Amazon Kindle Fire

Amazon Kindle Fire Image7

The Amazon Kindle Fire is a mini tablet device. It is based on Amazon’s Kindle e-book reader. The device was released in the United States on November 15, 2011, and has experienced numerous updates and upgrades since that time. It includes access to Kindle’s e-books and Amazon’s Appstore. The tablet is relatively cheap compared to other tablets, because Amazon attempts to make money on the selling of digital content on the device as opposed to the cost of the tablet itself. As of October 2012, the Kindle Fire ranks only behind Apple’s iPad as the best selling tablet.

Key Information

The first generation of the Amazon Kindle Fire device runs a customized Android 2.3 Gingerbread OS, while the second generation runs a customized Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich OS. The Amazon Kindle Fire offers a cloud-accelerated “split browser”, called Amazon Silk, which uses Amazon EC2 for webpage and layout rendering and for off-device cloud computation. It also uses Google’s SPDY protocol for faster content transmission. The Kindle Fire provides support for the following technologies: GameCircle, In-App Purchasing, Audio and Video Formats, and Maps. Users are given a free month of Amazon Prime, including unlimited streaming access to 10 000 movies and television shows, and free two-day shipping for anything in Amazon’s virtual catalog. The user’s digital content is given free storage in Amazon Cloud’s web-storage platform. The Kindle Fire Tablet with 7 inch LCD Display and 8 GB storage can be purchased on Amazon. The price increases as the size goes up ($399.00 for 8.9 inch tablet). Best Buy offers the same deal through their online website.

Tech Specs

The Amazon Kindle Fire offers a multi-touch colour screen with a diagonal length of 7 inches and a 600×1024 pixel resolution. It is 5.4 inches wide, 7.6 inches tall, and 0.4 inches thick. It weights 13.9 ounces. The device offers 8 GB of internal storage, which is enough for 80 applications and either 800 songs or 10 movies or 6000 books (or some combination of that). The 4400 mAh battery maintains up to 7.5 hours of video playback and 8 hours of reading. The battery is advertised as lasting around 11 hours. The Device also offers Full USB capability, Micro HDMI, and a front camera.

Pros

  • Offers a high definition display which is perfect for the newest 16:9 HD movies
  • Also has an anti-glare screen with 25% less glare compared to the original model, which is extremely helpful if you plan on using it in day light or outside
  • The front facing HD Camera and Microphone gives users the option to use Skype
  • Extremely fast WiFi – downloading and streaming on the Kindle Fire is 41% faster than the iPad 3 and 54% faster than the Google Nexus 7
  • 11 hours of battery life is an improvement of about 3 hours from the previous model
  • Price – at $159.00, it is significantly cheaper than other tablets

Cons

  • No slot for a SD card which means no option for expandable memory
  • No rear camera – the front facing camera is great for Skype, but if you are looking to take a picture, this doesn’t really help you
  • No GPS option for maps
  • No 4G LTE or 3G – if you are travelling, you will need a hotel wireless internet connection or free Wi-Fi hotspot
  • Does not have the Android 4.1 Jelly Bean operating system, which means users cannot access any voice command feature (like Siri on the iPad)
  • The Camera application and videos and photographs are not easily accessible on the tablet