If you are fed up of watching Netflix on your phone, squinting away at the relatively tiny screen whilst being interrupted by notifications, you need a tablet. Apple’s iPad is the household name, but when the cheapest iPad costs £329, you might feel like it’s an expense too far if all you want to do is kick back and stream the latest blockbuster.
Luckily, there are more affordable tablets available, and one great option is currently on sale. The Amazon Fire HD 8 is Amazon’s smallest and cheapest tablet, usually retailing for at least £99.99.
Right now, Amazon is offering the portable slate for £64.99, a substantial 35 percent saving. For that price, you get an 8-inch HD touchscreen display in a 16:10 aspect ratio, which means it’s more suited to video playback than your thinner, taller phone display but is still relatively compact for a tablet.
With access to all the major entertainment apps such as Netflix, Disney+ and of course Amazon Prime Video, the Fire HD 8 on sale is an inexpensive way to watch the latest shows on your commute on a bigger screen without breaking the bank.
Also, unlike the iPad, the Fire HD 8 can download the official Instagram app, so you can scroll through your timeline and view Stories and Reels on a larger screen.
Given this is an Amazon product, it also functions excellently as a Kindle with the Kindle Android app, available to download from the Amazon Appstore. Although the 8-inch screen is larger than most E Ink Kindles, the screen is not gargantuan, so works well in portrait orientation for reading all your e-books.
View the Amazon Fire HD 8 deal here
With the benefit of a colour screen, you can also enjoy comic books rather than have them restricted to monochrome. Sure, Amazon has the color-screened Kindle Colorsoft now, but that costs a whopping £269.99 – the Fire HD 8 on sale costs £205 less!
One thing to be aware of when it comes to all Amazon tablets, including the Fire HD 8, is that the Amazon Appstore does not contain Google apps, and you can’t run any Google services on the tablets. This could prove annoying if you want the official Gmail, Google Docs or Google Drive app, so it’s something to bear in mind.
But if you want an affordable tablet to simply download a few apps and stream video to, it’s hard to go wrong. Just remember that no Google apps also means no YouTube app.
Given this is an Amazon product, you have the Alexa voice assistant built in, so you can ask the Fire HD 8 questions or even set it up to control your smart home accessories such as lights or speakers. There is also a camera on the back and a front facing camera for video calls via supported video calling apps such as Zoom or to other Amazon devices such as the Echo Show smart home screen.
For £64.99 you’re getting the Fire HD 8 with 32GB storage, which isn’t loads, but there’s also a 64GB model available on sale for £89.99, down from £124.99
Both these models come with ads, one of the annoyances of Amazon’s cheapest tablets. It means you’ll be served ads on the lockscreen for cars, toothpaste, and anything else you can think of.
If you don’t want ads, you can get the 32GB model with no ads for £74.99 or the 64GB model with no ads for £99.99 in the sale.
All four of these tablets don’t come with a power adapter in the box, so if you need a charger you can add one for an extra cost on the listing page. If you already have a USB-C charger though it should work just fine.
As long as you understand the caveats about this dinky tablet, it could prove to be one of the biggest tech bargains you ever invest in.