Amazon’s Fire tablets are some of the only high-profile, affordable tablets around. Their prices seem too good to be true—and in some ways, they are—but Fire tablets are also completely functional, reasonably capable devices. To help you decide if one of these slates is right for you, we reviewed every model. These are our unfiltered recommendations.
Be sure to check out our many other buying guides, including the best tablets and best Alexa speakers.
Updated in December 2019: We’ve added more details about the new 10-inch Fire tablets.
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The Best Fire Tablet
The Fire HD 10 is the speediest and most well-rounded Amazon tablet. It’s been refreshed for 2020 with a slight processor bump and 2-gigabytes of RAM. The bigger news is the addition of a USB-C charging port. This is the first USB-C capable device from Amazon and we hope it spreads to the rest of the line as well. Most Android phones and several laptops use USB-C for charging, so having it on this tablet means one less cable to carry around. Otherwise, the 2019 Fire HD 10 remains the same as the previous version.
The Fire HD 10 has a larger screen with more pixels (1080p) than its siblings, making it better for watching videos. And, like the Fire HD 8, you can shout commands at Alexa from across the room. To use Show Mode on the Fire HD 10 just swipe down on the notification overlay and check the Show Mode box. After that you can set your HD 10 on a stand (we like the official magnetic standing case) and it essentially becomes an Echo Show.
You can choose between a 32 GB model and a 64 GB model (with a MicroSD slot if you need more space). Whichever you choose Amazon will serve up advertisements on the lock screen. To get rid of that you’ll need to spend $15 more for the version without “special offers.”
The Fire HD 10 costs $150 at Amazon
The Best for Travel
With a travel-friendly size and a price tag below $100, the 2018 Fire HD 8 is our favorite all-around Fire tablet. (Read our Fire HD 8 review.) It’s portable enough to take with you anywhere, and its screen won’t torture your eyes when you watch Netflix.
The HD 8 has most of the benefits of the larger Fire HD 10, including hands-free Alexa, stereo sound, and 9- to 10-hour battery life. I recommend picking up Amazon’s magnetic stand-up case if you plan on watching movies or TV, or a Show Mode Dock if you want to use it as an Alexa speaker.
The Fire HD 8 costs $80 at Amazon
The Best Fire Tablet For Kids
In the past year, Amazon released updates to both of their kid tablets, the Fire 7 Kids Edition (2019) and the Fire HD 8 Kids Edition (2018). The company also announced a new Fire HD 10 Kids Edition (2019).
We still think the HD 8 is the best device for most kids. It has a larger, sharper HD screen, Dolby stereo sound, and dual speakers compared to the Fire 7. But the Fire HD 10 (which also has all those features) is really big in kid hands, especially with the Kids Edition case around it, so it’s better suited for older kids.
The Kids Edition versions are exactly the same as the regular Fire tablets, except they come with the rugged case and a two-year worry-free guarantee, which means Amazon will replace the tablet for free if your kids break it. It also comes with one year of FreeTime Unlimited, offering access to kid-friendly movies, books, games, and apps. It costs $3 per month after the first year.
The Fire HD 8 Kids Edition costs $130 at Amazon
Avoid the Fire 7
The Fire 7 is Amazon’s cheapest tablet, and it has a tantalizingly low price. But if you’re making more demands on your Fire tablet than a 3-year-old who loves Carl the Super Truck, you should probably cough up a little extra and buy an HD 8. Like we said in our Fire 7 review, the 7-inch screen will feel somewhat cramped and its screen resolution is noticeably pixelated. You won’t love the mono speaker, which is easily blocked by a single finger. Its battery also lags behind the other two tablets, and the 8 GB of internal storage is pitifully small, mandating a MicroSD card from the get go.
Amazon Sells Older Fire Tablets. Don’t Buy Them
Only buy one of the “8th Generation” or “9th Generation” Fire tablets. We suggest sticking to the tablets we talk about in this article (also listed here).
If you’re on a tight budget, the 2017 Fire HD 10 is often available refurbished for considerably less than the new one. The downside with it and other, older model Fire tablets is that they may not get software updates for a long as the current generation will. You’ll also miss out on the faster processor and more RAM in the newer model (and the USB-C).
It’s a pain, but if you’re buying an old device you should also cross reference the latest update available for the tablet you’re going to buy (find it on this sheet) with the latest version of Fire OS to see how up-to-date your software will be.
What’s WIRED About All Fire Tablets
A Faucet for Amazon Content: If you subscribe to Amazon’s Prime service, you can listen to all the included music, movies, TV, and books while also shopping for all the items you can get with its free two-day shipping or browsing your free Amazon photo storage. You can do most of the same things from an Android tablet or iPad, but the Fire OS interface is crafted specifically to deliver Amazon goods, with swipeable pages for each type of media Amazon sells.
Built ‘Good Enough’: Physically, Amazon’s Fire tablets are made of cheap-ish plastic, but they’re designed with enough care that the build quality won’t bother you too much. The Kids Editions are also some of the best-quality tablets for kids, encased in a rugged bumper, and all have MicroSD slots so you can add extra storage. (We recommend this 128 GB MicroSD card.)
Cheap: Did we mention the price? They all cost $150 or less, which is a price that would have legitimately shocked you a few years ago. They offer high value for the price. You can also get them with Amazon lock-screen ads, which will lower your price by $15.
What’s TIRED About All Fire Tablets
Non-Amazon Content is Lacking: The greatest strength of these tablets is also their greatest weakness. If you aren’t an Amazon Prime subscriber and don’t plan to get your video, audio, or books from Amazon, the Fire tablet line is far less compelling. They do have Alexa, so that could be a plus, but again, that’s tied deeply into Amazon’s content library.
You can download third-party apps like Netflix on Amazon’s Appstore, but the selection is far more limited than the apps available on Apple’s iPad or the Google Play Store on standard Android tablets. Tech-savvy users have found ways to add the Google Play Store or sideload apps, but these devices are built to serve up Amazon’s library first and foremost.
Old Tech: The tech inside these tablets is old. They all run on processors that would have impressed 4+ years ago but show their age today with small fits of lag and a general lack of power. Since many of the apps are built with weak processing power in mind, you don’t notice it too much. The operating system is also dated (depending on which Fire tablet you’re buying), which could hide some of the weaknesses. Amazon’s latest Fire OS is a modified version of Android 9 Pie, which came out in 2018. Amazon keeps updating its tablets to some degree, but not nearly as often as it should.
Short Warranties: Only the Fire HD 10 comes with a full one-year warranty. Oddly, the smaller devices come with 90-day warranties.
Special Offers: In the last year, Amazon’s Special Offers lockscreen ads have gotten more overt. We recommend you pay the extra $15 to buy a Fire tablet without them.
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