If I were Amazon, I would definitely lead with the whole $90 bit. Granted, there are a few key upgrades to talk about here, but price point has always been a major selling point for Amazon devices (thanks in no small part to the fact that it makes most of its money on content), and it’s pretty tough to argue with a sub-$100 price point.
Just under a year after receiving its last meaningful upgrade, Amazon is refreshing the Fire HD 8 in a handful of ways, starting with the addition of Alexa functionality to the dirt-cheap slate, making this the first of its Fire tablets to get Amazon’s own voice assistant, surprisingly enough. Users will be able to listen to music, get news, check the weather and more by talking into the tablet.
Some key upgrades on the specs front, as well. The new Fire gets a larger 4,750 mAh battery, which promises up to twelve hours of life on a charge. RAM has been upgraded (though it’s only at a paltry 1.5GB now) and storage has been doubled to either 16- or 32GB – not a ton, but you can upgrade that pretty substantially by way of a microSD slot.
The eight-inch display certainly isn’t Amazon’s best with a 1280 x 800 resolution that works out to 189ppi. Of course that comes with the same caveat as the rest of the specs – this is a $90 tablet we’re talking about here.
The tablet runs Fire OS 5, the latest version of Amazon’s Android-based, content focused mobile OS and features your standard selection of Fire mainstays, like X-Ray, ASAP and Second Screen.
The new tablet is up for pre-order today, starting at $90 for the 16GB model. It’ll start shipping September 21st.