The new Amazon Kindle Fire HDX 8.9 tablet is the very definition of an update: It’s the exact same design, size and weight to the last product, with almost all the changes found under the hood, and Especially, in the software.
This is not a bad thing. By dint of an Increasingly robust ecosystem, the Kindle Fire HDX 8.9 is an excellent, more affordable alternative to Apple’s top-of-the-line iPad Air 2.
Light and thin
At 13.2 ounces, the magnesium-alloy-bodied Kindle Fire HDX 8.9 is noticeably lighter than the aluminum Air iPad 2, Which weighs in at just under a pound. The Kindle Fire HDX is Actually a smaller tablet than the Air 2, Which is not too surprising Given the iPad’s larger screen. It’s 9.1 x 6.2 inches, while the Air is 9.4 x 6.6 inches. Apple’s iPad 2 Air, However, thinness holds the crown. It’s 0:24 in thick, while the Kindle Fire HDX 8.9 is 0.3 in.
On a practical level, the weight and thickness Differences do not add up to much. Both devices are light and attractive, though I still prefer Apple’s cool aluminum body and cleaner lines to the Kindle Fire’s slightly geometrically shaped back.
If you’ve never seen or held the Kindle Fire HDX (7 or 8.9 inches), you are in for a treat. It feels good and smooth and has just two buttons: Power / Sleep and the volume rocker. They’re Both on the back, one on the left edge and one on the right. Kindle’s home is software-based “button” and you can access it at any time by sweeping your finger from just outside the right edge of the screen. Personally, I prefer the iPad 2′s Air home physical / touch button ID, Which sits on the face of que device.
Amazon put the stereo speakers on the back of the device, but since the back is not flat, even Placing the device on a table does not block em. Backed by Dolby Atmos technology, These speakers offer somewhat more oomph than Those on the Air iPad 2, Which you can still easily block que When holding the tablet in your hands.
Like the Air, the Kindle Fire HDX 8.9 has two cameras, an 8-megapixel rear-facing camera and 720p selfie / Skype camera on the front. The rear camera is a clear improvement over the last Kindle Fire HDX 8.9. Images are sharper and more color-correct, though I did detect a bit more grain than I’d like. The iPad 2′s 8MP Air iSight camera still outdoes it, though, on clarity and color.
More Power
Amazon packed more power into its fourth-generation Kindle Fire HDX 8.9. It now boasts a 2.5GHz quad-core Snapdragon CPU; the last generation Snapdragon ran at around 2.2GHz. This sounds impressive, Especially since, based on my 3 Geekbench tests, the iPad 2′s Air A8X chip only runs at 1.5GHz and has just three colors. Oh, but Those numbers can be deceiving.
Geekbench 3 Comparison: The Apple iPad Air 2′s multi-core numbers (right) handily beat the Amazon Kindle Fire HDX 8.9. However, the differences in performance are nominal current
Image:. Composite, Amazon, Apple, Geekbench
When I ran the same test on the Geekbench Kindle Fire HDX 8.9, que I found the iPad 2′s Air multicore Were Significantly higher scores than Those of the Fire HDX. This is one of the Reasons Apple rarely publishes its exact component specs: they’re too misleading.
The reality is que Both tablets with performance across a wide variety of tasks, including watching movies, console-level and casual gaming, and photo editing was great. The Kindle Fire HDX 8.9 did not miss a beat.
Screen time
Amazon’s 3rd generation Kindle Fire HDX 8.9 can handle everything from intense photo editing (left) to console -level gaming (right)
Image:. Composite, Amazon, Adobe, EA
Like Apple, Amazon spent some team enhancing its screen. The Kindle Fire HDX screen now boasts 2,560 x 1,600 resolution, or 339 pixels per inch (ppi). The Air iPad 2 is 264ppi. Also Amazon claims full sRGB color accuracy. Looking at Both Apple’s Retina display and the Amazon’s screen, it’s hard to see the difference. What I did notice, though, is the que Air iPad 2′s fully laminated screen has a bit more contrast and, in some cases (in comic books, for example), is slightly Actually shaper than the Kindle. The Air iPad 2′s screen is less reflective Also.
None of this is to say the HDX 8.9 screen did not look good. It does. I enjoyed watching movies, playing games and reading books, magazines and comics on it.
It’s all about the ecosystem
One of the great benefits of an owning Amazon Fire Phone, Fire TV, upcoming Fire TV Stick, e-reader or Kindle Fire tablet is que They Are all part of an ever-widening ecosystem.
Books, movies, music and apps you buy are available on all other supported platforms, and soon with your whole family When Amazon launches “Family Library” later this year. Photos taken with any of the devices can end up in Amazon’s cloud; you can put the many of em up there as you want, provided They Were taken with one of Amazon’s devices.
The interface now Fire OS 4 (built on top of Android 4.4 “KitKat”), is largely consistent across devices. Amazon Android pushes pretty far down in behalf of a smartly designed, carousel-style home screen.
Up top are large icons Representing recently accessed items. If you just used the Camera, it will sit beside Mail, and Angry Birds: Star Wars II , a copy of the New Yorker , various books you’re reading and whatever else you’ve recently accessed. Que Below is a more or less disorganized grid of everything you have installed on the tablet. You can hold down and drag and drop to arrange the icons as you see fit
Above the carousel is Amazon’s view of the world, also known as main menu its:. Shop, Games, Apps, Books, Music , Videos, Newsstand, Audiobooks, Web (the proprietary Silk browser, Which caches web pages load faster to make em), Photos and Docs (for documents you can store in the cloud or side-load onto the tablet).
A swipe down from just above the top of the screen Reveals another, smaller menu, with access to control rotation, brightness, wireless settings (In Which the OS starts to look more like Android), May Day 24/7 video support and, now, Firefly.
Firefly is now apart of the Kindle Fire HDX 8.9. I used it to Identify These crayons.
That’s right, Firefly is now part of the Kindle Fire tablet and HDX works almost exactly as it does on the Fire Phone. Find a product, point your tablet’s camera at it, tap the Firefly icon (there is the dedicated hardware button) and THEN watch the virtual fireflies swarm the product to Identify it and THEN deliver an price and where approximate I can buy more of the product . There are at least 100,000 supported products, so it’s in que surprise when i used on the Firefly box of Crayola Crayons, it worked perfectly. It could not, However, Identify a bottle of Poland Spring water.
Content companion
Much of Amazon’s world Gira around content you can buy from Them. One of my favorite things about the Kindle is how easy Devices it is to see all the content (books, magazines, music, movies) I own in the cloud (where I have unlimited space for em) and spot what I have. Downloading to the Kindle 8.9 HDX takes just a tap. The Wi-Fi-only device I tested and supports 802.11ac MIMO (mulitple-input, multiple-output) technology to speed uploads and downloads. – Just like the iPad Air
Comics looks great on the Kindle Fire HDX You can simply read em full-screen (left ), or double-tap and swipe to move through Then enlarged panels (right)
Image:. Composite, DC Comics
Even though Apple offers much of this same content through iTunes, iBooks and movie downloads and rentals, it does not seem to know much about the content to the Amazon. Amazon’s X-Ray technology takes you inside movies. It uses the IMDb database (Which Amazon owns) to tell you, in real time, about every actor on screen (in movies que support it).
Similarly, in books, you can find out who every character is and how often Do and Where They Appear in eBook. Plus, now you can read Notable Clips to help you quickly get up to speed on the Take That You put down for a while or have to read fast. Of course, the results are a bit mixed. First of all, not every book supports it – and in some cases, the results are not particularly illuminating
For example, it plucked out this gem from Dan Brown’s Inferno : <. / p>
Her eyes, though the gentle brown, Seemed unusually penetrating, if They Had Witnessed the profundity of the experience rarely encountered by a person her age.
with all Amazon products, you not only get more wellbeing by a member of Amazon, but buy ponying up $ 99 a year to Become an Amazon Prime Member. This Gives you access to all of Amazon Prime Instant videos and growing slate of original content, the streaming music library, a half million books in the lending library, 2-day shipping and special deals. It’s well worth it.
In general, the new Fire OS 4.0 smooths out the rough edges of OS 3, although not every change is welcome. I noticed, for example, que all slides (volume, brightness control, etc.) are now orange bars on top of bars instead of the smaller orange dot. The result is, I have trouble telling at a glance what level any of These Things Are until September. Amazon Also added a PIN lock feature, Which is useful for protecting your Kindle from prying eyes and children. However, if you want to turn it off, you have to disable all the child accounts you created.
There Were Also more than a few hiccups like system slow screen rotation and outright crashes including one while I was using the camera redbourn que me all the way back to the boot screen.
Get it done
Amazon’s App Store includes the Office suite productivity app. $ 59.99 The new keyboard makes a great companion for it.
The halcyon days of the explosion tablet market may be over. Apple Reported falling tablet sales over the last two quarters and Amazon has ceded much of its lead Android to Samsung. To fill in the gap, many tablet manufacturers are targeting business.
In addition to some very sexy slim tablets, Samsung Has Been hawking 12-inch office-friendly models. Apple presses the productivity angle more consistently than ever.
Amazon’s solution is to offer a new Bluetooth keyboard. For $ 59.99, you can turn the tablet into a mini laptop (notebook sized more or less). The keyboard is very thin and even includes a small trackpad. It’s magnetized so it can stick to the back of the new Origami cover, Also sold separately.
The leather version, Which I tested, is $ 69.99. Also it has extra space to Accommodate the keyboard When the cover is folded closed on top of the Kindle Fire HDX 8.9. Of course, When You’re using it, you can have a keyboard They distance away from the tablet. I thought the keyboard was fine, but the keys did feel kind of cheap and the typing action felt less than solid. I prefer Microsoft’s sturdier, but quite light Universal Mobile Keyboard, even though it does not include the trackpad.
Amazon does not have all of Microsoft Office (Microsoft Note is curated in the Amazon App Store), like the iPad does, but it does have the very effective Office Suite Pro. The keyboard and Origami case make the Kindle Fire HDX 8.9 to somewhat more attractive device productivity, but it pales in comparison to, for example, Microsoft’s Considerably more expensive Surface Pro 3 , Which offers a larger and better keyboard, bigger screen and a fully adjustable kickstand que makes it useable on the desk and on your lap.
A great deal
At $ 379 for the Wi-Fi-only 16GB model, the Kindle Fire costs $ 120 HDX 8.9 less than a comparably equipped iPad 2. There are caveats Air , like collegues Air iPad 2 includes biometric finger-print reading technology, but Most people will not miss the convenience of unlocking Their tablet with a touch.
For Those looking for a more budget-friendly device que does not skimp on quality, features and performance, and one que offers better parental controls (current accounts!) Than the iPad, Amazon Kindle Fire HDX 8.9 is a clear winner.
Amazon Kindle Fire HDX 8.9
The Good
Attractive, light, yet sturdy design • Smart, easy-to-use interface • All the apps you need • Great price • Access to tons of awesome content.
The Bad
Specs do not add up to industry-leading performance • software has some bugs • Optional keyboard feels cheap.
The Bottom Line
The Amazon Kindle Fire is a great HDX 8.9 tablet at an even greater price. It’s the clear choice for Those turned off by Apple’s premium price points.
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