This Amazon Fire HD 8 punches above its price

There is virtually nothing special about Amazon’s latest tablet, the Fire HD 8. It’s a wide-screen, 8.4-inch x 5-inch by 0.4-inch thick, 12-ounce device, that ticks off all the boxes for above-average entry-level tablets. It should not be mentioned in the same breath as the thinner, lighter and significantly more powerful Apple iPad Mini – except in one key respect.

It costs just $89.99 (if you accept lock-screen ads, which are no big deal).

That is a fraction of the cost of the iPad mini 4 ($399) and even beats the older and less powerful $269 iPad Mini 2.

After years of trying to slug it out with Apple and other premium tablet manufactures, this is Amazon’s new-ish tablet strategy: create scale and put Amazon.com in potential customers’ hands by delivering good-enough (or better) tablet technology at bargain-basement prices.  Read more...