HD Kindle Fire is a tablet manufactured by Amazon which was introduced in September 2012 and is available in two sizes. The Kindle Fire HD with 7 “went on sale in Spain in late October 2012 and the Kindle Fire HD 8.9 screen” went on sale in March 2013.
few months ago we had the chance to thoroughly test the Kindle Fire HD 7 “you our impressions on an extensive analysis.
This time we tested the Kindle Fire HD 8.9 “ and I want to tell how we felt after subjecting it to a thorough analysis. Given the similarities between the two versions of Kindle Fire HD, especially in the software aspects, some parts of this analysis are taken from our article on the Kindle Fire HD 7 “.
Home
External appearance
- and design
Technical specifications and performance
Conclusions
External appearance and design class=”c1″>
Kindle Fire is a tablet HD minimalist design , made of plastic with different shades of black, and has a rectangular shape with rounded corners. It is intended primarily for daily use, so Amazon has dominated the strength and durability to design and style holds and glamor of an iPad.
Kindle Fire HD 8.9 “ presents an intermediate size , straddling tablets 7″ and 10.1 “. Size is a somewhat strange since tablets manufacturers usually choose one or the other size, but not something halfway.
c4″ class=”aligncenter| Display | class=”c2″ Dimens. (Mm) | Weight (g) | class=”c3″> Kindle Fire HD | 8.9 “ | 239 x 163 x 9 | 567 | class=”c3″> iPad with Retina display | class=”c3″> 9.7 “ | class=”c3″> 241 x 186 x 9.4 | class=”c3″> 652 | class=”c3″> 10.1 “ | class=”c3″> 266 x 172 x 6.9 | class=”c3″> 495 | class=”c3″> 10.1 “ | class=”c3″> 263 x 181 x 10.4 | class=”c3″> 649 | class=”c3″> Samsung GT 2 10.1 | class=”c3″> 10.1 “ | class=”c3″> 257 x 175 x 9.7 | class=”c3″> 581 | class=”c3″> Archos 101 XS | class=”c3″> 10.1 “ | class=”c3″> 273 x 170 x 8 | class=”c3″> 600 | Minitab Wolder class=”c3″> LION | class=”c3″> 10.1 “ | class=”c3″> 264 x 166 x 12 | class=”c3″> 628 | class=”c3″> 10.1 “ | class=”c3″> 267 x 169 x 13 | class=”c3″> 655 |
Unlike other tablets, the Kindle Fire HD not have any buttons or inscription on the front , but the front is occupied solely by the screen and the camera, which occupies the central position of the top (when holding the tablet horizontally).
Its 8.9 “screen is surrounded by a black frame quite thick when compared to other tablets.
screen appearance when off is quite dark but not like to be confused with the surrounding frame.
The rear Kindle Fire HD, however, does show the Amazon logo in a gray color and registration faint Kindle as well as a speaker on each side.
speakers are far apart, in order to enhance the stereo effect. The cover, as usual in the tablets, not be removed.
top
has 3 button , two of them for volume and one for on / off.These buttons do not protrude or have a different color, so that they go unnoticed, to the extent necessary look every time you want to use .
Although it may seem that it is matter of a few days to get used to them, the reality is that after several weeks of use still have to rotate the device to hit to click on the correct button. At the top is also the headphone jack . The bottom of the tablet has no connector or button.
Finally, on the right side can find two connectors air , one micro-USB for connecting to PC or charger, and a micro-HDMI for connecting to external displays using a simple micro-HDMI Cable to HDMI. The left is free of buttons and connectors.
Kindle Fire HD
not heavy device , although weighing 567 grams is heavier than the Sony Xperia Tablet Z (495 grams) and almost Like the Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 (581 grams) even though both have a larger screen than the Kindle. It is therefore a certain weight tablet.
class=”c1″> Screen
The Kindle Fire HD LCD panel incorporates a 8.9 “ and features a high resolution 1920 x 1200 pixels , one of the greatest assets of this tablet although not as high as the new iPad (2048 x 1536) or the Nexus 10 (2560 x 1600).
pixel density offered is 254 dpi. , very close to the famous iPad Retina display (264 ppi.), a step of Nexus 10 (300 dpi) and over most tablets of the market.
pixel density makes reading small text and makes browsing web pages is a very pleasant experience.
IPS technology Kindle Fire HD shows a vivid and brilliant colors , a deep black and presents an excellent angle vision playing uniform colors from any position, according to Amazon thanks to the application of a polarizing filter on the LCD panel itself. This results in a sharp contrast from any angle and, ultimately, in an excellent image quality.
Amazon saysachieved significantly reduce screen glare
usually eliminating the space between the touch sensor and the LCD screen. The reality is that, even without knowing this technological innovation, the Kindle Fire HD had already given us the feeling that it looked pretty good even under sunlight. Not completely eliminate the reflections but are attenuated enough.
ultimately Kindle Fire screen HD has been very impressed with . With excellent resolution, a bright, large viewing angle and uniform color reproduction lacks practically nothing.
Specifications and rendimimento class=”c1″>
The Kindle Fire HD 8.9 “hidden inside a dual core processor at 1.5 GHz TI OMAP4470 , 1GB RAM and PowerVR GPU . The processor is slightly faster than its little brother, the Kindle Fire HD 7 “, which runs at 1.2 GHz
Texas Instruments announced last year leaving the business line of processors for mobile devices, so the Kindle Fire HD is one of the latest devices with OMAP processor.
Without being overly powerful specifications (already in the market tablets with quad-core processors and 2GB of RAM), interface and applications generally move smoothly , but on special occasions we noticed some stoppages to move around the interface or type into the keyboard we can not explain.
However overall the Kindle Fire HD has behaved properly while running games, scroll in web pages or playing HD movies, to name a few.
AnTuTu benchmark
the Kindle Fire HD has a score of 7164 points, a far cry from more powerful tablets like the Sony Xperia Tablet Z (20,022) but above others as the Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 10.1 “(5,496). In browser test Browsermark 2.0 has gained 2033 points (greater than 58% of browsers tablets) and SunSpider javascript test 1.0 has 1352 ms.As for games, we had the opportunity to try several of them, such as 3D game The Amazing Spider-Man in the Kindle edition, which moves very fluently and has some pretty flashy graphics as seen in the capture.
There
versions 16 or 32 GB of internal storage . In our case we tested the 16GB version, which are 12.7 GB available to the user. This capability is somewhat limited for a tablet, especially once you start to upload movies, pictures and videos.
Since you can not install external memory card to expand the storage capacity, our recommendation for those you who are thinking about buying this device is to think twice without with 16GB you will have enough.
For connectivity, it supports Bluetooth and, as Amazon says proudly on its website, the Kindle Fire HD is the world’s first tablet with dual-antenna Wi- Fi Dual Band , which “can increase the speed of downloading and streaming up to 35% compared to an iPad mini” .
Since
Speedtest.net application that we use to measure the speed of ascent / descent on Android devices is not available in the Amazon app store nor have we found any other similar we could check objectively whether or not the Kindle Fire is significantly faster HD . Subjectively we can say that the download speed and Wi-Fi reception are adequate, but we have not noticed a big difference from other tablets or phones.
There is no Kindle Fire HD version with 3G/4G connectivity , so in order to make use of the Internet is necessary to have an access point Wi-Fi to connect to.
Kindle Fire
HD also includes a light sensor , one accelerometer and gyroscope , but lacks GPS and NFC . These absences are especially troubling given that a tablet is a device usually too large to use as a browser and use of NFC is earthbound.
webcam , located on the front, has a 720 HD resolution and is focused on videoconferencing as the Kindle Fire HD even includes a camera app. The quality offered is acceptable , without being either no wonder.
Kindle Fire HDhas two stereo speakers that support Dolby Digital Plus and are located on either side of the device when it is in landscape mode, providing maximum separation rightly speaker to watch movies or listen to music.
The sound emitted by the Kindle Fire is powerful and clear HD , but the maximum volume seems lower than its little brother the Kindle Fire HD 7 “. Unfortunately the speakers are located on the back, which makes the sound does not come with as much power as if they were in front, and the sound may be distorted if it rests on the back.
In our tests the battery performance has been very positive. Amazon says the Kindle Fire HD has an autonomy of 10 hours under normal use and probably be right. Even viewing movies for several hours with an average brightness level of battery level dropped drastically.
class=”c1″> Kindle Fire HD interface
not easy to see that the Kindle Fire HD inside running version 4.0.3 (Ice Cream Sandwich) Android , since Amazon has addressed almost completely mask the operating system Google in the eyes of users.
Kindle Fire HD not show a typical desktop Android
When you turn on the Kindle Fire HD access the start menu , which shows in the top 10 shortcuts to as many tabs : Buy, Games, Applications, Books, Music, Videos, Web, Photos, Documents, and subsidized devices with advertisements, offers.
Since not fit
10 screen options need to scroll horizontally to select the desired tab . This is rather cumbersome and, in our opinion would have been more comfortable show 10 small icons on the screen simultaneously.
The main menu displays content also recently consulted by a carousel of icons. This content can be applications, websites, books, images, etc.. and is constantly changing, so you’re often moving forward and backward looking carousel icon lost . Some of these icons are adapted to large displays with which the Kindle Fire HD, but in other cases it is not and enlarged version of the icon is visually unattractive.
navigate this carousel, the bottom of the screen shows related content. For example, to put us on the icon manager email, at the bottom appear hits on “New Post “,” This Week “and” Favorite Contacts “. In other cases, the Kindle Fire HD offers purchase suggestions based on what other users have acquired purchased the same content.
Since the Kindle Fire HD does not have physical buttons, all screens displayed in the bottom bar several virtual buttons , the most common being: Home, Back, Options, Search and Favorites. One detail that we do not understand is why the icon of “House” is on the far left and the “Back” is in the center … it seems to go against the other Android tablets and phones, as well as logic usual.
The lack of physical buttons is sometimes awkward as virtual buttons are not always displayed. For example, to view a full screen apps, games, e-books or videos, the button bar is hidden and must be pressed before on a small button to display the taskbar.
In our opinion would have been more practical to include some physical buttons for quick access to the main menu or to the previous page without having to make several clicks.
Clicking on one of the ten shortcuts top, to access the content corresponding to that tab:
- Buy brings up a page where you can purchase digital content (books, Applications, Music & Games) or physical Amazon store.
Given the high integration
Kindle Fire HD with Amazon store services, sometimes gives the impression that the device is constantly pushing purchase new content , either by recommending content purchased other users or showing shortcuts to go to the Amazon store.
Just as you can not add items to the desktop, is not possible to add or remove tabs . However Kindle Fire HD includes the concept of “favorites”. Clicking on a star that appears at the bottom of every screen shows a list of our favorite items. To add an item to this list simply hold that item for several seconds and choose the corresponding option from the menu.
Some characteristic features of Android, as the notification bar , they are present on the Kindle Fire HD, but has also been customized by Amazon. By deploying the bar at the top shows a list of shortcuts to common functions (unlock the screen auto rotation, volume control, brightness control, connection management, sync and access to more settings) and then show notifications themselves.
the tests have showed that it is normally possible to run applications that modify the notification bar.
The virtual keyboard that provides the Kindle Fire HD duly fulfills its mission and even offers the possibility to type the words dragging the finger over the letters (Swype mode ).
Sometimes, however, we have noticed some delay between clicking a text area and the appearance of the displayed keyboard. At other times the letters did not appear on screen as the pulsábamos but suddenly appeared all at once. Know if a problem is due to the keyboard or the system could not respond quickly be running other tasks.
In conclusion, while advanced users customization limitations HD Kindle Fire can be dissuasive them, the reality is that Amazon wanted to create a simple tablet that can be used by anyone although not used to handling such devices.
In that sense we can say they have achieved their objective since the Kindle Fire HD interface is very easy to use and, somehow, seems designed to be “My First Tablet”.
class=”c1″> Multimedia
As already mentioned, one of the tabs to which we can access from the main screen is Music . Here’s all the music you have on the device organized by playlists, artists, albums, songs and genres.
The music player is pretty standard: Displays the cover of the disc you are playing and offers the typical options for shuffle and repeat.
Thanks to the rear speakers that has the Kindle Fire HD, the sound is pretty good. Obviously the bass does not sound like a stereo, but it’s the best we’ve heard on a tablet.
Additionally it is possible play music from the cloud
Another
tabs which can be accessed Videos , to visualize both the videos we recorded with the camera as others who have transferred to the device. To test the video player compatibility with various formats have submitted to Kindle Fire HD videos to our usual battery.
| class=”c11″> | class=”c11″> Display | class=”c12″> Codec | class=”c12″> Codif. | class=”c11″> Bitrate | class=”c11″> Audio | class=”c12″> Subs | class=”c14″> 1080 | H@L4.1 class=”c14″> | class=”c14″> 40 | class=”c14″> – | class=”c14″> – | class=”c12″> 1080 | class=”c14″> VC1 | L3 AP class=”c14″> | class=”c14″> 18 | class=”c14″> AC3 | class=”c3″> – | class=”c14″> 1080 | class=”c14″> 10 | class=”c14″> Yes | class=”c14″> 720p | class=”c14″> 3 | class=”c14″> Vorbis | class=”c14″> Yes | class=”c14″> 480p | class=”c14″> XVID | class=”c14″> AS L5 | class=”c14″> 1 | class=”c14″> HE AAC | class=”c14″> Yes | class=”c14″> 720p | class=”c14″> 0.6 | align=”center”> | class=”c14″> – | class=”c14″> 720p | class=”c14″> 6 | class=”c14″> AC3 | class=”c14″> Yes | class=”c14″> 720p | class=”c14″> 3 | class=”c14″> AAC | class=”c14″> – | class=”c14″> 720p | class=”c14″> 3 | class=”c14″> AAC | class=”c14″> – | class=”c14″> Planet 2.mp4 | class=”c14″> 720p | class=”c14″> 6 | class=”c14″> AC3 | class=”c14″> – |
Below we have included the results of tests carried out. As you can see, the default player of the Kindle Fire HD has many limitations: is unable to reproduce the Most of MKV video files, it allows you to choose audio tracks, does not support subtitles in the video file itself and does not play DTS sound tracks.
| class=”c1″> | class=”c1″> Video | class=”c1″> Audio | class=”c17″> Subs | class=”c17″> Comments | No |
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