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Amazon Launches Updated Fire HD 8 Tablet Now With Alexa Voice Services (hothardware.com)
MojoKid writes from a report via HotHardware: For the first time, Amazon's Alexa voice service is headed to a tablet. It's one of the standout features of Amazon's new Fire HD 8, a budget slate built to offer users all-day battery life, faster performance, and double the onboard storage of previous versions Fire HD tablets -- all for a low $90 price tag. The Fire HD 8 tablet's 8-inch HD (1280x800) IPS display is driven by a quad-core 1.3GHz processor and 1.5GB of RAM, and a capacious 4,750 mAh battery that is claimed to deliver up to 12 hours of mixed-use battery life. In addition, Alexa voice services works on the Fire HD 8 just as it does on other supported products, only here the voice assistant is conjured up by long pressing the home button. You can then task Alexa with reading the news, giving weather reports, playing songs, and so forth. The new Fire HD 8 32GB model is available to pre-order now for $90 with special offers (ads) or $105 without.
Writes from a report via? Fucking bullshit.
I'm actually impressed that's all they want. I feel like previously Amazon hardware has wanted more like $25-40 to avoid "special offers".
Nice to see to UK price in pounds = the US price in dollars - looks like the uk pays 30% more ... again
In the US, listed price doesn't include tax. And EU has far more consumer protection laws which means manufacturers has to charge more to provide at least two year warranties which American consumers don't get.
Might be a decent product if Amazon didn't load it up with shit.
Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
If this tablet was running free software, any user could simply remove the "special offers" (aka adware rubbish). Not to mention you wouldn't have to worry about endless tracking and spying because you could inspect the code, and even modify and recompile it yourself to suit your needs. So any attempts at snooping would be stopped short and/or only applied to users who consent for any reason.
Just another horror story from the Proprietaryland.
How long will the device get updates?
wow. first post with the words "I hate blacks" and no-one has even bothered to mod me down. Slashdot is dead.
The new Fire HD 8 32GB model is available to pre-order now for $90 with special offers (ads) or $105 without
32 GB model is $120. $90 is for the 16 GB model.
I've noticed that with 1GB [modern] Android is a turd, but with 2GB it's pretty smooth. Is 1.5GB really enough, or should one hold out for 2GB?
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Because you put it in the subject line instead of the post body, like a noob.
I have an HDX 8.9. I actually love it for the combination of form factor and performance. It's lacking an SD slot and mine has been heavily modified from its stock software load, but more importantly to me, NO ONE has replacement parts for it, and it's old enough that the battery has deteriorated from a new model. I loved it to death, apparently.
The thing is held together with glue and as I understand it, HDX 8.9s are nightmarish to work on, so I'm just going to have to live with a device that can only manage 4 hours of screen-on time and hope that Amazon eventually gets around to offering an updated model of similar specs.
And that's the problem, because the product line hasn't been refreshed in two years or more. New Fire HDs don't live up to the hardware specs of the HDX. They're the wrong sizes and weights, have lower screen resolutions and slower CPUs. Even as somebody who isn't bothered by having to side-load a significant number of apps to overcome the shortcomings of Amazon's app store, it's a drag.
I have an nVidia Shield (another tablet that is no longer being manufactured) that I also like well enough, but it doesn't quite live up to the screen of the HDX. Samsung's high end tablets typically have gorgeous screens but never, ever get OS updates. Asus and LG make 8"-class devices are likewise not quite satisfactory.
I'm sure Amazon sells a lot more $200 HDs than $400 HDXs but damn, some of us actually do want one.
-- I wanna decide who lives and who dies - Crow T. Robot, MST3K
UK: £90, or $120 UK VAT: 20% UK price before VAT: $100 So, the price that Amazon actually gets (after tax) is 11% higher in the UK than the US.
Just because you destroyed the pounds value doesn't mean amazon has to discount their imported products price
... so you can't "task" Alexa to do anything. Learn how to write English properly, and stop spreading your stupidity.
We get a full EU standard warranty, the merkins only get 90 days. Considering these are built down to a tight price, that warranty is worth paying for. My girlfriend is on her third Fire HD after the backlight failed on one and the screen failed on the other. Both were well after 90 days, but replaced free under UK warranty.
Would that be aLexa Doig who played ;Rommie' the computer in Andromeda
that would be cool.
At current exchange rates, the UK price is the equivalent of 120 USD; that's 33% more.
How much of that $120 goes to VAT?
How much goes to the cost of doing business in the UK?
Almost as bad as your understanding of mathematics.
Shame your understanding is even worse than his...
I got one of the 7" Fire Tablets; the hardware was actually ok for a low end tablet, it could do everything I wanted from a performance standpoint. The problem is that what I really want is a full Android tablet - there were too many instances of things I wanted to do which I couldn't with the Amazon ecosystem. So, good luck to them, but I won't be buying one again.
Isn't it a little disingenuous to call a tablet that's only capable of 1280x800 "HD"? The TV people get away with calling low-res 720p televisions "HD", much the same way the USB people managed to pull the wool over people's eyes with their "Full Speed" vs "High Speed" nonsense, but reality is most people know 1080p as "HD".
Which CyanogenMod goes with this?
This is the non-X version, right? So then it would be codename "jem"?
http://get.cm/?device=jem
But don't like spending a few seconds checking the site get in the way of posting a few seconds earlier.
A friend stuck an ammeter in line with his Alexa. It was drawing 4W continuous, night and day.
The cost is more that you paid for it.
I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
Almost anything filmed is at 24 fps or lower, so 1080i vs. 1080p doesn't really matter because the frame can be reconstructed from two fields. The only time I know of when interlacing causes an uncorrectable problem is during rapid action or pans in live sports.
That's "probably about 7" millenia, right?
Isn't it a little disingenuous to call a tablet that's only capable of 1280x800 "HD"? The TV people get away with calling low-res 720p televisions "HD"
1280x720 is still higher than what came before it (704x360 NTSC, 704x480 anamorphic NTSC, 704x432 PAL, or 704x576 anamorphic PAL).
It's just that as technology marches on, the definition of "high" changes. It's like "HIGH DEFINITION GRAPHICS" above the cartridge slot on the 1989 Sega Genesis when its VDP was just 240p. The Genesis was higher definition than what came before it: two 320x224 pixel scrolling planes with 100% sprite coverage and 61 of 512 colors, as opposed to one 256x224 pixel scrolling plane with 25% sprite coverage and 25-31 of 52-64 colors on the NES or Master System. In fact, the Genesis had a 480i mode (320x448 pixels) that only Sonic 2 ever really used due to video memory concerns.
much the same way the USB people managed to pull the wool over people's eyes with their "Full Speed" vs "High Speed" nonsense
In USB 1, 12 Mbps was the full speed of the interface. High speed (480 Mbps theoretical, 280 Mbps usable) didn't come until USB 2.
but reality is most people know 1080p as "HD".
The marketing terms to distinguish the two are "basic HD" (720p-class) and "full HD" (1080p).