire HD 8 just as it does on other supported products, only here the voice assistant is conjured up by long pressing the home button. You can then task Alexa with reading the news, giving weather reports, playing songs, and so forth.
Amazon is also planning to introduce Alexa to its Fire HD 10, Fire, and last year's Fire HD 8 tablets through an over-the-air software update sometime in the coming months. As for the new Fire HD 8, the 32GB model is available to pre-order now for $90 with Special Offers, or $105 without. The 32GB model runs $120 with Special Offers and $135 without. All four SKUs will ship September 21.
While not without its competitors, it's fair to say that Amazon dominates the low-cost tablet market with its highly popular Fire HD line. The new Fire HD 8 won't do anything to compromise Amazon's position in the tablet market. Just the opposite, its poised to bolster Amazon's stake by offering up to 12 hours of mixed use battery life by way of a capacious 4,750 mAh battery.
The Fire HD 8 tablet's 8-inch HD (1280x800) IPS display is powered by a quad-core 1.3GHz processor and 1.5GB of RAM, the latter of which is 50 percent more than the previous generation Fire HD 8 and will pay dividends when playing games and launching apps.
It also has 16GB or 32GB of onboard storage expandable via microSD (up to 200GB), VGA front-facing camera for Skype calls and selfies, 2-megapieexel rear camera with 720p HD video recording, dual-band 802.11n Wi-Fi, dual stereo speakers with Dolby Atmos, and of course Alexa. It's not the most fully featured tablet out there, but for the price, it's pretty robust.
"We believe in a different approach to tablets—providing premium products at non-premium prices—and customers love it. In fact, we’ve seen Fire tablet sales more than double year-over-year as a result," said Kevin Keith, General Manager, Fire Tablets. "The all-new Fire HD 8 packs more battery life, more storage, faster performance, plus Alexa—all for less than $90."
Alexa works on the Fire HD 8 just as it does on other supported products, only here the voice assistant is conjured up by long pressing the home button. You can then task Alexa with reading the news, giving weather reports, playing songs, and so forth.
Amazon is also planning to introduce Alexa to its Fire HD 10, Fire, and last year's Fire HD 8 tablets through an over-the-air software update sometime in the coming months. As for the new Fire HD 8, the 32GB model is available to pre-order now for $90 with Special Offers, or $105 without. The 32GB model runs $120 with Special Offers and $135 without. All four SKUs will ship September 21.
