Fire HD 10 price and availability
Fire HD 10 design
A tablet is a tablet, right? The Fire HD 10 still has a fairly vanilla design, but the slate’s matte-plastic shell (which comes in black, white, plum and blue) feels relatively durable, with a minor amount of flex when pressure is applied to the center of the back. The Fire HD 10 is a pretty standard-sized slate, at 17.8 ounces and 0.4 inches thick. The Huawei MediaPad M5 Lite (17.6 ounces, 0.3 inches), Apple iPad (2019) (17.6 ounces, 0.3 inches) and Lenovo Tab 4 10 Plus (17 ounces, 0.4 inches) are slightly lighter and thinner. The 8-inch Fire HD 8 (12.8 ounces, 0.4 inches) is predictably lighter. MORE: Best Tablets - Top Tablets on the Market - Laptop Mag
Fire HD 10 display
Our colorimeter read the Fire HD 10 as producing 106% of the sRGB spectrum, which is close to the 113% tablet average, the 114% rating from the MediaPad M5 Lite, the 105% from the iPad and the 109% from the Tab 4 10 Plus. The Fire HD 8 (80%) proved less colorful. The Fire HD 10 produces a max brightness of 403 nits, which is pretty good but still outshined by the 424-nit tablet average, the 427-nit MediaPad M5 Lite and the 450-nit iPad. We saw a similar brightness from the Lenovo Tab 4 10 Plus (400 nits), but the Fire HD 8 (307 nits) was dimmer. The Fire HD 10 is bright enough for solid viewing angles. The multicolored raffle balls in the hopper at a church picnic in Fleabag popped — and stayed strong at 30 degrees to the left and right — better than I expected for a $150 tablet. MORE: How To Customize the Home Screen on Your Android Tablet
Fire HD 10 audio
The Fire HD 10 has good looks, but its sound isn’t very strong. Even though the tablet could blast Taylor Swift’s “Miss Americana & The Heartbreak Prince” and the Keys N Krates’ “Keep It 100” loudly enough to fill a medium-sized conference room, that audio wasn’t too sweet, with distant vocals and practically zero bass.
Fire HD 10 performance
“Functional with imperfections” also describes gaming on the Fire HD 10. I saw little visual glitches in the Marvel Strike Force role-playing game, a casual free-to-play game in which Spider-Man couldn’t web-sling and kick baddies without some visual stammering. Similarly, I could drive a Mitsubishi in the Asphalt 9 racing game, but I kept seeing frames drop out of faster, more dynamic movements, such as a spinning jump from a ramp.
Fire HD 10 battery Life
The Fire HD 10 outlasts the pack with epic battery life. The Laptop Mag Battery Test took 13 hours and 45 minutes to drain the Fire HD 10, which is more than 3 hours longer than the 10:26 tablet average. We also saw shorter times from the Huawei MediaPad M5 Lite (13:13), iPad (11:58), Fire HD 8 (9:12) and Lenovo Tab 4 10 Plus (13:06).
Fire HD 10 cameras
From a selfie to photos of a Rocket Raccoon toy and other accessories on my desk, every image from the tablet looked blurry, especially the text of the sticker on my AirPods case.
Fire HD 10 software
Yes, you can download apps from third-party manufacturers, but the process for installing outside applications is buried in the interface and leaves users with a security hole. MORE: Best Fire Tablet Games | Laptop Mag The best thing I can say about the Fire TV OS is that you can get up to six user accounts on the Fire HD 10, whereas Apple allows only one per iPad.
Bottom line
The $329 iPad (2019) has a strong app lineup and a brighter display than the Fire HD 10’s, but it doesn’t last as long on a charge and costs more than twice as much. Similarly, the Lenovo Tab 4 10 Plus has real Android (with all the apps), but it costs $60 more than the Fire HD 10.
