Amazon did as predicted and introduced a new family of tablets; Kindle Fire HD. This is a major upgrade from their original Kindle Fire. I believe some people might think twice now about which 7” tablet they want to get.
New Features and Differences
Some notable differences are that it has two speakers (as opposed to the iPad’s one speaker). It has Dolby audio (first tablet to have that.)
X-Ray for Movies and X-Ray for Textbooks; where you can find out who’s in a movie you’re watching. You can look up an actor, a scene in a movie without exiting the movie. It would access IMDb (Amazon’s company). It is the #1 movie website with over 160 million monthly unique visitors worldwide. When using X-Ray in books you can find out about fictional characters, historical figures and really get in depth of the book. It’s sort of having a glossary on each page.
Whispersync for Voice feature is another great feature that Amazon introduced today. It allows you to follow along an audio book as it’s being read by a professional narrator. The “real-time highlighting” helps you keep your place in the book. It’s called Immersion Reading. You can listen to books in the car and then pick up the tablet and continue reading where you left off. Sounds pretty cool. Hopefully you won’t have to buy the book in both audible and eBook version. I’m sure some hope that this functionality makes it to the Kindle app.
Whispersync for Games works similarly to voice. It stores progress for games in the cloud. Your levels of advancement are saved; you won’t have to start the game at level one/ beginner level when you get a new device.
Kindle Free Time allows you to set parental controls and access points.
Pricing and Specs
Kindle Fire HD is $199 (for the 16 GB version; $249 for the 32 GB version).
• You get HD display (7”)
• fastest Wi-Fi (dual band and dual antenna),
• Dolby Audio and dual-driver stereo speakers.
• 1.2 dual-core processor with Imagination PowerVR 3D graphics core
• Front-facing camera (Skype)
Kindle Fire HD 8.9 ($299 for 16 GB Version, $369 for 32 GB Version)
• Everything the 7” has plus:
• 1920 x 1200 HD display 8.9”
• 1.5Ghz dual-core processor with Imagination PowerVR 3D graphics core
Kindle Fire HD 8.9 4G
• $499 for the 32 GB and $599 for the 64 GB
• Same features at regular 8.9; but with AT&T 4G LTE service
• Also included: 20 GB of additional Cloud Drive storage for your photos and more, plus a $10 Amazon Appstore promotional credit
• Get 250 MB a month for 12 months with a one-time payment of $49.99 – no monthly payments.
