NEARLY IDENTICAL PERFORMANCE
Like the Fire HD 8, the Plus runs Amazon’s Fire OS, based on Android 9.1. This
OS is designed almost entirely for consuming Amazon content. While Amazon
has an app store, it lacks many of the apps found in the Google Play Store, and
often has older versions of apps. If you install apps that aren’t from Amazon’s
store, such as ones from the APKPure store, they don’t appear in the main UI
and can be hard to launch.
There will always be some intrepid folks who say that doesn’t matter, because
you can hack the Google Play Store onto the tablet. But that’s an unsupported
use, which Google can and periodically does break, where some apps work and
some don’t, and where you end up as part of a cat-and-mouse game between
Amazon and Google. It isn’t a great user experience. Your best bet is sticking to
Amazon’s app store.
The HD 8 Plus uses the same MT8168A processor as the HD 8, but carries 3GB
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PCMark, which simulates a variety of applications, we got 4,375 to the Fire HD
8’s 4,448. In the web-based Basemark test, we got 99.05 to the HD 8’s 101.32.
Results on the GFXBench graphics tests were nearly identical as well.
In anecdotal testing, I could say that the UI appeared to be a little smoother
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the additional RAM. That said, it can’t hurt, especially if you’re using the tablet
for gaming. But I wouldn’t consider it a deal-breaking feature, as I might when
stepping up from the Fire 7’s 1GB to the Fire 8’s 2GB of memory.