Amazon Fire HD 8 Tablet With Alexa Review / The Best Budget Tablet In 2018

DESIGN & BUILD :-

The latest Fire HD 8 delivers faster performance, a bigger battery and more base storage than the previous version for almost half the price. Its 8-inch screen is bright, the speakers are loud and it offers expandable microSD storage and ample parental controls. 

While high-end tablets offer glass or aluminium finishing, Amazon's Fire tablets opt for study plastic around the back. It's a simple and slightly understated design, but it's a solid result. The plastics feel solid enough with ample texture to provide grip (Amazon is confident enough to say that it surpasses the iPad in terms of durability). They also withstand the occasional accidental knock and wipe clean easily enough.

The Amazon Fire HD 8 is an excellent tablet that boasts impressive battery life, good build quality, the ability to cope with light gaming demands and, most importantly, a price that is affordable to the masses.

Powered by a 1.3GHz quad-core processor and with 1.5GB of RAM, the HD 8 is rated to deliver 12 hours of juice. Amazon says that 12-hour battery rating is for "mixed-use," so it's hard to determine in our own video streaming tests if the new HD 8 lives up to those numbers, but the battery life, while not exceptionally good, is quite decent for a budget tablet. The biggest hit it took was with heavy use of Wi-Fi and playing more graphics-intensive games.

Available in four colors, the 2017 HD 8 retains its zippy feel.Thanks to the stereo speakers tuned with Dolby audio, the tablet outputs a good amount of sound and works well for movie watching. The front and rear cameras are pretty basic by today's standards (the rear captures 720p video), but at least they're there and available for such apps as Skype.

You're looking at a handful of drawbacks. While this is an 8-inch widescreen HD display with 1,280x800-pixel (189 ppi) resolution, it's not as sharp or vibrant as the iPad Mini 4's more squarish 4:3 screen and its 2,048x1,536-pixel resolution (326 ppi). But that tablet now costs literally 5 times as much -- albeit with 128GB of locked-in storage. The HD 8 will be fine for most people, but if you've used an iPad before, you'll feel it's a step down. Even Amazon's late, great Fire HD 6 has a better-looking screen because it has the same resolution as the HD 8 but packs it into a 6-inch space at a denser 252 ppi (pixels per inch).

PROS :-

• Fantastic battery life
• Great price point
• Superb build quality
• Good sound quality
• Inexpensive

CONS :-

• Terrible camera
• Reflective display
• Slow to charge

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Fire TV Stick with Alexa Voice Remote / Review / Smart Up Your Old TV

Amazon launched the Fire TV Stick three years ago, offering a microphone-equipped remote as an optional accessory or as part of a premium $60 bundle. Its latest media streamer—and its only one available in "stick" form—comes with a remote out of the box that gives you access to voice search and Amazon's Alexa voice assistant. It also features an upgraded quad-core processor, and perhaps most impressive of all is available for just $39.99. 

As for apps; nothing’s changed. This is purely a hardware update, so you’ll still be able to stream Netflix, Amazon Prime and scores of catch-up TV apps from this device. In short, there are only three differences you need to know about: 1. The Fire TV Stick is now really fast; 2. You can now use voice control to open apps and check Alexa-related information; and 3. The UI is a little different. We’ll come to that in a moment.

Despite a few omissions in streaming apps, the Fire TV Stick With Alexa Voice Remote easily offers enough in the way of features and value to make it our Editors' Choice for budget media streamers.

The heavy compression doesn’t affect video quality, and should allow other family members to enjoy the Internet when you are watching full-HD video streams, depending upon your connection speed of course. On the connectivity side, you get support for both Wi-Fi 802.11ac and Bluetooth 4.1. The latter has dual benefits – you don’t need to point the included remote at the TV for it to work, and you can hook up a pair of Bluetooth headphones.

Design and remote :-

As you can see from the pictures, not much has changed physically. Both the dongle and remote have increased in size, a bit, but that’s really not an issue. However, some R&D has evidently gone into updating the remote: its curved back now nestles nicely into your palm, with its minimalistic buttons sensibly spread out.

The Alexa remote control is the most interesting new feature of the Fire TV Stick, allowing you to control the streaming device using voice commands.

The Fire version of the Alexa service is launched by holding down the microphone button on the remote control and making a request.

How to use it :-

Accessing Alexa's voice-activated features is easy. Just press and hold the Voice button on your Amazon Fire TV Voice Remote or the Fire TV Remote app and say what you want Alexa to do. Alexa then answers back directly through your Fire TV. Many features open in a separate display on your TV screen, so you can both see and hear Alexa in action.

When an Alexa display is open on your TV screen, press the Back or Home buttons on your Fire TV remote to return to the previous screen.

The language you can use to control her is also pretty flexible. She’ll respond to “fast-forward five minutes” in the same way she does “skip ahead five minutes”, which makes using it feel much more natural.

PROS :-

• Inexpensive
• Kodi-compatible
• Generous app and service platform
• £40 is very cheap
• Alexa and voice search are useful
• Netflix, Prime Instant Video, BBC iPlayer and many more
• Much faster than previous model
• Voice-controlled Alexa remote

CONS :-

• No 4K video support
• Limited iPhone support
• Alexa features are slightly limited compared with Amazon Echo
• Won't run from most TVs' USB power supplies

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AMAZON ECHO (2ND GEN) REVIEW / SMALLER, CHEAPER & BETTER

The new version of the Alexa-ready gadget sounds great, looks good and improves on the original, meaning nobody can touch its quality for the price...

For the past three years, Amazon’s Alexa voice assistant has been invading homes inside the case of the Echo smart speaker. Alexa has been answering questions, turning on smart lights, adding things to shopping lists, ordering things from Amazon, and playing music for millions of people. The Echo essentially established the smart speaker market, which now has entries from Google, Microsoft, and soon, Apple.

The new Echo 2 is dinkier than its predecessor – 89mm shorter in fact – so it will take up less space on your shelf or kitchen counter. It also no longer quite so Blade Runner-esque, instead looking more like something you might buy from Habitat or Ikea.

After expanding the line with the smaller and super-popular Echo Dot, the portable, battery-powered Tap, and the more expensive, but ultimately less thrilling, Echo Show, Amazon has finally gone back and updated the original Echo. The new Echo, which is heretofore known simply as the “All-new Echo,” as the original Echo no longer exists in Amazon’s world, comes with a smaller, simpler design; better aesthetics; supposedly improved audio; and, most importantly, a significantly lower price of $99.

BETTER SOUND QUALITY :-

The new Echo’s sound is sharper, with more treble than the first model. That’s good for hearing Alexa speak back to you, or for cutting through the din of a running faucet if you’re using the Echo in a kitchen. But for music, the sound is thin and flat, with even less bass than before. The old model had a softer sound with just a little bit more bass that’s much more pleasant to listen to.

Amazon has added a number of new features to Alexa, the smart assistant inside of the Echo, including control of Fire TV set top boxes and improved smart home controls. Since Alexa runs entirely in the cloud, it doesn’t matter which Amazon Echo device you own, it performs all of the same functions on all of them. You don’t need to buy a new Echo to get the latest Alexa features on your first-generation model. And the new Echo performs all of those voice-controlled functions just as well as its predecessor.

The new Echo hears you just as well as the old one, even when music is blasting out of it, or the cooker hood is going hell-for-leather as you concoct your latest culinary creation. If you have more than one Echo device it’ll “echolocate”, meaning only the nearest one will respond to you, and you can play one source of music in multiple rooms using groups of Echo devices.

The new smaller Echo sounds better than the previous version. The audio is slightly clearer, and of a higher quality all round – particularly at louder volumes. Thanks to a recent software update, it has more bass too. The smaller size has not diminished the sound

PROS :-

• Lower cost
• Can always here you
• Changeable covers
• Customization appearance
• Bluetooth in and out
• Mute button electrically disconnects the mics
• More attractive design
• Less expensive than original
• Small looks
• Excellent smart home device control
• New Alexa features
• Far-field mic array works wonders

 CONS :-

• Can activate accidentally
• Decorative shells don't look great enough
• Always-listening object in your house
• Sound quality only on a par with original Echo
• Much the same as the original
• Volume-control buttons are inferior to the volume-control ring on the original

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