Hasta La Gadget!

Yesterday, at an event in Santa Monica CA, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos unveiled the Kindle Fire HD. The device comes in two flavors, 7-inch and 8.9-inch, and they will retail for $199 and $299, respectively, with the former shipping from September 14th onwards while the latter will see a November 20th release date.

The most interesting is certainly the 8.9-inch 4G LTE version featuring 32GB of internal memory and  priced at $499 with a $49.99 per year data plan!

On paper, the specifications and pricing look awesome, the processor is powerful enough and runs a decent GPU for gaming purposes. As for the display size and resolution, they are great, with a thin form factor (8.8 mm for the 8.9-inch) and weight (20 ounces for the 8.9-inch) that make it more comfortable to carry than the iPad.

I played with the 7-inch version which is certainly a serious competitor to the Nexus 7. We could not play with the 8.9-inch model. Read the complete article to discover my first impressions.

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By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Amazon Kindle 2 In-Depth Review, Amazon Kindle press event round-up,

Amazon today took wraps off a whole new family of Kindle tablets and e-readers, taking aim at top, middle and bottom of the portable media device market. The biggest announcement of the day was the new series of Kindle Fire HD tablets, ranging in size from 7″ to 8.9″ and aiming squarely at Apple’s iPad juggernaut.

Priced at $499 USD (32GB) to $599 (64GB), the top-of-the-line Kindle Fire HD offers an 8.9″ 1920×1200 touchscreen display (for full 1080p video playback), 4G LTE connectivity, Dolby audio, dual stereo speakers (so you get stereo in either landscape or portrait modes), and a front-facing HD camera for video chats. Also revealed was an improved dual-band, dual-antenna Wi-Fi system which claims to be 40% faster than the latest iPad at streaming content on a compatible Wi-Fi network. The tablet is powered by a speedy 1.5GHz dual-core TI OMAP4470 CPU with a PowerVR 3D graphics core.

In addition to the 4G LTE model, a Wi-Fi only Kindle Fire HD 8.9″ is available for just $299 (16GB) or $369 (32GB), dramatically undercutting Apple’s pricing scheme for similar models. Those who pick up the 4G model will be happy to hear that AT&T and Amazon have teamed up to offer a full year of 4G service for just $49. However, this does include only 250 MB a month of data, so you could burn through that quickly – especially with streaming HD video content. 3GB and 5GB data plans are also available, but pricing wasn’t announced.

There’s also a 7″ Kindle Fire HD going for just $199 (16GB) or $249 (32GB) with all of the same features, but a slight cut in processor speed down to 1.2GHz, and a reduction to 1280×800 screen resolution, but there’s no 3G or 4G option available for the 7″ model at this point. We can only imagine that if Apple is to reveal an iPad Mini, it will be similarly priced and spec’d.

All models offer an IPS display with polarizing filter and anti-glare technology to make the screen as useful as possible in a variety of viewing environments. include unlimited cloud storage for content from Amazon, as well as integrated Facebook, Twitter, Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo! and Exchange support. Of course, you’ll also be able to load Android apps, as well as have access to the Kindle Owners’ free Lending Library with these tablets.

The Kindle Fire HD 8.9″ models are expected to ship on November 20th, while the Fire HD 7″ model will be available next week – on September 14th. And if you’re perfectly content with the plain old Kindle Fire display and Wi-Fi, you can grab one today for just $159, with the bonus of a 40% speed bump, twice the memory and improved battery life from the original.

If you’re in the market for an e-Reader, today is your lucky day – with the reveal of the Kindle Paperwhite, you can finally get the benefits of an electrostatic ink display, but also be able to read it at night. The Paperwhite offers not only a super-sharp paper-like display, but has a built-in light so you can read it in bed without an external light source.

Amazon claims an astounding 8 week battery life for the Paperwhite, even with the light on! Amazon also says the paperwhite display has 62% more pixels and a 25% higher contrast from standard E-Ink displays, as well as a bunch of specially optimized fonts for making reading as good as any paper book you ever looked at.

The Wi-Fi model of the Kindle Paperwhite is going for just $119 (if you’re willing to look at Amazon’s special offers), or $139 without, while the 3G version is $179 (with offers) and $199 (without).

Amazon is accepting pre-orders now for all new Kindle models.

Some people are whining that the new Kindle Fires shows Amazon’s “special offers” when locked. They’re upset because “I can’t put my own pretty background!” Or “I can’t put the face of my cat!” Or “I can’t cycle through those photos of the Grand Canyon that I took on two years ago when I thought was Ansel Adams.” More »

Hey, check out this beaut. It’s the 8.9-inch version of Amazon’s new Fire HD tablet. The company trotted several of the 7-inch models, but the big daddy was a rare bird indeed — thankfully, however, we were able to get up close and personal with the thing. It’s almost a shame that this guy shares a name with last year’s model. This feels like a completely different bird — Amazon set out to make a slate that can compete with some of the top models out there, and from some passing impressions, this thing seems to stack up. Of course, we’re going to have to wait until we can actually spend some more time with it before passing judgement. Peep some more photos of the newer, bigger Kindle Fire in the gallery below.

Filed under: Tablets

Amazon’s 8.9-inch Kindle Fire HD impressions originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 06 Sep 2012 17:21:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Though we wont be able to have a peek at AT&T’s 4G LTE version of the tablet until later this year, Amazon has allowed us a quick touchy-feely experience with the 8.9-inch version of the Kindle Fire HD before its software is finalized. What we’re seeing here is the slightly larger version of the Kindle Fire HD 7, that being essentially the same size as the standard Kindle Fire which also got a refresh this week. The Kindle Fire HD 8.9 is the company’s new flagship device, we would say, with an 8.9-inch display made to compete directly with Apple’s iPad.

This device has a back that’s slightly rubbery with a single ribbon of shine on the bottom half, there showing the device’s brand. The device is relatively light and certainly thin, and though its chassis don’t tell much about how it’s forward-thinking here in 2012, the software features and display construction certainly do. One of the more important elements sits right up front and center with the display being closer to the glass panel than Amazon’s previous efforts, this resulting in a much clearer, crisper, and less glare-prone solution.

The Kindle Fire HD 8.9 is indeed going to be coming with essentially the same software build as the Kindle Fire HD 7, with a user interface that’s been upgraded from the original Kindle Fire as well. Here we’re seeing nearly buttery-smooth action and next-level response time thus far – we’ll need more time with the finalized device to know for sure.

With a relatively standard non-intrusive and certainly quiet-seeming bit of hardware to surround it, Amazon appears to have once again created what may be a winner for the 2012 holiday season for hardware. How it’ll work to ramp up sales in all sectors when they’ve now got not two, but three tablets with quite similar specifications and three very different prices though, we’re not sure. Check out the timeline below for additional information on the releases that’ve occurred this week with Amazon and plan on getting a Kindle this winter – this 8.9 tablet wont be out until November.

Kindle Fire HD 8.9 hands-on is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
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