Amazon finally brings Alexa to the Fire tablet

While Apple and others are struggling a bit to interest new customers in tablets (and existing ones in upgrading the hearty devices), Amazon has been happily selling a line of extremely low-cost Android devices featuring its own Fire OS. The strategy has vaulted Amazon into the Number 3 spot in tablet shipments and now the company is targeting the iPad mini with the Amazon Fire HD 8, a new 89.99 8-inch model that also includes the Amazon Alexa voice assistant. SEE ALSO: Coming to Amazon in September: Woody Allen series, 'Transparent' Season 3 and more To put that price tag in perspective, Apple currently sells its base, 16 GB iPad mini 4 for 399 (the mini 2 starts at 269). The 89.99 gets you a decent, but not remarkable 1280-by-800 screen, below-average front (2MP) and rear-facing (VGA) cameras, a 1.3 GHz quad-core processor, 1.5 GB of RAM (couldn't go for a full 2, huh?) and Dolby Audio-powered stereo speakers. The last generation iPad Mini 2 beats the Fire HD 8 on most metrics.