The new Kindle Fire HD. Photo credit: Amazon.
The background
Amazon has unveiled a new family of Kindle Fire tablets, widely considered to be a challenge to Apple’s iPad dominance. The Kindle Fire HD will come in 7″ and 8.9″ versions with 16GB, reported The Guardian, boasting two wifi channel to boost transfer time. These are due to hit virtual shelves both sides of the pond in October 2012. And Amazon unveiled the Paperwhite, an ultra-light e-reader.
So is it worth putting in an order for the Kindle Fire HD?
High-resolution screen
“The Kindle HD’s headline feature is an impressively high screen resolution, with this tiny tablet pumping out 1,280×800 pixels of viewing pleasure,” wrote Luke Westaway at CNET. The downside is that the lock screen will now display adverts – a potential annoyance.
Plenty of new tricks
“The base 7-inch Kindle Fire HD is incredibly light, at 13.9 ounces and 8.8mm thin, with a rubbery backing that makes it easy to grip,” reported TechRadar. Amazon have introduced a front-facing camera that supports Skype, as well as bluetooth and dual stereo speakers. And there are some handy new features: “Whispersync saves game, book (audio books, too) and movie progress in the cloud, and X-Ray for movies (using IMDB) can tell you what actors are in every scene, providing profiles, filmographies and everything else you expect from the site.”
Price wars
Amazon is certainly beating Apple in the price wars. An iPad 2 costs around £329 in the UK for the 16GB version, pointed out The Telegraph, whereas the Kindle Fire HD will retail for £159. “However Amazon does still face a competitive field in the tablet market. The Google Nexus 7 and Samsung Galaxy 2 (7) both retail at £199,” said The Telegraph.
Take a look at the Kindle Fire HD.
