my thoughts on the Amazon fire tablet hd8

My kids pooled their money to get me the Amazon Fire Tablet hd8 for Christmas.  I've been confined to bed as I suffer from cancer so they thought that it would be a great distraction for me from boredom and pain.

It's advertised on Amazon.com for about $80 available with either 16 or 32 gigs of memory. Mine is only 12.46 gigs total, not 16, with 10 gigs of free memory available. For more memory, a different memory card would have to be purchased. The box came with the tablet, USB2 charger and power adapter. There was also a folded up card showing a diagram of the external function buttons and inputs. There was no manual. For one, you have to purchase it for about $5.00 from their book store.

There are videos for the tablet found in the help section of the tablet if you can find them.
There are 2 camera lenses, one in the front and one in the back which can be easily switched. The pics are HD but unspecified pixels. Video at only 720p is available. They can all get stored on Amazon Prime if you choose that option.

The tablet comes with a battery that holds a charge up to 12 hrs. I had to charge mine for several hours before I could turn it on. Once turned on a set up page appeared and went through the uncomplicated process. You set up your e-mail address, social sites and an account for amazon.com store and amazon prime account. You can also set up  Alexa, a voice interaction for purchasing and making contact with those added to her list.

The rest became a bit more challenging and frustrating, especially since things just didn't seem to want to work, perhaps because I hadn't a clue as to what I was doing. Without a manual, I had no clue to where anything was as the screen was filled with nothing but ads followed by apps. To do anything you need an app for it. There is a browser: Silk by amazon and an antivirus needs to be installed from the app store along with others to keep your tablet clean and running smoothly.

Basically, the tablet was designed specifically for Amazon.com store for easy and quick access and a way for amazon to hit you with ads. Each and every time you turn the tablet on, you get an ad, a full locked page ad. Social sites and e-mail have limited viewing. What you do, what you see and where you go are controlled all for one purpose-sales. With free children's games, videos etc. the tablet has become a substitute baby sitter which keeps even the youngest users hooked.

As for me, I prefer to be free to explore the internet and can do the same as on the tablet except much more, using either my desk top or lap top, which have a larger screen and no built in adware.

Are Pay as You Go, Cell Phone Plans, Worth the Money?

I first began using a TracFone 15 years ago for talk only when I was called out of town for several months and needed a cell phone for communication. I went with TracFone brcause it was convenient, no contract and the price seemed to be what I could afford at the time. Back then there weren't too many options for pay as you go cell phone companies so it wasn't as if I had the same choices as today. There were no activation fees and setting up minutes on my phone was easy enough as long as I had a credit card. I could add minutes through the phone and were detected within minutes and was ready to go.

I learned quickly that my minutes were taken up with not only outgoing calls but with incoming, in and outgoing text messages. The 240 minutes that I initially had, ended up being cut in half due to me having to pay for incoming and text messaging that was already paid for by someone else. So it's like double paying. By the time the month was over, the cost of my minutes ended up well over $100.00. As for quality of service, half of the time I had none and had to drive several miles until there were a few bars on my phone showing the service availability.

I should have went with an unlimited service plan which would have cost me around $100.00 a month at the time anyway, especially since I had to use the phone a lot.

Today there are a lot more pay as you go cell companies and options where having to sign a contract is not needed. You still have plenty of alluring choices of inexpensive service plans along with inexpensive smart and flip phones. Be careful with the plan that you choose because they still charge you for all in and out calls including texts unless you go with unlimited. If you just plan on having the phone in the car only for emergencies, the plan doesn't matter, but I recommend that you have automatic refill. One of these days when you're going to need it, you might find out that you forgot to add minutes to your phone and the sim card is expired rendering your phone useless. It happened to my wife.

Depending on your needs, the memory and speed on a phone is like on a computer these days. There is so much filler crap built in to the phones that take up memory and speed so you need to have enough of it if you are planning on taking a lot of pics and going on the internet.

Another important factor to consider is whether a phone is compatible with the service feed in your area. If the phone is a G3 and the only service in your area is G4, it ain't going to work. I recently had to replace my wife's TracFone because of that. Some service companies put out all available services from G1 up, these guys don't. She couldn't even use the phone in our own house. I went with a different company, got a flip phone for about $30.00 and unlimited talk service for $20.00 a month. I am not being charged for any calls in or out and the phone works well anywhere she goes in the area.

For us, a pay as you go plan has worked well. We only use the phone for talk and have auto refill, not having to worry about adding minutes the following months is a plus. I'm not locked in with a contract and can change plans and companies anytime I want. The unlimited plan is definitely a way to go if you plan on using the phone.