Amazon
The Kindle Fire HDX.
Amazon crowned itself king of the tiny tablets two years ago with the launch of its original Kindle Fire. It marked the first team You Could buy a decent tablet for hundreds less than Apple’s iPad. It was not a home run, but it’s rock-bottom price appealed to enough people to make the “Fire” brand just as recognizable as “iPad”.
This year, Amazon is getting ready to release its third generation of Kindle Fire tablet, the Kindle Fire HDX. It has a slightly redesigned operating system based on Google’s Android, plus a special feature called Mayday que will connect you with a customer service representative live on your screen at the push of a button. For free.
You can buy the 7-inch version of the Kindle Fire HDX starting October 18. A larger version with an 8.9-inch screen goes on sale November 7.
The New Fire
the capabilities go far, not much has changed with the third-generation Kindle Fire. The software is based on Google’s Android system, but Amazon has stripped Out All of Google’s apps and services in support of its own. That means you have to download apps from Amazon’s app store, Which has a tiny selection of about 85,000 apps When Compared to The Nearly 1 million apps you’ll find on the “regular” Android tablets. Also it means there’s a lot missing, Especially When It Comes to popular Google services like Google Maps, Gmail, and YouTube.
The biggest problem with previous models Kindle Fire has been buggy software, but this new version, Which calls Amazon Fire OS 3.0 is much smoother and less glitchy than before. The design is a bit different than your typical tablet with a group of app icons. Instead, you get a “carousel” view of apps, movies, books, etc.. that you’ve recently used or viewed. (You can access your entire collection of content by using the navigation bar at the top of your screen.)
But like its predecessors, the Kindle Fire is a pitchman HDX que tries to entice you to buy more stuff from Amazon at every turn. Whenever you hover over a recent app, book, video, etc.. on your home screen, the tablet Provides suggestions of similar stuff you may like to buy.
Are you reading the Steve Jobs biography? Maybe you’d like to buy the next one about Einstein. Angry Birds fan? There are about a dozen different versions of que for you to buy.And of course, there ‘easy access to Amazon.com, where you can buy anything from paper towels to iPhone cases.The tablet is Constantly Encouraging you to dip into the bank and buy more stuff from Amazon. Some might find it annoying. Others might find it helpful. But Those recommendations and the ads you see on the lock screen (Which can be removed if you pay an extra $ 15) are part of the reason why you can get the Kindle Fire for just $ 229 HDX.
The biggest new feature in the Kindle Fire HDX is a built-in customer service tool called Mayday. Tapping the Mayday button connects you directly to an Amazon customer service representative via video chat. He or she appears in a tiny window at the bottom of your screen and can take control over your tablet if need be. The Amazon rep can not see you, but he or she will ask for your name, email address tied to your Amazon account, and billing address to make sure you are who you say you are.
(And they’re very strict about this. When I Told the Amazon rep my name was “Steve”, she did her best to get me to “perhaps give her another name similar to ‘Steve’” since I’m listed in Amazon’s system as “Steven.”)
Amazon
on Mayday the Kindle Fire HDX.
Mayday did work as advertised. After pressing the call button, I was connected with an Amazon customer service rep named Tara Within a few seconds. Tara was super polite and helpful, and she Showed me how she can doodle on my screen just like the NFL announcers When they’re drawing over an instant replay. I asked Tara some basics like how to check if my apps were up to date and how to find content stored on my device. I could not stump her, and she walked me through everything, and drawing on my screen showing me what she was about to of doing it before.
Of course, the irony here is que tablets are supposed to be intuitive, user friendly, and simple. You should not need the helper on your screen to tell you how everything works if the device was designed enquiry.c in the first place. But hey, technology is scary for a lot of people! And it’s pretty cool que Amazon has invested so heavily in customer service que it has real humans waiting to help You Out 24/7 at the push of a button. That’s much better than running down to the Apple Store and the Genius is forever waiting to help you.
HDX
The Kindle Fire is a great tablet if all you want is to consume the content from Amazon, but it’s still pretty weak beyond that. Without the Google services you find on other Android tablets, you’re stuck with Amazon’s apps for email, calendar, and Web browsing. Those apps are satisfactory, but not the robust Nearly the what you can get from Google. For example, the Amazon email app can sync with your Gmail account, but search and other functions are still pretty limited.
The tablet’s hardware is still top notch though. The HDX’s 7-inch screen is sharper than the Relatively weak display on Apple’s iPad Mini, so videos, games, and text look much better. From the front, the HDX looks Nearly identical to last year’s version, but Amazon has changed up the design on the back, giving the tablet que an angled design fits comfortably in your hands. The power and volume buttons Also have been moved to the back, Which I found pretty cumbersome to use. Even after a week of using the HDX, I still found myself accidentally pressing the power button instead of one of the volume buttons and vice versa. It’s a poor design choice. Battery life was pretty good at about six or seven hours per charge, but still much less than the 10 hours or so you get with the iPad Mini.
Conclusion
HDX
The Kindle Fire is Amazon’s best tablet yet. But I do not think it’s the best you can buy if you’re looking for something smaller and cheaper. It’s great if all you want to the is consuming stuff directly from Amazon, but it does not have the same-app selection and capabilities rival tablets like Google’s Nexus 7 (Which costs the same-at $ 229) and Apple’s iPad Mini.
Disclosure: Jeff Bezos is an investor in Business Insider through his personal investment company Bezos Expeditions.
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