MOBILE

Kindle Fire HD - Most Advanced 7" Tablet (Part 3)

4/29/2013 7:27:18 PM

Software

The 8.9 is running the similar user interface with the 7inch model. This time, Ice Cream Sandwich is its foundation and generally speaking, it provides a huge considerable enhancement compared to the interface of the original Fire in terms of usability and speed – but it is still very much the same. If you dislike the heavy-handed way of Amazon in hiding all aspects of the built-in Android, you would feel unpleased here, but at least it is not slow at all.

Kindle Fire HD 8.9 display

Kindle Fire HD 8.9 display

All of the apps, movies, music, websites and almost all of other things which you can access on the tablet are added into the main content carousel in the last-in-first-out order. It is like everything you read or play is pushed to the top of the waiting queue, and just with one flick of your finger, you can easily go over all recently accessed apps. If you are the type who usually just jumps between few apps, you will always be able to find them on the top.

But you belong to the group including people who tend to dig a little deeper, you can also do that. Movies, music, books, apps and other content can be categorized by content, and in each category you can check the available content of the device and all of the things which patiently wait for you on the cloud.

Applications on Kindle Fire HD 8.9

Applications on Kindle Fire HD 8.9

If you are looking for a book, a song or a movie, the size of the selection is so impressed. The business partners of Amazon ensure almost everything will be available for the digital consumption under your fingertips. The prices offered by Amazon which are often among the best in the business of course seem to be helpful too.

However, when talking about another important aspect of owning a tablet, that wild and wonderful world of applications, the choices are relatively limited. Amazon succeeded in persuading giant developers like Rovio to provide them good products and top-ranked applications. However, it is just a small proportion of the huge available things in Google Play store in general. Yes, you can download APK if you are well technical skilled to do so, but you will always be prevented from accessing into many current good applications of Android – the most considerably Google’s own Gmail and Maps.

And of course there is Silk browser, Amazon’s cloud-accelerated HTML renderer that is considered to use the crowd effect to accelerate the webpage rendering. In the original Kindle Fire, we found many claims of acceleration that were overstated and the Kindle Fire HD 7 inch renders the webpage even much slower than Nexus 7. It still makes sense, and while the 8.9 inch model is an improvement in terms of speed, it is still slower than most of the competitive tablets, like Nexus 10.

Since September 2012, Amazon has added some other changes for the operating system, including the expansion of X-Ray function to textbooks, enabling you to look for the definition of terminologies and index location for other complicated definitions – or looking for their definition in Wikipedia. It combines with the X-ray for movies, which draws IMDb information about any actor or actress in the current scene. There is, moreover, FreeTime, which provides parents more control over what their children, what they can and cannot do on the tablet – and how long can they use their tablets.

Finally, we cannot discuss Kindle’s software without mentioning the Special Offers. This is the standard problem on all Kindle devices at this moment and it turns the clocked screen of the tablet to an advertising banner for many things like books, video games and shaving cream. In fact, our first experience when boosting up the Fire HD tablet was an advertisement for Amazon.com credit card. That is all that you can call a first bad impression.

While they are not often obnoxious, these ads play the role of frequently reminding you that this device’s existence is for advertising, and discouraged us for a while. Fortunately, you will never see those advertising for good with no more than $15, so it totally up to you to decide whether to keep or get rid of them.

The competition

Galaxy Tab 2.10.1 – one of the huge competitors

Galaxy Tab 2.10.1 – one of the huge competitors

With $299 or more, Kindle Fire HD 8.9 is $100 cheaper than the cheapest tablet competitor Nexus 10. With $100 more, you have a better-resolution display and the originally newest version of Android. For some people, they deserve with the additional expenditure, but if you wish to have mobile connection, your choice might be fairly easy.

Currently, you can purchase for a Galaxy Tab 2.10.1 16GB with the similar price of $299, a tablet with weaker performance and less pixel density, but a relatively uncompromised version of Android,

Then, there’s Barnes and Noble Nook HD+, a 9inch tablet, 1080p and similarly burdened with a heavily customized version of Android, but starting price is just $269 for 16GB version and $299 for 32 GB. We have not had any chance to test that model entirely, but while we experienced the reading and surfing website, it is great. The selection of Barnes and Noble applications is still more limited than that of Amazon, as well as selection of other content. For those who tend to work a lot on the tablet, beside reading and surfing web, it is a really serious drawback.

Conclusion

At the price of $199, Kindle Fire HD 7 confronts directly with Nexus 7 and for knowledgeable users, it is such a hard-to-sell product. However, with the acceptable size and price compared to other larger tablet competitors, the $299 Kindle Fire HD 8.9 is difficultly comparable. Therefore, the question is what is it capable of that the predecessor is lack of? Of course the answer is better performance, larger dimension and cellular connector – if you are willing to pay $200 more.

1080p bright and beautiful screen

1080p bright and beautiful screen

Generally speaking, we are somehow fond of 7inch tablets and therefore in these two models, we are still attracted by the cellular 7 inch Kindle Fire HD. However, those who need more working space, or cannot be offline at any time, may consider choosing the 8.9inch model. Meanwhile, if you are a person who seriously desires to use tablet to access the full power of Android OS, the decision is still easy: Choose another one.

Info

·         Price: $299 - $599

Advantages

·         1080p bright and beautiful screen

·         Wonderful built quality

·         Huge content selections

·         Basically cheap data

Disadvantages

·         The OS sometimes stutters

·         No Google Play access

Verdict

·         Kindle Fire HD 8.9 is quite larger and faster than the 7 inch version, but beside the LTE option, it does not bring much.

Amazon Kindle Fire HD 8.9 technical specs

·         OS: Android 4.0

·         Dimension: 9.4x6.4x0.35 inches (240x164x8.8 mm)

·         Weight: 567g

·         Resolution: 1,920x1,200 pixels

·         Pixel density: 254 ppi

·         Technology: IPS LCD

·         Touchscreen: Capacitive, Multi-touch

·         System chip: TI OMAP4470

·         Processor: Dual core, 1500 MHz, ARM Cortex-A9

·         Graphics processor: PowerVR SGX544 @ 384MHz

·         System memory: 1024 MB RAM

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