Amazon's Kindle Fire HD tablet –
At an affordable price for families on a tight budget.
Amazon's new range of Kindle Fire HD tablets
is aimed towards families as we head into Christmas purchase season.
Kindle Fire is available in two size’s that is the 6-inch and 7-inch. Also comes in five lovely colours.
They are white, black, citron, cobalt and magenta. The Fire HD unit also features a 252 ppi high-definition display. This screen is actually is more vibrant and
far brighter than the previous Kindle.
The tablet is fitted with a front-facing
camera for video chat. Also a rear-facing camera for taking normal photos of the family
and making videos. Dolby Digital
Plus audio is great for ensuring crisp and clear sound without distortion.
At it’s core the
Fire has a 1.5 GHz processor. This
processor is powerful enough to run most graphically-intensive mobile games and
runs the Amazon's Fire OS 4 'Sangria' operating systems. It’s 2x the speed and over 3x the graphics
performance of previous generation Fire HDs for
quicker apps and smooth videos
This system is a modified version of
Google's Android operating system. The
drawback is that Kindle Fire is not compatible with Google Play. However users of the Kindle Fire can still access
over 30 million movies and TV shows. Books. Songs Apps
via the extensive Amazon app store including
Facebook, Netflix, Minecraft,
and more.
Key Features
Feature 1 - Profiles
This allows each family member to set up
their own profile, including individual email, Facebook
and Twitter accounts. Also set a page in a book, a position in a movie and different
game levels.
Feature 2 – Family Library
This links your Amazon account to that of
your wife, husband or young adult so you can share apps, games, books and also
Video (instant) content within your family without the pain of changing
accounts.
Feature 3 – Storage
No
more worrying about storage space you are now able to get free, unlimited cloud storage for all Amazon
content and photos taken with your Fire devices
Feature 4 – Front and rear camera
Take photos or capture
videos in 1080p HD with a rear-facing camera or Skype with a front-facing
camera
Design, Build Quality and potential issues
The design I rate as okay compared with some
of the tablets on the market today. The plastic
casing may look a bit cheap but it is clearly designed for durability which is
smart when these things are dropped by accident and can be damaged.
One clear problem is that the device of this
small size does not have calling and texting capabilities. But may be, if the
aim is to get away from the “pesky” boss who calls you 24 hours a day / 7 days a week then the HD Fire is a great device.
Battery gives you up to 8 hours of reading
without a recharge, so that‘s excellent.
Pricing
Prices at US$89.99 including delivery for the 8-inch version and
US$149 including delivery for the 10-inch version then that is good value.
In
short, this is a great family device, delivering up to 8 hours of reading,
listening to music, watching video and browsing the web in one small device. Excellent technology from
Amazon.