Fire HD 10 Tablet (2019, 9th Gen)

I'm not the typical user of a tablet; not a gamer, do all my computing at home on a desktop, don't do social media, don't even have a smartphone. I've worn out one Kindle E-reader and am hard at work on the second. I would quite probably have let the tablet scene pass me by, except that I acquired (in 2013) one of the early Fire tablets (HD7) as a premium gift for buying a treadmill from Yowza Fitness. In a word, I loved it; book and magazine illustrations in Hi-def color was one of its most enjoyable features to me at the time. It was a little underpowered for video, though it would stream non-HD content fair-to-middling and play just about any downloaded video just fine, HD or not. So I used and enjoyed it for six years, until I caught wind of the soon-to-be-released Amazon Fire Tablet HD10; there was a lot being said about it, most of it quite positive, enough so that I took the plunge and invested a little less than 250 dollars (tablet, case and heavily-discounted SD memory card). I can't speak for others, only for myself, but I think I got a heck of a good deal. The tablet is beautifully made and has a good solid heft; the case is a perfect match for it. The designers and manufacturer couldn't have improved on it; for looks, I think they came up with a winner. The colors, graphics, video definition (it also streams HD just fine!) are all top of the line. It's a bit more complicated than the other one, but still easily learned. It comes with a fairly large number of Apps preinstalled, and that aren't designed to be removed; I don't mind that too much since there's only a very few that I wouldn't use at all, and I've got LOTS of storage space. But it is kind of annoying that I can't "hide" the icons that fill up the Home screen like I can do on my old desk-top Acer running Win 10. And while I have nothing against it, I also have no real use for or interest in the Alexa feature; its home-screen icon is four times the size of all the others, and constantly exhorts me to tell Alexa to do something. But those are minor details and take nothing at all away from my overall positive view of this exceptionally fine example of precision electronics. And the price! A genuine bargain. Thanks very much for a fine product and letting me say a few words about it.UPDATE TO ORIGINAL REVIEW January 26, 2021: I've had this tablet for just over 14 months, and have used & enjoyed it just about every day of those 14 months. I successfully installed Google Play Store shortly after I bought the tablet, specifically to get Google Chrome which greatly enhanced its value & utility. I was able to watch HD videos on YouTube, TV shows & movies on Amazon Prime, all without any buffering. I regularly read books & magazines in stunning color on the nice large 10-inch screen using the Libby App. In short, I was very happy indeed with my tablet. Which is why I was both surprised and disappointed when it suddenly and inexplicably stopped working. I'd been reading a library book off and on the past few days (I've read dozens on the tablet) and today I stopped reading to have supper; just closed the case like I've done from the beginning as it just puts the tablet to sleep. When I'm ready to use it again I just open the case and the advert screen comes on first; I just swipe upwards and get back to the exact page of my book that I was reading, or the home screen if I closed the app before putting the tablet to sleep. After supper today, when I opened the case, I was met with a blank screen, like I'd completely powered down (I hadn't). Pressing the on/off switch did nothing; pressing and holding for a slow count of 10 was the same. Plugging it in to the AC Charger should have within a few seconds rebooted the tablet; several times I've read or watched videos to the point where I ran out of juice and the tablet says "powering down" and turns itself off, but plugging it into the AC turns it right back on again, showing the charging symbol doing it job. The tablet was not low on battery power this time; when I closed the case to go eat supper the battery icon in the upper right corner read 48%; it should not have turned completely off, it should have just gone to sleep like it always has. Even after leaving it on the AC Charger for >2 hours, pressing the on/off switch did nothing; the tablet is completely dead, and I cannot figure out why; it was working flawlessly. What I said in my original view about its being an "exceptionally fine example of precision electronics" still holds. This is a great tablet; I just had bad luck with mine.Update to the Update: Jan31, 2022; Belive it or not, this same tablet came mysteriously back to life after sitting in a box from late January of 2021 to early October of 2021, i.e., about 9 months. I don't know why I pressed the power button; I was making room on the shelf with the intent to dispose of stuff no longer needed, and I guess I just did it because it still looked like new and I was on the verge of dropping it in the trash barrel. I was surprised, to say the least. It booted up like I'd been using it the day before, no errors, every app in place and functioning normally; all the Google Playstore stuff (including the Google Chrome browser). I remember it was quite an involved action to get Google Play installed. Anyway, I was both pleased and skeptical, which is why I didn't immediately go online and update my review back then; I wanted to wait & see, so to speak. It worked fine up until today, when I closed the case which put it to sleep; came back a couple of hours later, opened the case and it was dead as a hammer, precisely a repeat of what happened about this same time last year. Well, I'm still not gonna trash it; maybe I'll wait six months or so and try booting it up again; you never know...my basic opinion of the Amazon Fire HD10 remains unchanged; back when this tablet first went dead and got put in a box on the shelf, I'd immediately ordered a replacement which continues to work perfectly, and in fact bought the 2021 edition to stay by my easy chair in the living room to read and do email while the other is devoted now for strictly reading in my den and / or bedroom. Neither has been altered to include Google Play, which I'd always half-suspected might have contributed to this particular tablet's breakdown (twice!). I still highly recommend the Amazon Fire HD10 tablet to one and all. Thanks for letting me say what's now been a whole lotta words about it.