The Kindle Fire HD brings several new features that streamline the experience
Amazon's Kindle Fire
quickly became a powerhouse of media content consumption when it was
introduced in 2011, and Amazon's looking to maintain that momentum with
the just-announced Kindle Fire HD.
Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos took the
stage in Santa Monica, Calif. on Thursday to introduce the Kindle Fire
HD, a new umbrella that covers 7- and 8.9-inch tablets with a variety of
data options.
Kindle Fire HD specs and design
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. The
new HD display packs a 1920x1200 resolution with in-plane switching and
254 PPI, and frankly it looks gorgeous. HD movies like The Hunger Games flow by with perfection, and games like Jetpack Joyride looked crisp despite their pixelated graphics. An
advanced true wide polarizing filter and omni-directional, full
spectrum color make the display look great from every angle, and a touch
sensor laminated to the display rather than simply being stacked on top
of it means a sharper image, better contrast and 25 percent less glare,
according to Bezos.
A new HD front-facing camera supports Skype
integration, and also provides a handy way to tell when the Kindle Fire
HD is upside-down, since there are no physical buttons on the front
bezel (volume and lock controls are on the side of the device). An HD tablet isn't complete without HDMI out, and the Kindle Fire HD sports bluetooth as well.
All
that would be meaningless if the Kindle Fire HD didn't pack a punch,
and under the hood you'll find the TI OMAP 4470 processor, 16GB of
storage (vs. the Kindle Fire's 8GB), new dual stereo speakers with Dolby
Digital Plus, and two dual-band 2.4 and 5GHz Wi-Fi antennas for more
consistent and speedier connections. Combined
with new-ish MIMO tech that improves reception of redundant signals,
all-in-all the Kindle Fire HD's Wi-Fi is reportedly 41 percent faster
than the latest Apple iPad and 54 percent faster than the Google Nexus 7.
Kindle Fire HD UI
Games took a rather long time to load as well, though that may come down to developers more than the hardware itself.
The
Kindle Fire HD brings several new features that streamline the user
experience: 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. They've even got X-Ray for textbooks now.
"Immersion
Reading" fuses audio and text books for, mixing the two together by
highlighting words on the screen as the narrator speaks them.
And
Kindle FreeTime lets parents set different time limits for different
types of content, so kids can read unlimited books but only play, say,
an hour of movies and games.
Early Verdict
Like the new Kindle Paperwhite to the original Kindle, the Kindle Fire HD is an upgrade to the Kindle Fire in every way.
More
than anything, it continues to provide an easy-to-navigate gateway to
Amazon's massive content library, and now more than ever before,
everything is in the cloud.
Amazon Kindle Paperwhite review
Amazon's latest Kindle gets a new display
Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos took
the stage at a Santa Monica, Calif. event on Thursday to introduce the
6-inch Kindle Paperwhite, the next iteration of the company's iconic
brand of e-readers The
most important factor of any device that you're going to be staring at
for hours on end is the screen, and the Kindle Paperwhite sports a new
display with the highest contrast and resolution and least glare of any
Kindle screen yet.
Amazon Kindle Paperwhite screen
Amazon's
new patented light guide tech directs light down toward the screen,
reducing ambient light emitted by the Kindle Paperwhite.
TechRadar
was able to test the Kindle Paperwhite in both well-lit and low-light
environments, and the new tablet proved versatile enough to function in
both situations. The text on-screen remains readable even as the font size diminishes to levels impossible on previous Kindles.
Kindle Paperwhite specs
The
Kindle Paperwhite feels just as sturdy and ergonomic as any previous
Amazon device, resting nicely in the hands at 9.1mm and 7.5 ounces. We've come to expect a certain snappiness from Amazon's Kindles, and the Kindle Paperwhite is no exception.
And, according to Amazon, the battery will sustain the device for eight straight weeks - even with the screen lit up. The
Kindle Paperwhite comes with some other nice features as well: Amazon's
Whispersync makes sure you never lose your place when switching between
devices, and X-Ray tracks characters and other elements throughout
every book.
Accessing it is as easy as tapping the top of the screen, which also summons font size and type controls and more.
Early verdict
The
real draw of the Kindle continues to be Amazon's gargantuan library of
digital book content, including its 180,000 Kindle-exclusive titles. If
the hardware is functional, then Amazon has done its job. And
the Kindle Paperwhite is as functional as it gets; every element of its
design, from the front-lit, highly versatile screen to a new function
that tracks your reading habits to determine how much time it'll take
you to finish the current chapter or book, is designed to better
facilitate the reader's experience.
