It shouldn’t come as much of a surprise that more Americans than ever now own tablets, but if you’d ever wanted some quantifiable data to go along with that homespun wisdom, then the Pew Research Center is glad to help. According to its latest report, 22 percent of US adults now own a tablet of some form. While the iPad remains the dominant player in the space with a 52 percent market share, this figure starkly contrasts the 81 percent share that Pew reported in 2011. As you might expect, Android tablets have made significant inroads and now account for 48 percent of the overall tablet space. Leading the Android charge is the Kindle Fire, which alone accounts for 21 percent of all tablets sold. It’s worth pointing out that Pew’s survey was conducted before the release of either the Nexus 7 or the Kindle Fire HD, which means that even the most recent information is a bit behind the curve. You’ll find a press release after the break that provides a much broader take on Pew’s latest findings in the mobile space, but those who want to go straight to the meat should hit up the source link below.
In a new study that was released yesterday, it’s said that around 25% of American adults own a tablet. The iPad has the greater market share, but not by much. 52% of tablet owners have an iPad, while the remaining 48% own an Android variant. Around the same time last year, the iPad owned 81% of the tablet market share.
On the Android side, Amazon’s Kindle Fire is reported to be the most popular Android tablet with a 21% market share, making it the second most popular tablet to the iPad. It’s certainly a close race OS-wise, but breaking it down by manufacturer puts it into a different perspective. Apple alone dominates the tablet market with a 52% share, and if you break down each Android tablet maker, each of them only owns a fraction of the remaining 48% that’s designated for Android tablets.
It’s worth noting that these results were tallied before the Nexus 7 and the Kindle Fire HD were released, so it’s possible that the already close race between the iPad and Android is now razor thin. And with the Kindle Fire being the most popular Android tablet, it’s easy to see that budget tablets are sweeping the country in a big way.
As for smartphones, Android continues to claim the top spot in the US, with 46% of users running Google’s mobile operating system. In comparison, the iPhone accounts for 38%, while RIM’s BlackBerry platform owns just 10%. Again, breaking it down by manufacturer may tell a different story, with Apple most likely owning the overall market share.
Amazon‘s new Kindle Fire HD tablet has only been available commercially for the better part of a week, and new reports are already coming out showing just how stiff their competition will be against Google’s Nexus 7. The popular ad tracking and analysis firm Chitika just released some new data showing the Fire’s already taking 11% of all Kindle Fire web share, but that the Nexus 7 is much higher.
They state that ad impressions for the new Kindle Fire HD is already taking over 11% of all Kindle devices, meaning the adoption rate and sales are obviously doing quite well compared to the other Kindles. Considering the original has been available for more than a year shows the HD has some serious room to grow, and dominate.
However, according to TheNextWeb Chitika then compares the Kindle Fire HD (or the original for that matter) to ASUS and Google’s popular Nexus 7 and the hill is looking pretty steep. With Chitika calculating the Android Jelly Bean powered tablet accounts for a 68.5% of the web share when compared to the Kindle Fire and the new Kindle Fire HD. That’s a different story indeed!
Obviously there’s a few things to consider here though. For one the Nexus 7 has been available for the better part of the summer and a few months now, while the Fire HD just launched a few weeks ago. Another thing could be the simple fact that more Kindle users are reading books and watching Amazon Prime content, while Nexus 7 users are browsing the web — so that could slightly skew the numbers. Either way both tablets appear to be doing quite well but only time will tell how the HD does overall. Be sure to take a peek at our Kindle Fire HD review, as well as our Nexus 7 review.
Last year Amazon entered the tablet and hardware market on an entirely different level with their Kindle Fire tablet. Now just 10 short months later we have a completely evolved product from the retail giant. Today we’re taking a look at the new Kindle Fire HD 7-inch tablet. Everything you didn’t like about the original (including that Playbook styling) has been improved for round two so lets take a look and see how it does.
Meet the Kindle Fire HD. This time around everything’s been completely improved. It’s faster, more powerful, lighter, thinner, and even looks a bit better too. The styling has seen a massive change from the original, and the curved edges and aluminum band around back gives it some character. No longer is this just a black squared rectangle that wishes it ran Android.
Hardware
As we mentioned above everything has been improved with the Fire HD. That old and dare I say ugly design of the original has been replaced with a unique, custom, and elegant design that surely will have a few happy. While it could still use some improvements (like a smaller bezel) it certainly is prettier than its older brother.
The Kindle Fire HD measures in at 193 x 137 x 10.3mm in size. Which is about 1.1mm thinner than the original but a little wider and taller. So while it doesn’t offer a huge change in size, the curved edges and smooth corners makes it feel and look much thinner. The designs starting to grow on me although I’ll never get used to those buttons. It’s also slightly lighter than the original while getting a bump in all specs under the hood, but only by a hair. Take a peek at our unboxing and first impressions below.
As you can see from the video everything is quite elegant this time around. The flooding of matte black is nicely changed with the aluminum band around back, and the stereo speaker grills — while odd in design — give it even more character and a unique look we’ve not seen yet from most tablet manufactures. Overall the design is quite calm and looks to by flying under the radar with nothing loud about it. Sleek, dark, and powerful.
As far as internal specs Amazon has stepped it up considerably but still isn’t up to par with recent devices like the Nexus 7. We get a brilliant and vivid 7-inch display (more on that below) with a 1280 x 800 HD resolution. The Fire HD is powered by a Texas Instruments 4470 dual-core processor, it has been stepped up to 1GB of RAM, and of course has 16GB of storage all for $199. A few notable features is the Kindle Fire HD is the first tablet with dual-band MIMO WiFi support (for better, faster connectivity) and it also features Dolby Digital stereo speakers.
If we didn’t make it clear enough in our video above, while we love the design and slim edges, the fact that the power and volume buttons are so hard to find/push was a cause for concern. We were constantly searching for the power button and it will surely take some getting use to. There’s nothing on the left side, around to the top you’ll have a single microphone for video chatting, then the right side houses the buttons just mentioned. You’ll also get micro-USB and micro-HDMI down on the bottom for charging, syncing, and streaming all that Amazon HD content to a bigger screen.
Display and Speakers
As we mentioned above the display has been rather impressive. Amazon made a big deal about their technology and coating to prevent glare for those movie watching or outdoor readers but we’ve hardly noticed a difference. Screen glare remains a problem, but might be less of a problem with the Kindle Fire HD.
As far as actual screen quality however, it is stunningly gorgeous, bright, and crisp. The 1280 x 800 resolution HD display is an IPS panel. This means we have accurate and not overly saturated colors, vivid and crisp text, and excellent viewing angles. Now that we have a higher resolution all that HD content from Amazon can finally be put to use — at a premium. Movies will cost a little extra, plus their size will take up extra space, and the same goes for games and apps. However that is worth the tradeoff because it’s rather fun to look at.
The Stereo speakers are also pretty stellar. The Fire HD is the first tablet with Dolby Digital Plus and stereo speakers. While sound quality wasn’t of the highest we’ve heard, it certainly was loud and crisp and certainly can be heard from a distance. Most tablets don’t have this type of audio quality so we’ll give them a thumbs up for that.
Software
Android… Fire… Ice… What do we have here? The Amazon Kindle Fire is running on Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, but you’d never know from looking at it. Aside from the pulldown notification bar Google’s old Andy is no where to be seen. They’ve got their own Amazon App Store, their own Maps (powered by Nokia) and their own slew of video players and reader solutions. This is nothing new and exactly like the previous Kindle — just a little faster. Their Fire UI has completely put out the blazes of Android.
The user interface in general will either appeal to most, or be bothersome. The content-rich in your face design never fades, and Amazon’s constant nag (recommendation) of other movies, apps, books, videos, or other purchases is as present as ever. Instead of explaining the Fire UI to everyone, since you’ve probably seen it before, enjoy our extended hands-on video review for a better idea of software looks and performance.
As you can see, the interface is largely the same and basically unchanged. However, it’s extremely smooth. Not quite buttery smooth, but a huge increase and certainly smoother than before. While we did experience the occasional hiccup or browser lag, in general performance has remained swift even after hours of usage.
The “customers also bought,” “More products” and “similarly viewed” content is all in your face. We’ve talked a lot about the ads or commercial space, and well, because it’s everywhere. Amazon has stated there will be an opt-out, but we’ll talk more on that another time.
Everything from reading, enjoying a movie, or checking out the latest set of apps has all remained unchanged. Why tweak the reading experience when it’s so excellent. What Amazon has done however is improved it with small additions. We now have X-Ray as shown in the video above. X-Ray gives users an in-depth look at the book their engulfed in, details on every character, and where in the book (or movie) they are mentioned. With videos you’ll be treated with the same awesome X-Ray feature and it’s also integrated with IMDB. From there you can pause the movie you’ve just rented and look up everything you’d ever like to know about that cute girl in the scene. See other movies she’s been in — and of course they’ll obviously recommend more films for you to purchase.
Overall we’ve been rather satisfied with the largely unchanged yet faster software and user experience. Productivity is certainly not on the forefront here as this tablet is all about content consumption and purchases. The awesome and easy-to-use multitasking features of Android, especially 4.0 ICS have been completely removed. There’s a few small multitasking options like music in the dropbown bar but for the most part any sort of multitasking is slow, cumbersome, and a chore.
At the end of the day the software is pretty solid. For those that want a streamlined user interface with everything you need (and might need) directly provided front and center with suggestions and large HD content this is surely for you. For the Android enthusiast this is a long ways from anything Android. Oh and if you don’t like all those ads and suggestions you can opt out for about $15.
Battery Life
As far as battery life is concerned you shouldn’t have much of an issue here. For the occasional users that gets up and reads the occasional webpage, checks a few movie times and sports scores and more this tablet can clearly last a solid 3-4 days of medium usage. When it comes to more intensive things the Fire HD was on par with most recent tablets.
With the Fire HD running a continuous video loop we managed just over 9 hours of usage. Amazon quotes it for 11 but you probably won’t quite be getting that unless you have the brightness pretty low and do light tasks. The Nexus 7 lasted a tiny bit longer with rundown tests, but sadly we weren’t able to fire up the usual Android apps to test most of those things we like to test.
It’s safe to say you can read for hours, enjoy videos for an entire road trip, or casually use this device on the couch all without worrying about a charger too much.
Competition
As far as the competition is concerned, no one can hit this price point except for Google. Most tablets in this size range, even with lower specs, aren’t able to come near the $199 price point Amazon introduced — and now reintroduced while beating out the Nexus 7. With the iPad Mini looming but still not announced we can’t compare that — yet. As far as the Android ecosystem goes the Nexus 7 gives this a pretty good run for its money.
When we reviewed the Google Nexus 7 we said it was the best 7-inch tablet money could buy, if not the best Android tablet in general. Now just 3 months later we have this nipping at its heels. Overall however the Nexus 7 performs better in all tests. The Android 4.1 Jelly Bean speed with the Chrome Browser always won by at least a few seconds. Intensive games seem to handle things better, and the Nexus 7 has the full Google Play Store. In the end though it isn’t about which is better for your $200 crisp dollar bills. It’s about what you need. For those looking for that all around tablet experience the Nexus 7 reigns supremacy simply for the fact that it’s pure unaltered Android. For those looking for an awesome consumption device that doesn’t need the bells and whistles that Google provides — the Kindle Fire HD is a finely tuned content consumption machine.
Wrap-Up
Just like we mentioned above, the Kindle Fire HD is a mighty fine device. Amazon’s increased the speed and performance throughout, improved the display (obviously) and added even more awesome features. If you don’t mind the slightly subsidized feeling, or pay for the opt-out, you’ll surely be in for an enjoyable experience. In the end we can’t help but feel like this tablet is just as much for shopping and browsing Amazon.com than it is for searching the web and enjoying movies.
In terms of Amazon’s complete ecosystem of games, apps, videos, movies, books, music and more this is the perfect tablet. Deep down however for those looking to do more with their tablet like what we see with the iPad and the Nexus 7 — the Kindle Fire still has a little ways to go. If Amazon will ever take it there is a different story.
Shortly before the reveal of Amazon‘s new line up of Kindle Fire tablets – including a refresh of the original Kindle Fire and the new Kindle Fire HD – we heard whispers that the company was joining forces with Nokia for its mapping service. The rumor didn’t come as much of a surprise, considering that Amazon has cut Google out of the loop considerably with its Kindle Fire line, but today is the first time we’ve received confirmation that Amazon has indeed licensed Nokia’s Location Platform.
Nokia spokesperson Dr. Sebastian Kurme confirmed the rumors to the The Next Web, saying in a statement that Amazon’s decision is “further proof point that our competence in this space is a key differentiator also for other leading players in the industry to offer great location consumer experiences.” Though Google Maps is the more popular mapping and navigation service, the Nokia Location Platform has won a fair number very pleased fans, and it’s already used in services like Yahoo! Maps and Bing Maps.
Amazon has already rolled out a Maps API to allow developers to integrate location data into their Kindle Fire and Kindle Fire HD apps, and now we know that Amazon will be using Nokia’s Location Platform as the backbone of its mapping service. It wasn’t too long ago that we heard Amazon will be making Bing the default search engine of the Kindle Fire line up, further distancing itself from Google. Naturally, the Kindle Fire family comes equipped with Amazon’s online storefront rather than the Google Play Store, which we see running on most other Android-based devices.
Of course, Nokia’s Location Platform is also used in Nokia Drive, which has featured prominently on Windows Phone devices. With Windows Phone 8 just around the corner and Amazon’s new Kindle Fire line getting some major attention, it looks Nokia has an excellent opportunity to position itself as a key player in the mapping space, so the further development of its Location Platform is definitely something to watch. Keep it tuned here to SlashGear for more information.
Sure, you can certainly snag one of those shiny new Amazon slates straight from the source, but if that famed, speedy shipping isn’t your style, then a trip to the nearest Staples would be recommended. The “That Was Easy” retailer announced earlier it’s now inviting all parties interested in picking up an all-new, 7-inch Kindle Fire HD, a revamped Kindle Fire or that $69 Kindle to visit its brick-and-mortar stores — where, starting today, folks will be able to buy any of the aforementioned devices. While these Kindles can be found listed on the Staples website (see below), the company didn’t mention whether it actually plans to sell them online — perhaps they’re just there in case you’re in need of a little bit of guidance.
If you had your heart set on a Kindle Fire, Fire HD 7 or Reader, you can now plunk down your plastic and receive one as fast as your shipper can wheel it over. The 1,280 x 800 Fire HD 7-inch model, which we recently put through the wringer, is available in a 16GB version for $199, and Amazon says the 32GB version will arrive October 25th. As we noted, it carries a new dual-band WiFi system for greater surfing speed, dual speakers, a front HD camera and a TI-made dual-core ARM Cortex A-9 processor. The updated Kindle Fire can be had as well for $159, with double the RAM of the last version, a new processor and a bigger battery. Finally, the new Kindle Reader is also up for grabs at an ad-supported cost of $69, while the 8.9-inch Kindle Fire HD should be along in November at $299 ($499 for a 4G version). So, if you’re already looking ahead to a certain holiday, check the sources to see how to get one.
Huge week for Amazon, last week. But all that Kindly goodness was nearly upstaged by lock-screen ad nonsense. When I searched on the keyword “amazon” in my RSS tech folder, Friday and Saturday of last week looked like two big parade floats: “OMG, there are ads on the new Kindle tablet!” and “Praise the heavens, you can disable the ads!”
Tempest in a teapot, those ads. And Amazon took the wrong approach to removing them.
Amazon‘s Kindle presentation on Thursday featured a lot of big talking points, but one thing the company was understandably silent on was the “Special Offers” that will show on its new Kindle Fire HD line of tablets (along with the refresh of the original Kindle Fire). Subsidizing devices by showing ads isn’t anything new for the company, but once it became clear that these new Kindle Fires would be showing ads, people began wondering if Amazon would allow users to opt out of the special offers program by paying a fee, as it has done with its devices in the past. At first, Amazon said that an opt out option wouldn’t be available, and it’s pretty easy to imagine where things went next.
Amazon was met with anger from prospective buyers once it said that would be no opt out option, and now the company has changed course completely. According to CNET, Kindle Fire users will be able to opt out of the Special Offers program by paying a $15 fee. That fee is a bit lower than we’ve seen in the past, but don’t expect consumers to be happy with the fact that they have to pay to remove ads from a tablet – it’s one thing when ads are displayed on an eReader, but when ads are shown on a more expensive tablet, to many that’s an entirely different beast.
After paying the $15 fee, the ads from the lock screen and the home page will be removed. Some will likely be perturbed with having to pay a fee regardless of how much that fee actually is, while others are breathing a sigh of relief at this news. After all, since it’s understood that Amazon keeps its prices low by showing ads on its products, some never had a problem with paying an opt out fee in the first place. A number of potential Kindle Fire HD purchasers are probably just happy that they’ll have the option to opt out of Amazon’s special offers.
Still, there are some who are questioning why they need to see ads when the Kindle Fire HD’s biggest competitors – the Nexus 7 and the iPad – don’t force users to view ads anywhere. It’s true that these special offers could potentially save users some cash, but with one of the Kindle Fire HD models costing $499, it leaves a number of Kindle fans wondering why ads are necessary. Amazon says in its statement that “customers love our special offers and very few people choose to opt out,” so perhaps these offers do have value to some customers. What do you think of Amazon’s latest move – are ads on the Kindle Fire HD line unnecessary, or do you not mind the idea of having them shown?
You’d be forgiven for wondering just what Amazon was up to with Special Offers ads on the Kindle Fire HD: we were given the hope that we could opt out from them, only to watch that dream dashed moments later. Amazon must have been listening to frustrations over the mixed messages, as it just let Engadget and others in the media know that yes, you’ll have the option to drop the ads after all. Pay $15 after picking up the new tablet and those lock screen promos will disappear forever. There’s no sign that there will be a Kindle Fire shipping with ads missing from the get-go, but you know what they say about gift horses. You can find Amazon’s full statement to us after the break.
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
Computerworld | 
Pew Research Center | Email this | Comments
