Amazon Fire HD 10 (2023) review

Much like a strange mashup of Deeperlove and The Crazy World of Arthur Brown, Amazon is back once again to bring you Fire – the latest Fire HD 10 tablet, to be exact. 

This 12th-gen refresh offers a marginal bump in specifications versus the previous edition, which was released in 2021. 

The 2023 Fire HD 10 is powered by a MediaTek MT8186 processor, which Amazon says is 25% faster than the 2021 edition’s MT8183. 

The cameras too – a 5Mp main sensor and 5Mp front-facing camera – now record 1080p Full HD video compared to creaky old 720p. This means Zoom calls will look a little clearer. 

Finally, the new model is also 30g lighter than the 11th-generation Fire HD 10 tablet, so it’s easier to carry around and crash on the couch with a book or TV show. 

Otherwise, it’s much the same as what we got last time around. A 10.1-inch display, up to 64GB of internal storage, and Android with Amazon’s FireOS custom interface and app store. 

With the arrival of the Amazon Fire Max 11 this year, the Fire HD 10 is no longer the jewel in Amazon’s tablet crown. If you’re after an inexpensive tablet with a focus on getting some work done on the train between watching episodes of The Boys (maybe best not done on the train), then the Fire Max 11 may be more of what you’re after. 

That said, the Fire HD 10 remains a good budget Android tablet – albeit one with an emphasis on Amazon services – that you could, in a pinch, use as a work device, even though the focus is mainly on entertainment.

Design & Build

• Black plastic with a matt finish
• Type-C USB, 3.5mm headphone jack
• Lightweight, but cheap-feeling

Design-wise, the Fire HD 10 is a very basic, no-frills tablet – matt plastic with no accents or metallic edges, just the smiley Amazon logo cut into the back. You don’t want to knock it for looking and feeling cheap, but at the same time, it kinda looks and feels cheap.

The version I was sent was black, but lilac and ocean blue versions are available as well.

On the plus side, it’s lightweight and comfortable to hold in one hand, whether in portrait or landscape. Given the focus on entertainment here, it’d be great if Amazon had worked a kickstand into the back like the Fire HD 10 Kids Pro, so if you wanted to drop this up on your coffee table, you’d need to fork out for a case or dock. 

Thomas Newton / Foundry

See also  Linksys Atlas 6 review

If you’re holding the tablet in landscape and facing it with the camera on the top edge, you’ll find two speakers sitting up on the top edge, and the power key, volume rocker, USB port and headphone jack on the right-hand edge. On the bottom edge, there’s a microSD slot, should you need to expand storage.

Screen & Speakers

• 10.1-inch LCD display
• Full HD+
• USI 2.0 stylus support
• Stereo speakers 

The Amazon Fire HD 10’s display is nicely detailed with a resolution of 1920 x 1200, and it supports USI active stylus technology, so if you have a USI stylus from another tablet, or a Chromebook, it’ll work here too. 

Thomas Newton / Foundry

Without having a stylus to hand, I can’t say for sure how good stylus feedback in the display is, but it’s safe to assume that it’s on par with the Fire 11 Max experience – in other words, very good. 

I recorded a peak brightness of 369 nits, which is not fantastic, not really vibrant enough for outdoor reading, unless you’re somewhere shady. That’s par for the course for budget tablets though, the Nokia T21, Samsung Galaxy Tab A8, and Oppo Pad Air all returned similar results, although the Fire Max 11 and Galaxy Tab A9 are a bit brighter. 

The stereo speakers are not too bad, far better at delivering TV and movie sounds and dialogue than they are for music playback – bass tones are not very well defined, and cymbals sound thin and tinny. Again, to be expected for a device of this size and price. 

Specs & Performance

• Mediatek 8-core processor
• 3GB of RAM
• Ideal for light browsing, emails, and casual games

The Amazon Fire HD 10 is very much geared towards light web browsing, reading books, and streaming media. As standard you get 32GB of storage but 64GB is available too.

There is a game mode, which temporarily disables Alexa and hides notifications for optimal performance, although Asphalt 8 was only just about playable. The Fire HD 10 is really better suited towards less demanding titles, like Clash of Clans.

The Silk browser is pretty good at running with north of ten tabs open, although it struggled with some busier web pages, like the BBC homepage and The Guardian. 

Occasionally struggled to jump between apps and processes. Exiting the camera, Clash of Clans, and the Kindle app all saw the tablet freeze for a couple of seconds and take me back to a blank home menu. A second later, all of the widgets and app icons ghosted into view. Not the end of the world, but also not very confidence-inspiring either. 

Benchmarking results tallied with my observations – the scores here are roughly on par with other tablets in its category, and as the Manhattan and T-Rex frame rate scores show, it’s just not cut out for fast-paced gaming. 

Amazon Fire HD 10 (2023) benchmarks

In terms of wireless connectivity, you get Wi-Fi 5 and Bluetooth 5.3, which is a little disappointing for any new device in 2023. That’ll be fast enough for streaming video and music, but note that the Fire Max 11 supports the more recent and faster Wi-Fi 6 standard.

Cameras

• 5Mp rear camera
• 5Mp front camera
• Full HD video

The main camera is not much to write home about. It’s only really capable of taking passable photos where there’s adequate natural light. Indoor photos tend to look pretty ropey – as you might expect from a camera in a bargain basement tablet.  

The front-facing camera is adequate for selfies, and for video calls, which is likely the main reason you’d be interested in a tablet’s camera quality. The camera interface is also rudimentary, and hard to get to grips with.

Switching between front and main cameras, for example, requires you to tap the three dots icon in the bottom left corner, and then hit the double arrow icon – why this shortcut has been squirreled away to a sub-menu is a mystery.

As mentioned earlier, the tablet is now capable of shooting Full HD video rather than standard HD 720p so there is at least some improvement and good news if you plan to use the Fire HD 10 for video calls. 

Battery Life & Charging

• 13 hours quoted lifespan
• Weedy 9W charger

Battery life is good, with the PC Mark Work 3.0 battery life test giving me 10h 11mins. A little off the quoted 13 hours, but plenty of power for most people’s purposes. 

Less good is the fact that the Fire HD 10 takes just over four hours to charge using the supplied 9W charger. After 15 minutes from empty, I was on 4%, and after half an hour 8%. After an hour, 18%. That’s extremely slow going.

Amazon says that USB Type-C-to-C 15W chargers (sold separately) will recharge the tablet from full in three hours. Which is good to know, but it makes you wonder why they just didn’t include one in the first place.  

Thomas Newton / Foundry

Software & Apps

• Fire OS 8, based on Android 11
• No Google Play Store
• Alexa and Echo Show Mode

As with all other Amazon Fire tablets, it runs something called Fire OS, a customised interface which is based on Google’s Android software. 

It’s very easy to navigate, especially if you’ve used an Android tablet before. The main page is divided into three sections where you can check out recommended apps and media, a home page, and a library of everything you’ve downloaded, and all the tabs you have open in the Silk browser. 

Thomas Newton / Foundry

But it’s not quite the same as regular Android. For starters, even though the Amazon Appstore has many of the same games and apps, there are conspicuous absences, like the YouTube Android app, Google Maps, and Chrome.

On that note, you can’t even download other browsers from the Appstore – it’s very much a case of use the Silk browser or go home. It’s the same story on every Fire tablet out there, so this is nothing new but you should be aware.

You don’t have to do absolutely everything Amazon’s way on the Fire HD 10 though. For example, you can have Alexa connect to your Spotify account, if you’d rather use that than Amazon Music, so there’s some flexibility.

As with more recent Fire devices, Alexa is ‘hands free’, meaning you can send it voice commands even when the display is off, and the tablet’s locked. 

Echo Show mode also returns on the Fire HD 10. This essentially turns the tablet into a smart home display, showing off things like weather, trending recipes, a TV guide, trending recipes, and more. 

Thomas Newton / Foundry

Price & Availability

The Amazon Fire HD (2023) is available to buy directly from Amazon now. The 32GB version costs £159.99/$154.99 while the 64GB version is priced at £189.99/$194.99. 

If you can put up with adverts on the lock screen, you can have either option away with a £10/$15 discount.

USI 2.0-certified styluses are also available to buy from Amazon for £34.99/$39.99. 

If you’re willing to part with a bit more cash, good alternatives include the Xiaomi Redmi Pad SE, which has a superior display, better battery, more internal storage, for around £50 more. 

The Oppo Pad Air is another good option – again, better display, more storage, not much more expensive, although the battery’s longevity is not quite as good. Also consider the recently-tested Samsung Galaxy Tab A9, which is a similar price, has a smaller display, but comes with more internal storage and Googke Play.

Alternatively, if you’re after something with a bit more power, then the Fire Max 11 may be a better choice, or if you were looking for something inexpensive for all the family, then the Amazon Fire HD 10 Kids Pro version would be a more suitable option. 

Thomas Newton / Foundry

Should you buy the Amazon Fire HD 10 (2023)?

The Amazon Fire HD 10 is for anyone who reads a lot on Kindle and Audible, has a Prime subscription, and streams the occasional show on Prime Video.

If you’re already invested in the Amazon ecosystem, you will appreciate having everything at your fingertips when you first power it on. 

However, at £150/$140 (with ads), this is only slightly cheaper than other budget Android tablets, which represent better value for money, largely because they’ll give you access to the Google Play app store, which offers more choice than its Amazon counterpart.

Specs

• Display: 10.1in, USI 2.0 stylus support
• Resolution: 1920 x 1200 (224 ppi)
• Processor: Octa-core up to 2 GHz
• Storage: 32 or 64 GB (expandable by up to 1TB)
• RAM: 3GB
• Camera: 5Mp front, 5Mp rear
• Connectivity: Wi-Fi 5, Bluetooth 5.3
• Alexa-enabled: Yes, hands-free
• Sound: Dolby Atmos-branded dual-stereo speakers, microphone
• Battery Life: Up to 13 hours
• Charging: USB-C (USB 2.0)
• Weight: 433.6g
• Dimensions: 246 x 165 x 10.9mm