Amazon just announced a new addition to the Kindle Fire lineup. With a super high-resolution screen, the online retailer is calling it the Kindle Fire HDX. How does it compare to the last year's Kindle Fire HD? We'll check out the display specs, along with other hardware and features to give you a feel for whether the new Amazon tablet is worth serious upgrade consideration. For a fair comparison, we'll take a look at the differences between the Kindle Fire HD 7-inch and the Kindle Fire HDX 7-inch.
Screen
Of course, this is the most-touted feature of the new Kindle Fire HDX. The 7-inch model doesn't have quite the blistering HD that the more expensive 8.9-inch 2013 version has, but it does match some of the best tablets out there, and its HD screen offers an above 1080p resolution.
The Kindle Fire HDX 7-inch has a 1200 x 1920p resolution touchscreen, which on the 7-inch display gives you 323 pixels per inch. Compare that to the Kindle Fire HD 2012 model, which gets 216 ppi on its 800 x 1280p (i.e., not Full HD) touchscreen. If you're looking to do more movie watching than reading on your Kindle, the Kindle Fire HDX is going to provide a vivid experience.
Power (Battery and Processor)
To run such a high-powered screen you need a good chipset. Amazon has that in spades, putting the newest Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 chip in its Kindle Fire HDX, and clocking the 7-inch model's chip to 2.2GHz (with an Adreno 330 graphics processor and 2GB of RAM). That should be all you need for a few years, before the tech industry outpaces itself again.
Compared to the current Kindle Fire HDX, the Kindle Fire HD of 2012 had a pretty tame dual core 1.2GHz Cortex-A9 processor from Texas Instruments, with 1GB of RAM: more of a web reader "plus" than the high-powered tablet that Amazon is going to unleash this holiday season.
With the lower-powered specs, the Kindle Fire HD got 11 hours of mixed use, which the Kindle Fire HDX 7-inch for this year matches.
Size
For any Kindle-branded tablet, size is going to matter. Kindle has that cozy personal-tablet feel to it, so packing the Kindle Fire HDX with lots of high-powered hardware will feel like a disadvantage if its too heavy, big, or thick.
However, Amazon has managed to actually make the Kindle Fire HDX smaller and lighter than the Kindle Fire HD of 2012. The HDX 7-inch has dimensions of 186 x 128 x 9 mm and weighs just 311 grams at its heaviest (less than a pound; slightly more than half a pound). The Kindle Fire HD was taller, thicker, and closer to a pound at 193 x 137 x 10.3 mm and almost 400 grams.
The HDX has slightly smaller bezels on the sides, which may be a boon to some who hate having large margins all around the screen, but a disadvantage for people who love to hold their Kindle without worrying about touching the touch screen.
Other Features
The Kindle Fire HDX comes with the "Mayday" button and interactive help service, which gives you 24/7 live-chat support for technical and shopping questions. When you press "Mayday" an live Amazon help representative pops up in live video on the corner of your screen, ready to assist (reps. can't see you, Amazon assures its customers).
If that sounds either creepy or unnecessary, the new 2013 Kindle Fire HD may be more your speed (or just keep the 2012 Kindle Fire HD you have, if you have one).
For some - especially the technologically unsavvy - this might just be the Kindle Fire HDX's "killer app" (as the kids call it these days).
One thing that the Kindle Fire HDX lacks which the Kindle Fire HD had is an HDMI port. It seems tech companies are phasing this out because the idea of connecting your tablet, computer, or smartphone to a TV through a physical cord may be passé, but it's a nice option to have on a tablet: an option that you won't have on the new Kindle Fire HDX.
Finally, the Kindle Fire HDX has a 64GB storage option, which may be necessary for people who use it to watch lots of media, as there are no microSD card slots in any of Amazon's tablets. The most storage you got with the 2012 Kindle Fire HD was 32GB.
Release Date and Price
The Kindle Fire HDX will be shipping on October 18, with the LTE version (another option that the Kindle Fire HD just doesn't have) shipping November 14. At its cheapest, the Kindle Fire HDX 7-inch model costs $227. You'll pay up to $409 for a Kindle Fire HDX 7-inch LTE with 64GB of internal storage.
Meanwhile, the Kindle Fire HD of 2012 will probably start selling for a lot less soon. That's because the new Kindle Fire HD 2013 models are priced the same as 2012 (with a better processor). Look for the Kindle Fire HD 2012 to take a dip below $139 after these new tablets are released. Already, Amazon is selling the 2012 Kindle Fire HD for $119, and lots of retailers are likely to want to clear their stocks of it in the coming weeks.
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