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Amazon Kindle Fire HD 8 Review
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May 30, 2025
The latest offering in the Amazon Kindle line sports a bright, sharp screen, MicroSD card support offering over 128GB of storage space, a solid design, Fire OS 5 which is a whole lot closer to stock Android (finally) and some groovy colors. Review by Dave Taylor of http://www.AskDaveTaylor.com/
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hi Dave Taylor here and this time I'm
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looking at the Kindle Fire
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hd8 that's this guy and you can see I'm
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busy reading the book it's pretty
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typical but here's what's cool about
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this is that this is actually now a full
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Android tablet so you actually get
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regular Android interface and there's a
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ton of apps it also comes with a good
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web browser email calendar system so it
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can do a whole lot more than just ebooks
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in fact you can do movies TV shows I
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mean really it is a full fully
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functional tablet with this really
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beautiful big 8 in screen and it's kind
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of funny Dimensions if you can look you
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can see it's a little skinny but it does
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end up duplicating like one side of a
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traditional hardback book which I think
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is probably their design intention
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Kindle also there is a 10-in version so
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it's a little bit bigger same sort of
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odd tall Dimensions um but let's go
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through some of the specs while we have
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it first off orange how's that for cool
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it's not the boring colors in fact the
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hd8 comes in Black magenta blue and this
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isn't orange this is Tangerine now
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here's what's funny is that Amazon sent
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us a cover in green so why I would put a
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green cover on a tangerine tablet I'm
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not sure but the tablet itself is so
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well-designed and tough too Amazon says
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that it's twice as durable as a as the
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most recent of the Apple iPads so that's
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pretty nice because these things do end
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up taking a bit of a beating so um
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that's a nice feature it has like I said
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an 8in display with over a million
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pixels so it's at 1280 by 800 and if you
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think through your numbers that makes it
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better than 1080p which is nice so if
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you're watching a movie on it and I
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can't really show you because of
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licensed rights with movies but if
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you're watching a movie on it's going to
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look very good uh has a quad core 1.5
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GHz processor so it's pretty Speedy if
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you're used to older Kindles where you
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like switch apps and you wait and you
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want to go to the next page of the book
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and you wait this is all very Zippy and
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in fact the book reading experience on
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it as you would expect for it being an
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Amazon Kindle is beautiful it's really
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really nice it's quick you can do all
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sorts of type faces all the stuff you
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can do in the Kindle app but really
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really fast uh let's see it has a 5
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megapixel rear-facing camera and the
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front-facing camera it just says is HD
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but I honestly I don't take a lot of
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selfies and if I do take selfies I'm
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probably not taking them with my tablet
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so not sure that's a selling point but
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here's what is a selling point is that
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the default memory in these guys are8
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gig or 16 gig but unlike iPads and a lot
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of other thirdparty tablets what the
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Amazon Kindle can do is it can actually
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let you add a Micro SD card now once you
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have one of those little tiny little SD
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cards then you can actually get up to
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128 additional gigabyt of storage which
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means that if you really want to have
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all Six Star Wars movies to watch while
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you're waiting in line to see the force
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awakens yet another time you could do
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that you could have all the Lord of the
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Rings movies you could have I don't know
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Fast and Furious series all 26 James
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Bond movies there's a lot of storage
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space here if you're really into books
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you could have all of them okay maybe
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not all of them but you could certainly
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have a lot of books on here too 128 gig
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plus the built-in 16 gig gives you a lot
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of Headroom there and it's running so I
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said it's running Android but it's
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really not it's running Amazon's version
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of Android which they call fire OS and
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this is fire OS S 5 and I have to say if
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you're used to the old fire OS which was
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like the old Kindle operating system
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where it's the Carousel and you swipe to
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find your book and everything this is
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much more of a sort of normal Computing
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experience which I prefer actually I
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like knowing that things that I've
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learned on my computer or on my
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smartphone or on other tablets apply to
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how I use this tablet so that's really
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nice too um battery Wise It's about 8
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hours of usage depending on what you're
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doing so that might not take you all the
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way from LA to London but pretty close
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pretty close and it has a nice feel to
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it so the colors are actually Plastics
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but it's a pretty tough and durable
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plastic though I will say if you go and
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look on
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amazon.com there are some people that
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have some concerns with build quality
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and longevity of these devices honestly
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I think most of these are kind of
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designed to last just a couple of years
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anyway with the assumption that hey
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you're going to up up grade cuz you got
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bigger better faster stronger if you are
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the kind of person that holds on to a
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device forever you might want to pay
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close attention to that not just with
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this but with every one of the modern
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devices that are out I just I don't
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think modern devices are designed to
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last 5 or 10 years so you can probably
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get a good long lifetime out of it if
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you nurse it and you're very careful
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with it maybe have it in some really
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cool green
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case
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but I haven't had any issues with it and
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I find it to work very very well
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and it's a very good price point if
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you're used to the cost of things like
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Apple iPads you'll be very impressed
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that this with its nice 8in HD screen
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runs 149 bucks and for 8 gig or 169 for
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16 gig again you can also add a Micro SD
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card to get considerably more
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storage and it's a Kindle and it's fast
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it's light and what I do is I always
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have one of these devices in my computer
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bag so if I find that I have some
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downtime or I need to take a little
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break from looking at computer screens I
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then look at this screen now to be fair
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again this is a regular tablet screen
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this is not like their paper white which
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is a different kind of Amazon Kindle
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that uses the eink technology that's a
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very different thing from your the way
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that your eyes work sort of
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physiologically because it's not
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emitting light it's reflecting so it's
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much more like a regular book would be
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it's a very different experience but
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it's a black and white device with some
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gray scales so you're not watching
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movies on a eink device this is not
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going to look good so this is much more
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of a nice general purpose tablet I
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really like it I like the whole Kindle
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line actually and I'm a huge reader and
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an avid fan I'm Amazon Prime I think
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I've been a member since the day they
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announced it um so tons of content tons
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of things to do with this you're never
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really lonely because you can always
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find something to watch or something to
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read I guess that's good
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um Amazon Kindle Fire
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hd8 149 bucks with 8 gig 169 with 16 gig
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this is Dave Taylor and I got to get
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back to my book and I'll see you in my
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next video
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