Today, Amazon has taken wraps off of their new Kindle Fire HDX tablets. However, that doesn’t mean that last year’s HD line has been thrown on the scrap heap, in fact they’ve been given a little speed boost and a price cut all at the same time. Now, the Kindle Fire HD is just $139 for 8GB of storage, or $169 for 16GB. With the 8.9-inch version from last year starting at $269. Of course, these prices all include the infamous “Special Offers” tax from Amazon. With the prices going up $15 for each tablet if you don’t want ads on your lockscreen. Amazon being the online retail giant that they are, they’ve kindly drawn up a chart comparing their current line-up of tablets. Let’s take a look:
If you’re even considering buying a Kindle Fire, the chances are that you’re looking for a content tablet. That means a lot of reading and a lot of watching movies so, the displays are going to be the big spec you’re looking for. This year, the 8.9-inch version has a great display of 2560 x 1600 giving it 339 ppi, and the 7-inch HDX coming with a 1920 x 1200 display giving it a little less pixel density at 323 ppi. Battery life is very similar across the board however, the HDX line beat out their counterparts by an hour or two, with the 8.9-inch HDX managing a whopping 18 hours when just reading.
Performance wise, the HDX duo of tablets has twice the memory, three times CPU performance and four times the gaming performance than last year’s models. That’s thanks to the Snapdragon 800 that Amazon is humbly listing as a “Quad-Core 2.2 Ghz” CPU in the spec comparison ahead.
The Kindle Fire HDX tablets are also lighter than last year’s models as well, which is especially notable in the 8.9-inch device which comes in at 374 grams, last year’s weighs in at 567 grams. There’s no 4G model on sale for the older Kindle Fire HDs anymore so if you’re looking to get online on the go you might want to think about the new Kindle Fire HDX duo.
Kindle Fire HD 7″, HD Display, Wi-Fi, 8 GB – Includes Special Offers