News Analysis
Amazon's Kindle Fire
HD: Worth Your Money?
By Swanni
Washington, D.C.
(September 12, 2012)
-- Amazon's new Kindle Fire HD, which will retail for $199, goes
on sale on September 14. (Until then, Amazon is taking
pre-orders.)
The etailer promises that the new tablet, designed to further
challenge Apple's dominance of the tablet category, will truly
bring High-Definition clarity to images, movies, TV shows, you
name it. The tablet will offer a 1280x800 HD display and an
anti-glare technology for better contrast from any viewing
angle.
But what are the nation's top tech reviewers saying after they
got a chance to study Kindle Fire HD up close and personal?
Here's a sampling of reviews collected today from the Net:
The Chicago Sun-Times:
"The
7-inch Fire HD is aces as a content device. In all ways, it’s a
compelling alternative to the iPad and the Nexus 7 and if you’re
truly not interested in participating in the Post-PC Revolution,
its clarity and simplicity are strong arguments for a
best-of-breed designation. The Fire HD is much less impressive
when you approach it as a full-on tablet. The content-focused
interface is a little too simple for the broad range tasks
thrown at a “real” computer, and overall, its performance is
noticeably less agile than an iPad or a conventional Android
tablet."
PC Magazine
"Pros:
Gorgeous screen. Very easy to use. Amazon
Prime members get lots of video and book content. Multi-user
parental controls.
Cons:
Rigidly locked to the Amazon ecosystem.
Sluggish on occasion. Other tablets have more apps."
NBC News
"But
if you have any money left over, do yourself a favor and keep
saving up for an iPad. The 7-inch Kindle Fire HD is nice, but
it's just one of the paths to a rich Amazon customer experience,
and it's not the best one."
Engadget
"The
HD is fast, has a nice design, a beautiful screen, proper stereo
speakers and, of course, oodles and oodles of premium content.
For casual users looking for an inexpensive yet powerful tablet,
the Kindle Fire HD should absolutely be at the top of your
shopping list. But, for those looking to do more, and do more
rapidly, the Nexus 7 is still the king of this diminutive hill."
USA Today
"Two
months ago, I wrote that Google’s Nexus 7 was the budget tablet
to beat. But two months in the tech world might as well be two
years in some other business. Now another worthy color tablet
comes along to muddy the purchase decision. It’s the brand new
Kindle Fire HD from Amazon.com, and it poses a serious challenge
to Google while representing a major improvement over the
first-generation Kindle Fire model that went on sale in the U.S.
in November."
Mashable "It’s especially
laudable one when the re-imagined device is
better than its predecessor in almost every
conceivable way. The new Amazon Kindle Fire HD
7-inch is such a device.
Externally, it’s
almost unrecognizable from the first Kindle Fire
launched about 10 months ago. That product had a
reference-design look and, in hardware and
software, an almost rushed feel. There was one
protruding power button that users could trip at
the most inopportune times, and the Android 2.3
“Gingerbread” underpinnings that, though Amazon
tried to mask them, gave the overall Fire
interface a too-small, overly technical feel."
