There are two storage options for the 7-inch Kindle Fire HD: 16GB for $199 or 32GB for $249. The volume rocker, at least, has two slight protrusions to set it apart. You'll need to flip the tablet around to find it for at least your first week of ownership. The power button in particular is virtually intangible: tapered and flush. This is far more convenient, but we found all the physical controls to be very hard to find by touch. This physical volume control is also new compared to the Fire, which asked you to hop into the UI whenever you wanted to turn up the jams - or the Audibles, as it were. On the right is found the 3.5mm headphone jack, positioned atop a volume rocker and power button.
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The left side of the device has nothing to offer, while the top has a small microphone.
#Amazon kindle fire hd movie#
The HDMI output is a very welcome addition and enables pushing all those high-def movie downloads straight to your HDTV, should you be so inclined. The USB port is used for charging or file transfers, though you can also email files to your device (via the custom address each Kindle is assigned) or upload them through the Cloud Player service. This is a tablet clearly designed to be held in a landscape orientation when enjoying media, and held thusly, you'll find micro-USB and micro-HDMI ports on the bottom. Take a tour around the edges of the device and you'll find a far more comprehensive selection of buttons and ports than in the original Fire, a big step forward that shows Amazon listens to criticism. Both are covered in a lined grille that makes us think of the radiator inlets on a Ferrari Testarossa, though that might be entirely due to the prevalence of said car on the walls of this author's childhood bedroom. Yes, there are two speakers here, one for each of your ears in the natural way. It spans the width of the tablet, running from one speaker to the other and, along the way, has the word "kindle" embossed. Both speakers are covered with a lined grille that makes us think of the radiator inlets on a Ferrari Testarossa.Īcross the back runs a slightly polished metal band, the lone bit of stylistic indulgence here. You may be visually assaulted by Amazon branding at every turn once you switch the device on, but the exterior at least is reasonably clean. The Amazon logo is still subtly printed on the back, a dark shade of gray stamped atop the darker exterior. But, with that comes an air of sophistication. The overall design remains understated visually, a sea of soft-touch matte black will be your overwhelming impression here. It's slightly lighter, too, weighing in at 395g (13.9oz) compared to the OG machine's 413g. In other words, it occupies roughly the same dimensions, but the taper on the back surface does a compelling job of making this feel thinner. That's slightly (3mm) wider, noticeably (17mm) taller and fractionally (1.1mm) thinner than the Fire. The Kindle Fire HD measures in at 7.6 x 5.4 x 0.4 inches (193 x 137 x 10.3mm). (The 8.9-inch model won't arrive until later this year.)
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That surface is indeed made of Corning's Gorilla Glass, so you can probably do without a protector, and it covers a 7-inch panel, the same size as before. The angular edges from before have been banished, replaced by a profile that curves up to meet a few millimeters worth of flat surface that then curves back again to meet the glass up top. well, it still isn't a knockout in the styling department, but it is at least considerably more visually appealing. Where the Fire is square, dark and decidedly slab-like, the Fire HD is. To borrow a bit of cigarette marketing, the Kindle Fire HD has come a long way, baby. Is it enough of an improvement to topple our current king of budget tablets, the Nexus 7? You'll just have to read on to find out. It's a huge step forward from that which came before and yet it still follows very much in the footsteps of its predecessor, existing as a physical portal to a digital marketplace with an alluring selection of premium content. It's thinner, lighter, faster and, yes, better looking. It's the Kindle Fire HD and it quite handily addresses nearly every concern that we had with the original Fire. Now, finally, we can stop making that comparison - at least for this, Amazon's current top-shelf tablet. Amazon unleashed the Kindle Fire to the world and we spent much of the beginning of our review comparing and contrasting it to the (even then a bit long-in-the-tooth) BlackBerry PlayBook.
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It was 10 months ago that we had a doppelgänger in our midst. Kindle Fire HD 7-inch hands-on (Update: video).Amazon announces 7- and 8.9-inch Kindle Fire HDs, pricing starts at $199.