Amazon Fire HD 8 news, updates & specs: Bigger memory, longer battery life, with full screen ads on the side

The Amazon Fire HD 8 has just become more affordable with some generous specs upgrades, but with a slight catch.

Although chunkier than the more expensive high-end brands at 9.2 mm, Amazon's budget tablet offers 50 percent more RAM memory that speeds up its performance, along with an increased internal storage that gives consumers an option between 16 GB and 32 GB variants. Amazon Fire HD 8 also supports a 200 GB memory boost via a microSD card tray.

Upon reviewing the tablet's battery life, Trusted Reviews noted that the Amazon Fire HD 8's promise of a 12-hour improvement can only hold up in lab-like conditions; that is, if the display brightness is kept at 50 percent, and one only streams Netflix for an hour and fifteen minutes as this will only consume up to 10 percent of the battery. But in day-to-day conditions, wherein one may be inclined to increase the display brightness to balance out ambient light's effect on screen contrast, streaming Netflix for an hour can already drain 12 percent off the battery.

In the end, the batter improvement on the Amazon Fire HD 8 only goes up to just over the eight-hour capacity of the previous model, which according to Trusted Reviews is still impressive given the tablet's price. The only downside is that charging still takes up to five to six hours.

The Amazon Fire HD 8 also makes extensive use of the Amazon ecosystem by serving up ads in order to subsidize pricing. Full screen ads appear in the lock screen and the notification area. There are also full screen video ads beyond the lock screen. But these "Special Offers" also come with an option to pay an additional $15 to turn the ads off.

The Amazon Fire HD 8 can also only access Amazon.com's app store, and not the Android App store. Moreover, video content downloaded from Google and Apple cannot be played on Amazon's budget tablet.

The Amazon Fire HD 8 runs on FireOS that offers access to other Amazon-owned platforms like Audible, the Kindle Store and Instant Video.

The newly upgraded Amazon Fire HD 8 is available for purchase on Amazon at $89.99 for the 16 GB model and $119.99 for the 32 GB one. Both variants are eligible for Amazon's free shipping offer.