Display & Audio

As a device built for entertainment, the audio-visual experience is crucial, and the Fire HD 8 Plus delivers a package that is perfectly tuned for its price point.
 

• 8-Inch HD Display: The tablet features an 8-inch screen with a 1280 x 800 resolution. While it won't win any awards for pixel density, the IPS panel technology ensures good, consistent colors and wide viewing angles. During our testing, we found it to be more than sharp enough for watching movies on Prime Video or Netflix, with a 16:10 aspect ratio that’s well-suited for widescreen content. Brightness is perfectly adequate for indoor use in a living room or bedroom.
   

• A Necessary Compromise: The display is not laminated, meaning there's a visible air gap between the glass and the screen panel itself. This is a very common cost-saving measure on budget devices. The downside is that it makes the screen highly reflective and causes colors to look a bit washed-out in bright sunlight, severely limiting its outdoor usability. This is the tablet's most significant trade-off, but it's a deliberate one made to keep the device accessible, and for its primary role as an indoor media player, it performs just fine.
   

• Audio: The onboard stereo speakers are enhanced with Dolby Atmos processing, which helps create a wider, more immersive soundscape than you'd expect. The sound is clear and balanced enough for casual viewing, though it can lack bass and doesn't get overwhelmingly loud. For its price point, the speaker quality is perfectly acceptable.
   

• Headphone Experience: Where the audio truly shines is through the 3.5mm headphone jack. Plugging in a decent pair of headphones reveals a clean, powerful, and genuinely enjoyable audio output. Our listening sessions with wired headphones were impressive, making the tablet a fantastic personal music and movie machine.

Performance

The "Plus" in this tablet's name signifies a handful of key upgrades that meaningfully elevate the user experience, turning a basic tablet into something far more responsive and versatile.
 

• Everyday Performance: The tablet is powered by a capable hexa-core processor that Amazon states is 30% faster than the previous generation. This isn't a gaming beast, but for its intended purpose—streaming, Browse, reading, and running apps from the Amazon Appstore—it's wonderfully responsive.
   

• 3GB of RAM: This is arguably the most important "Plus" feature. The jump from 2GB in the standard model to 3GB here makes a noticeable difference in daily use. During our hands-on testing, switching between apps, using the split-screen feature, and generally navigating the interface felt significantly smoother and zippier. It provides the necessary headroom to keep the experience fluid and free of frustrating lag.
   

• Qi Wireless Charging: This is the tablet's signature feature and a game-changer for convenience. Being able to just drop the tablet on any Qi-compatible pad to charge is a fantastic perk rarely seen in this category. Its true potential is unlocked with the optional charging dock, which automatically puts the tablet into Show Mode, effectively turning it into a portable, voice-controlled Echo Show smart display. This "grab-and-go" functionality is an amazing value, giving you two devices in one.
   

• Upgraded Camera and Charger: The Plus model includes a 5MP rear camera, an upgrade over the standard model's 2MP sensor. In truth, the photo quality is still very basic and won't replace your phone's camera, but it's fine for scanning a document or QR code. More importantly, it comes with a 9W power adapter in the box, which charges the tablet in about 3 hours, a significant improvement over the 5 hours it takes with the standard 5W charger.

Software

The software is what defines the Fire tablet experience, for better or worse. Fire OS 8 is a heavily customized version of Android 11 designed to be the ultimate gateway to Amazon's vast content universe.
 

• Amazon-Centric Interface: The home screen is built around surfacing content. Instead of a simple grid of apps, you get tabs like "For You," which offers recommendations from Amazon's services, and "Library," which gathers all your Kindle books, Prime Video shows, and Audible titles in one place. If you're invested in the Amazon ecosystem, it's an incredibly seamless and convenient way to access your stuff.
   

• Amazon Appstore Limitation: Herein lies the biggest compromise: the Fire HD 8 Plus does not have the Google Play Store. You are limited to apps available on the Amazon Appstore. While it has most major streaming services (Netflix, Disney+, etc.) and many popular apps, the selection is much smaller than Google's, and you won't find any of Google's own apps like Gmail, Chrome, or YouTube (which must be accessed via the web browser). This "walled garden" is a deliberate choice that allows Amazon to offer the hardware at such a low cost.
   

• Alexa Integration: Hands-free Alexa is built directly into the operating system. You can ask for the weather, control your smart home devices, play music, or get a recipe just by using your voice. This integration, especially when combined with Show Mode, makes the tablet an incredibly useful smart home hub.
   

• "Special Offers" Explained: To achieve its aggressive price point, the standard version of the tablet displays advertisements on the lock screen. These are unobtrusive and are a key part of the value proposition: you accept some light advertising in exchange for a lower hardware cost.

Battery Life & Connectivity

For a device meant to be carried around the house or on a trip, endurance is key, and this is an area where the Fire HD 8 Plus truly excels.
 

• All-Day (and Then Some) Battery: Amazon claims up to 13 hours of battery life, and our real-world use confirms this is no exaggeration. We easily got through a full day of mixed use—including a couple of hours of video, web Browse, and reading—with plenty of charge to spare. For a simple video rundown test, the tablet lasted for an astonishing amount of time, making it a supremely reliable travel companion for long flights or road trips.
   

• Solid and Reliable Connectivity: The tablet is equipped with dual-band Wi-Fi 5 and Bluetooth 5.2. While these aren't the absolute latest standards, they are more than capable of providing a strong, stable connection for streaming HD video and connecting to wireless headphones or speakers. We experienced no issues with dropped connections or buffering during our testing.