I believe you can side-load android apps with ease yes. Although you may find the Amazon store has the majority of what you'd want on a tablet like this anyway.So hold on, if I got a fire hd 10 I can still get Google apps etc?
From what I can tell, Amazon update the firmware quite often (my partner has just got a new HD10) we wanted to side load play onto but wasn't sure of an up to date guide. What guide did you follow mate?I just got the 10 HD and managed to install google play, so you can then install apps directly, and being tied to current google account.