Kid-friendly
Crisp and bright HD screen
Fluid navigation
Restricted operating system
Middling audio
Poor multitasking performance
Design
Setup Process
Display
Performance
Audio
Network
Camera
Battery
Software
Price
Competition
Final Verdict
Specs
Design: Solid and unglamorous
It’s also got some heft to it and is definitely not as easy to pick up as other popular tablets. The Fire HD 10 weighs a little over a pound (17.6 ounces), which is more than the latest iPad Pro (16.5 ounces) but less than Microsoft’s Surface Go, which checks in at 18.7 ounces. The device is not waterproof, but you can pick up a variety of Fire cases that provide this feature if you’re looking for it.
In regards to ports, the Fire HD 10 has both a 3.5mm headphone jack and a micro USB charging slot. We appreciate seeing the headphone jack on this tablet, considering that other competitors like the iPad have opted to drop this feature.
The Kids Edition also bakes in a lot of very useful parental controls, a child-focused user interface, and a two-year worry-free guarantee.
Of course, there is also a Kids Edition of the Fire HD 10 for $199.99 MSRP that offers a rubbery “kid-proof” case. This edition also bakes in a lot of very useful parental controls, a child-focused user interface, and a two-year worry-free guarantee. If you’re looking for a kids tablet, this is a worthwhile purchase compared to other 10-inch tablets. You may also want to look at smaller iterations of the device, like the non-HD Fire 7, if you’re just looking for something that a child can run free with.
Once this was all set up, we were then walked through a short tutorial that explained how to use the Android OS.
Display: Exceptionally good for the price
The 1920 x 1200 IPS LCD screen is the crown jewel of the Fire HD 10 and it’s surprisingly brilliant. The difference between this display and the display on the Fire HD 8 is almost night and day.
The Fire HD 10’s screen offers 224 pixels-per-inch and is perfect for streaming video on the go, especially at this price point. For comparison, the Surface Go offers 217 ppi and the 11-inch iPad Pro has 264 ppi. This is impressive, especially when you consider that the price difference between the Fire HD 10 and the 2018 iPad Pro is upwards of $600.
To test the display we watched streaming content like The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel and Vikings on Prime Video, and it’s safe to say the experience was fantastic, even at multiple viewing angles. The display is crisp and bursting with colour, far better than the Surface Go, which looks washed out by comparison. The Fire HD 10 falls short of the (much more expensive) iPad Pro’s superior Liquid Retina display, but for the price it is unbeatable.
The 1920 x 1200 IPS LCD screen is the crown jewel of the Fire HD 10.
The only point when it starts to falter is when you take it outside—we experienced a lot of glare on the screen in direct sunlight, which was a bit surprising considering it’s a tremendously bright screen.
Performance: Not for power users or gamers, but fine for casual users and kids
In Geekbench, the Fire HD 10’s Quad-Core 1.8GHz processor managed a single-core score of 1,487 and a multi-core score of 3,005. To put it in context, this is comparable, processor-wise, to the Samsung Galaxy S6 smartphone from 2015.
It definitely isn’t a speedy device, but in our testing, it actually beat the more expensive Microsoft Surface Go’s Pentium processor for single-core performance, which only managed a measly 1,345.
There were a few different indicators of the weak processor: In our testing, we encountered some rather serious problems with multitasking. When attempting to download the startup files for Real Racing 3, the system locked up as we switched between apps and we had to do a hard reset on the device.
It also can’t handle graphically-intense games without dropping frames. Nothing ran too horribly, but it quickly became evident that this is a device more suited to streaming video, running 2D or low-poly 3D games (Subway Surfers and Roblox ran without a hitch), and moving between a few social media apps.
This is a device most suited to streaming video, running 2D or low-poly 3D games … and moving between a few social media apps.
As you can imagine, the app store has lots of offerings for kids and casual users, but it tends to sidestep more popular mobile games. If you’re a gamer looking for the latest and greatest mobile experiences, we’d advise against the Fire HD 10. The games you want probably aren’t available, and this device isn’t powerful enough to be a dedicated gaming machine anyways.
But it delivers solid performance for its intended uses. Because this device is using Fire OS and not Windows 10, apps still work very well on the Fire HD 10 and feel far more natural than on productivity-focused tablets like the Surface Go.
Navigation on the Fire HD 10 is surprisingly good. We wouldn’t call it fluid like the iPad Pro, but it performs well and feels intuitively designed for the touchscreen when compared to the Microsoft Surface Go. We had no trouble getting used to it.
Due to the touchscreen-first approach, this isn’t a great device for productivity. We think you’d be better off using your phone to reply to emails or edit documents, because the Fire HD 10 has an awkwardly wide keyboard and is difficult to hold. In most cases, we wanted to prop this up somewhere to use it, and we quickly got frustrated with the compromises we were making to get work done on this device.
For file and app storage, our review model came with 32GB, but you can easily upgrade this with a microSD if you want to download tons of apps, music, and offline streaming content for when you’re away from Wi-Fi.
Audio: Definitely needs headphones or an external speaker
The audio fairs better when streaming video content, but the stereo speakers are located on only one side of the device and can be easily muffled during use. It’s an overall lack of bass that brings the audio down, though it is certainly passable for consumers looking for a budget multimedia device.
There is a nice touch in the volume sliders, where you can choose to turn down system notifications in favor of media (and vice versa) rather than having a single slider that controls everything.
Network: Perfectly acceptable for the price
During our Speedtest, the Fire HD 10 managed 51 Mbps on Wi-Fi, with a 6 Mbps upload speed. This is solid performance for a budget device, albeit not as effective as iPad Pro (72 Mbps) or the Surface Go (94 Mbps), which are both more expensive competition.
Regardless, you’re unlikely to be downloading anything gargantuan on this unit, and we found that most apps quickly pop up on the dashboard without any problems. Even when using the tablet outside and moving away from the router, the Fire HD 10 maintained a good signal and kept up its streaming quality, even at a reasonable distance.
Camera: Terrible, but only a real inconvenience for video calls
Both the front and rear-facing cameras on this device are laughably bad—you can actually see the framerate of the screen lagging as you move the device. The rear-facing camera takes incredibly noisy photos at 2 MP, and although it can shoot 720p video, you won’t want to once you see the results. The front-facing camera is VGA and barely worth the effort. Unfortunately, you will need to use it if you want to make video calls through Skype or Alexa.
Let’s be honest, though: the camera shouldn’t be what you’re buying it for. Tablet cameras are, in the grand scheme of things, mostly useless. The only real inconvenience is in the quality of the video calls.
Battery: Lasts a long time and takes a long time to charge
The battery life on the Fire HD 10 is solid. During testing, we got around six or seven hours out of the device while streaming video content. For most basic tasks the battery barely suffers, and you are free to browse social media to your heart’s content without draining it.
We took the Fire HD 10 out to see how it would last with normal usage. We used it for music, streaming, emails, and browsing over many hours, and the battery easily lasted the entire day. Granted, it isn’t a productivity machine, so it’s always going to be a secondary device to a more powerful tablet or laptop.
The downside: fully charging the Fire HD 10 with the proprietary plug takes a very long time. During testing, it actually took up to five and a half hours, which basically puts the device out of commission for the day. This is disappointing when many other tablets in this field can provide multiple days of light use and offer a quicker charge.
It doesn’t feel like you’re compromising when using the Fire OS, especially due to the fluid navigation throughout the many menus, and the affable Silk Browser. Most apps are optimized well and don’t throw up the annoying black bars seen on the iPad Pro, making social media usage a breeze.
These voice control capabilities are also helpful when you’re streaming or listening to music—just ask Alexa to pause or skip forward a song. It doesn’t quite have the complex functionality of Siri Shortcuts on the iPad, but Alexa’s inclusion in the Fire HD 10 is very useful if you’re already comfortable with issuing voice commands to a home hub.
The App Store on the Fire HD 10 is missing a number of official Google apps and doesn’t have top-flight Android or iOS games like PUBG Mobile, FIFA Football, or Fortnite. This is annoying considering that the Fire HD 10 is still technically an Android tablet. But it’s a very stripped-down form of Android, and more involved users may find these limitations and omissions frustrating.
Price: An incredible value for the hardware
At $149.99 MSRP, the Fire HD 10 is absolutely dirt cheap for the specs that you’re getting, and is a solid entry-level tablet. The screen alone stands out as being more than worth it at this price point, as does the fluidity of the (pared-down) operating system.
The Fire HD 10 also has a reactive user interface, decent speakers and network speeds, and the ability to perform basic tasks with ease. As long as you’re very aware of the limitations, it’s pretty much unbeatable at this price. Most of the competition sits leagues ahead in the $600 to $1,000 range.
Competition: Some good options
This device designed less for productivity and more for pure media consumption. You could technically read ebooks on your smartphone and watch Prime Video, Netflix, and YouTube using a Fire Stick or ChromeCast (most of the features of this tablet are built into modern smart TVs). But for what it is—a media-focused tablet— the Fire HD 10 is very cheap and worth having around if you need a medium-sized screen to play around with.
However, a couple of devices do give the Fire HD 10 a run for its money. The Lenovo Tab 4 is a similar 10.1-inch tablet with an HD screen but a far better, more customizable Android OS and improved battery life. This starts at $149.99 and is certainly worth considering, though you do lose some storage space.
You could also be tempted to pick up the previous-generation 9.7-inch iPad, which is a lot faster and has more dedicated uncompromising applications, though keep in mind that it starts higher at $329.
If you’re looking for something to do more than a few basic tasks you may be tempted by Microsoft’s Surface Go which starts at $399, though to achieve its full productivity potential, it needs the Surface Type Cover for an extra $99. Already, we’re drifting away from the affordability of the Fire HD 10, and you’re probably better off considering something more high-end for the productivity use case.
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It isn’t perfect, but it’s well worth the money as a media tablet.
