Amazon’s Fire Tablets, Tested, So You Don’t Have To (2026)
The Fire HD 10 is Amazon’s best tablet and the one we recommend for most people. It's certainly not the fastest tablet around, and it's
The Fire HD 10 is Amazon’s best tablet and the one we recommend for most people. It's certainly not the fastest tablet around, and it's not even the nicest Fire tablet (that's the Fire Max 11 below), but when you can snag it on sale for around $100, it's a good deal. In my testing it has the best battery life of any Fire tablet, and a 1080p screen that has a lot of glare, but looks decent when you're watching a movie in the dark. Realize this is no iPad, or even a OnePlus Pad, but performance is good enough for browsing the web with a few tabs open (the 3 GB of RAM helps there), and you set it up to work like an Echo speaker.
Turn on Show Mode (swipe down on the notification overlay and check the Show Mode box) and you can query Alexa til your heart's content. The Fire HD 10 comes with 64 GB of RAM, but there's also a microSD slot on both, so you can add up to 1 TB of storage if you need more space. There used to be a 32-GB model as well, but as of this writing it's been sold out for months, which probably means it's been discontinued. The design of the Fire HD 10 is what you might charitably call "spartan." It's a hunk of colored plastic (you can choose between black, blue, and lilac) with a screen on it.
It's functional, but definitely lacks the more premium feel of other Android tablets. If you go for the cheapest model, Amazon will serve up on the lock screen. To get rid of that, you'll need to spend $15 more for the version without “special offers.” If you want to try using your Fire tablet as more than a tablet, you can get a third-party keyboard case. Working on the Fire HD 10 isn't as terrible as you might think, as long as you don't need Google apps. None of Google's office apps work on the Fire HD 10, not even in the browser.
This latest Fire HD 10—and Max 11 below—support the Made for Amazon Stylus Pen ($37).
The BriefWire