There’s been a lot of debating going around about Amazon’s latest Kindle Fire tablet. The 8.9” tablet has been drawing a lot of criticism, similar to what experts and fans slammed Apple with for the new iPad and iPhone 4, 4S stunts. But, despite all the drama, consumers remain generally thrilled with Amazon’s product, and following Black Friday deals, they are now eyeballing Christmas discounts for Kindle Fire tablets.
At a first look, Amazon Kindle Fire HD 8.9” seems like a great choice. It comes from a company with worldwide appreciation and a reputable focus on quality and technology. The price seems affordable enough, or at least for the 16GB version ($299). The screen and processor seem like they’d work just fine and the company’s pitch that it is a very easy to use tablet is almost strong enough to convince us to place an order. But before you spend $300 on an Amazon Kindle Fire HD 8.9”, it would be better if you take a few minutes and learn what’s not so great about this tablet.
The Amazon Kindle Fire HD 8.9” 4G and Wi-Fi sells for $499.00, whereas the standard version that comes only with Wi-Fi and 16GB memory is $200 more affordable. Besides the difference in size memory and Wi-Fi/4G connectivity, both versions feature pretty much the same things: an 8.9” wide HD LCD screen with high res capability up to 1080p HD, Dolby Audio and dual stereo speakers.
The dual-core Texas Instruments 1.5GHz processor makes this tablet fast, but for the price range it is not the fastest. Google Nexus 7 features a quad-core Nvidia Tegra 3 chipset which thanks to the integrated Chrome browser it runs 30 percent faster than previous tablets. Despite having access to lots of video and book content with an Amazon Prime membership, Kindle Fire HD 8.9” is not the tablet for apps, since Amazon App Store isn’t even close to Google’s 700,000 apps.
Amazon Kindle Fire HD 8.9” is 9.45”x6.5”x 0.35” in size, weighs 20 oz.
Battery life: 10 hours.
Remember Amazon Kindle Fire HD is not the only good/great tablet under $300. So before you place your order, make sure you have taken into account the alternatives. For instance, Google Nexus 7 shows a lot more promise for an user experience based more on entertainment (see the apps in Google Play and the default Google services).
