You wait a year for an Amazon Kindle Fire (see our Kindle Fire
review) to make its way to the UK, then two come along at once, with
the greatly enhanced Amazon Kindle Fire HD arriving at the same time as
its predecessor.
We'll say this from the off: now that the Amazon
Kindle Fire HD is here, the original Kindle Fire seems somewhat surplus
to requirement.
Far more interesting, though, is the intense external rivalry presented by the Google Nexus 7 and the iPad mini. Starting
from just £159, and offering a 7-inch HD display and a 1.2GHz dual-core
CPU, the Amazon Kindle Fire HD appears to offer great value for money.
But
it also needs to offer a stand-alone tablet experience that's capable
of matching - or even surpassing - its illustrious rivals.
The
Amazon Kindle Fire HD certainly matches the Nexus 7 in terms of price
and raw hardware, and it comfortably trumps the iPad mini on price and
screen resolution.
But, as we've come to realise, Apple's
dominance in the tablet market has been built on strong design, coupled
with a peerless content ecosystem and a super-slick UI. The
Amazon Kindle Fire HD may be cheap, but ultimately it will still need
to embrace all three of these key elements if it's to succeed.
If
you still think of Amazon Kindles as those little monochrome holiday
companions, then you should know that the Amazon Kindle Fire HD is a
completely different beast.
Rather than focusing on the very
specific job of downloading and reading electronic books, this is an
all-purpose tablet that acts as a window onto Amazon's wider multimedia
world - films, music, apps and games are all included in the Kindle Fire
HD's remit.
With that in mind, the Amazon Kindle Fire HD is a much simpler, purer design than the original Kindle.
The
emphasis here is on the screen first and foremost, with the only
hardware controls coming in the shape of some weedy and
difficult-to-locate volume and power buttons on top of the device, right
alongside its 3.5mm headphone jack. The
lack of a fixed home key adds to that minimalistic vibe (we'll discuss
the effect that has on usability later). The only detail on the front of
the device is a 1.3-megapixel camera for video calls - there's no
rear-mounted camera here.
Despite that impossibly cheap price
point, the Amazon Kindle Fire HD doesn't feel like a cheap device. It's
solid in the hand, with none of the creak you find in many budget
Android tablets.
There's a nice contrast between the Amazon Kindle
Fire HD's smooth, glass front and its grippy matte back. It's quietly
pleasing from a tactile perspective, even though it lacks the sheer
machined precision and premium feel of Apple's tablets. While
Apple has opted for a super-slim bezel for its iPad mini - partly to
facilitate that wider 7.9-inch display - Amazon has been more generous
with its own offering.
Indeed, the thick border around the
smaller 7-inch screen brings it closer to the full-sized iPad in design
than its miniature brother.
We like this approach from a purely practical perspective (it actually makes it look a little chubby, if we're honest).
It's
still comfier to hold the Amazon Kindle Fire between your thumb and
fingers than it is to rest it in the span of your hand, even when held
in portrait view. Of course, that's partly because it's slightly chunky
for its size - at 395g it's almost 90g heavier than the iPad mini.
One
area in which Amazon would hope to gain a big advantage with the Amazon
Kindle Fire HD over its rivals is with its display. As we've mentioned,
we're talking about a 7-incher here, but it's the quality of that
screen that's causing Amazon to boast. The
company claims that the display features a polarising filter and
anti-glare technology, which apparently boosts colour and contrast, as
well as improving viewing angles.
Despite such claims - not to
mention early positive reports from the US - we have to admit to being
slightly underwhelmed by our initial experience with the Amazon Kindle
Fire HD display. It seems distinctly yellow to our eyes.
Of course, it could just be that we've been conditioned by Apple's slightly cooler, bluer high-definition displays.
Indeed,
once your eyes have grown accustomed to its warmer hue, you'll no doubt
begin to appreciate the Amazon Kindle Fire HD display's more
naturalistic colour contrast - particularly when viewing video content.
It's certainly richer than the somewhat washed-out and dim Nexus 7
screen.
That's only half the story with the Kindle Fire HD
display, too. The clue is in the name - that 7-inch display is sharp.
It's high-definition-sharp. In fact, with a resolution of 1280x800 and a
pixel density of 216ppi, it's considerably sharper than the iPad mini
equivalent. This
isn't particularly apparent within the main Kindle Fire interface, but
it certainly bears fruit when reading a book or browsing the internet,
where small text remains clear and eminently readable.
This
display is powered by a capable 1.2GHz dual-core TI OMAP 4460 CPU. While
this is far from the most powerful processor on the market, it is very
well balanced and certainly doesn't come up short when faced with
demanding tasks like high-definition video and 3D games.
One final
piece of hardware-related info we really must cover is the Amazon
Kindle Fire HD's impressive speakers. Positioned on either side of the
device (if you're holding it in landscape), they're surprisingly punchy,
given their size.
They really do crank out some respectable stereo sound - both in terms of volume and clarity.
Naturally,
we'd recommend using earphones whenever possible, but for those times
where you're just following a quick email link to a YouTube video,
they're more than adequate.
Interface and performance
Amazon is taking a completely different approach to interface design with its Kindle Fire HD. While its competitors, the iPad mini and the Nexus 7, present the equivalent of a computer desktop filled with app icons and widgets, the Kindle Fire HD is all about the content.
The
Kindle Fire HD pushes the consumption of media content first and
foremost, so when you boot the device up you'll be confronted by a
large, horizontal scrolling list of your most-recently accessed apps,
books and music. For
the first-time user, it's arguably the most accessible tablet OS yet -
just swipe left and right to get to the book or the album you started
listening to on the previous evening. Simple.
It feels a little
like 'my first tablet,' in a way, which is a bit of a double-edged
sword. If you're a slightly more advanced user who wants to use the
Amazon Kindle Fire for more general tasks, this is a distinctly
sub-standard experience.
Tasks that would be considered core on
any other tablet - not just the iPad mini and Nexus 7 - such as email,
contacts and calendar, are all relegated to the tiny apps menu located
on top of the main content interface.
It's only an extra tap
away, but the way these fundamental utilities have been bundled
together, almost as an afterthought, seems like a bit of a
miscalculation on Amazon's part.
Of course, if you've used any of
these major apps recently they'll appear in the main content list, but
its constantly shifting nature means that you'll rarely be able to lay
your finger on, say, email instinctively. Below
the main content bar you get a smaller carousel of context-sensitive
icons running parallel to it. As you scroll through the main items, this
will shift accordingly.
So, for example, when you highlight a
film you'll be presented with films that other Amazon customers who
viewed it also bought or watched through the video hub.
Apps work the same way, providing related recommendations.
If
you've been using the web, meanwhile, the lower carousel will give you a
list of trending websites - usually news sources like the BBC and The
Mail Online.
If you highlight the email app, you'll be presented
with shortcuts to creating a new message, examining your schedule or
bringing up your favourite contacts.
As with the rest of the
Amazon Kindle Fire HD interface, this works great for those who want to
skim the surface, dipping in and out of content and taking the odd
natural diversion.
It's a very focused approach, but it doesn't
really facilitate deeper discovery. At least this simplified UI is
relatively slick and responsive.
It stands in stark contrast to
the various store screens through which you purchase your apps, your
books and your music, as well as the Lovefilm-associated video
streaming.
All of these are painfully slow, loading in updated content icons like they're coming over a 56k modem.
We
exaggerate, of course, but the contrast between the offline and online
elements is a bit jarring given Amazon's attempts at a seamless
experience.
Of course, going into iTunes on your iPad mini can be
similarly sluggish, but that's just a single app standing separately
from an extremely responsive UI.
Going into these separate
sections of the Kindle Fire HD interface away from the main hub reveal a
persistent navigation bar along the bottom of the screen in portrait,
or along the right-hand side in landscape.
This features a rather
counter-intuitively-placed virtual home key to the left/bottom, with
the back button placed centrally and a favourites button to the
right/top respectively. The
favourites command remains present even on the home screen, and grants
fast access to selected apps, which can be added individually by
pressing and holding on their icon from the main carousel or within the
apps menu.
This helps with the above navigation issues somewhat,
and represents an all-too-rare means of personalisation on the Kindle
Fire HD interface.
More commands flesh out the navigation bar according to the section you're in.
It's common to find a search command for pinpoint navigation of music,
apps and so on, while these also offer a central menu command that
provides access to settings, help and the like.
One fairly major aspect of the Amazon Kindle Fire HD interface that's missing is multitasking.
You
might argue that this is a minor aspect of any modern tablet, but the
minute you find yourself wanting to copy the name of an item from the
custom Amazon store app (which works in much the same way as copying and
pasting on an iPad) and paste into a web field, you'll realise what an
irritating omission it is.
Internet and email
Internet
Amazon has made quite a song and a dance about the Amazon Kindle Fire HD's Silk web browser.
The
big deal here, apparently, is that it uses Amazon's servers to perform
much of the grunt work, speeding up the web browsing experience
considerably. That's
the theory. In practice, we can't say we really noticed. That's not to
say it's slow - it's just not noticeably snappier in general browsing
conditions than its competition.
Still, as a stand-alone web browsing experience, the Amazon Kindle Fire HD is pretty pleasurable to use.
It
adopts the by-now-standard ability to add and flip between multiple
tabs along the top of the screen, and there's a familiar universal
search/address bar below that.
We especially like the
implementation of the 'glasses' button for each tab, which acts like
Apple's Reading List feature in Safari in the way it quickly renders web
pages in a simplified, easy-to-read and full-screen format.
If anything, we prefer Amazon's more cohesive implementation.
There's
a bookmark facility here, as you'd expect, but as with many of the
Amazon Kindle Fire HD's UI elements it feels a little buried and
unclear compared to its established rivals. Rather
than a clear menu button for bookmarked web pages, or a clear lists of
bookmarks as soon as you open a new tab, here you have to open a new tab
and then select the Bookmarks option to see your favourite websites.
The
default Starter category here shows a scrolling list of your most
visited web pages, as well as trending and featured web pages, but none
really gets you to your favoured web content as well as a good bookmarks
page - and that's always a further touch away.
Still, overall we
have to say that web browsing on the Amazon Kindle Fire HD is up there
with its rivals in terms of speed and tidiness.
Email
Email on the Amazon Kindle Fire HD is similarly intuitive and more or less on a par with its compact tablet rivals.
The
set-up process offers you the usual choice of Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo and
Exchange accounts, as well as AOL and an option for other providers.
Setting
up a Gmail account, we were pleased to see our contacts' profile
pictures appearing alongside their name when adding them to the 'To'
field. The email interface itself should be familiar to anyone who's used an iPad or an Android tablet before.
Along
the left you have a list of emails, while the larger right-hand side of
the screen (in landscape) offers an instant preview of the highlighted
email.
In portrait view only one of these split functions is shown at a time, but it's better for reading lengthy emails.
Typing
out new emails, meanwhile, is made easy by a decent keyboard that feels
very similar to the iPad range's. As that's still the most intuitive
and reliable virtual keyboard on the market, it's a good example to
follow.
Sure enough, typing here is fluid and relatively
error-free. There's also an unobtrusive word prediction feature that
offers a constantly updating list of three word suggestions - something Nexus 7 users will be well familiar with, but that iPad mini users have to go without.
Movies, music and books
Having
read this far, you're probably expecting the Amazon Kindle Fire HD to
be pretty hot (pun intended) when it comes to accessing and experiencing
media. And you'd be right.
Movies, music and books are the Amazon
Kindle Fire HD's raison d'être - or rather, Amazon movies, music and
books are. We'll go into precisely what we mean by that in a moment.
Everything
here is geared around purchasing media content from Amazon's vast
library, and you won't hear any complaints of restrictiveness from us.
No one can match the big 'A' for sheer range - not even that other big 'A,' Apple.
From
the main menu, books, music and videos get their own categories along
the top, and tapping on one takes you through to the relevant part of
the Amazon store. If
you're a Lovefilm customer, you get access to a bunch of films and TV
shows which can be streamed to your tablet at no extra cost.
If you're not a Lovefilm customer, you get a month's free trial to see if you like the offering.
It's
a good way to find out if you're willing to pay for the service
because, while there's a good spread of films and they all stream nicely
(especially those with an HD option), it's far from comprehensive.
We
in the UK don't have access to Amazon Instant Video yet, which allows
you to pay for more current movie rentals or even full ownership, and
download them as you would a music track or book.
That's a bit of a weakness with the wider Amazon UK service, rather than the Amazon Kindle Fire HD itself. We
do like the integration with IMDb for the Lovefilm streams, though,
which provides an overlay called X-Ray detailing the actors while the
film plays.
The music tab acts slightly differently to the video one, in that it doesn't take you straight to the Amazon store.
Rather, it takes you first to your own music library, incorporating
both your music stored in the Amazon Cloud and the music that's stored
locally on your Amazon Kindle Fire HD.
The Store can be accessed
from this library page, and this most certainly is comprehensive - or
at least as comprehensive as any one MP3 market can be.
Purchasing
tracks is extremely easy, with Amazon's One-Click service encouraged
early on. Sound quality, too, is decent, provided you have a decent pair
of headphones to hand. Books, as you'd expect, are extremely well supported on the Amazon Kindle Fire HD.
You
essentially have the whole Kindle ecosystem at your fingertips. Books
are presented in the same way as music, in that you access the store
through your own collection page. While
the reading experience itself isn't as good as on a pure Kindle device -
that bright screen makes for some sore eyes after a while - it is very
accomplished in short spells thanks to that crisp HD screen.
It's also much nicer browsing in full colour, where you can see each book's cover art in all its glory.
We also like the facility to 'borrow' one book each month when signed up to Amazon Prime.
The
Kindle Fire HD's all-colour HD screen also has obvious benefits when it
comes to accessing Amazon's growing comic book library.
At the
time of writing, there are almost 1,000 comic books with the customised
Kindle Panel View - a nifty facility that displays comic books
full-screen and with the ability to hone in on individual panels with a
double-tap. So,
the Amazon Kindle Fire HD is a bit of a wizard when it comes to
funneling the company's own online media content to your eyes and ears.
But how about when it comes to installing your own content from outside the Amazon ecosystem?
While
we've offered some criticism on the relative lack of customisation with
the Amazon Kindle Fire HD, it surprisingly doesn't get in your way when
it comes to installing your own video and music content.
The Amazon Kindle Fire OS is actually built on Android 4.0.
It's
been heavily modified, yes, but its slightly more open, nerdy nature
shines through when you plug the Amazon Kindle Fire HD into your
computer.
Once you do so (and download the Android File Transfer
program if you're a Mac user), adding media is a simple case of dragging
and dropping onto the Amazon Kindle Fire HD file - it's effectively
treated as an external hard drive.
It's a little odd when stacked
up against the heavily curated experience elsewhere, but it gives you a
quick and easy way to get your non-Amazon media onto the Kindle Fire HD.
Watch out for those file sizes, though, if you opted for the
16GB model. It'll fill up in no time once you're away from the capacious
qualities of the cloud.
Apps and games
There's
one glaring weakness in Amazon's vast media ecosystem. One area in
which this digital giant bows down to both Apple and Google.
When
it comes to apps, the Amazon Kindle Fire HD is sorely lacking. Amazon
tried to head this issue off more than 18 months ago when it introduced
the Amazon Appstore to our US cousins, but even with all of its work it
still finds itself well short for the UK launch.
While many of the major players are present, such as Facebook, Flipboard and Evernote, there are also some major omissions.
We
thought Dropbox was available pretty much everywhere - it's one of the
main reasons the cloud-storage tool is so popular - but you have to
download it directly from Dropbox if you want it on your Amazon Kindle
Fire HD.
What is this, a Blackberry Playbook?
In fairness,
though, the very fact that you can side-load non-official apps on to the
Amazon Kindle Fire HD in this way is another sign of the device's
hidden Android legacy, and adds another welcome dash of flexibility to
the otherwise-rigid Amazon interface.
The games offering, too, is distinctly sub-standard.
Amazon
has worked hard to get certain timed exclusives over the much larger
Google Play store, and, as with the apps, there are a number of big
hitters here. Angry Birds Star Wars, Temple Run, Plants vs Zombies, Jetpack Joyride - all present and accounted for.
For
every game that's here, though, there are several that aren't.
Obviously Apple reigns supreme when it comes to mobile gaming, but even
compared to the frequently-derided (though vastly improved) Google Play store, this is a little barren on the gaming front.
We have Need For Speed Most Wanted here, but where are Real Racing 2 and Draw Race 2? The Amazon Appstore has Temple Run, but where are Agent Dash and Whale Trail? Where's mega-gaming-experiment-of-the-moment Curiosity?
In
terms of how those games that are present perform, the Amazon Kindle
Fire's 1.2GHz dual-core CPU is more than adequate for casual time
wasters like Cut The Rope and Angry Birds.
However, we were also impressed with how it handled meatier 3D fare like Dead Space.
The Amazon Kindle Fire HD is a more than capable gaming device, then - it's just a shame there aren't more games to enjoy on it. In
all of this we have to wonder why Amazon didn't just allow access to
the Google Play store. Especially when you realise what a sluggish,
difficult-to-navigate mess the Amazon Appstore is.
It's bizarre
when you consider that the custom stores for music, videos and books are
quite pleasant to use, if still a little slow.
When it comes to pre-installed apps, it's equally slim pickings.
Aside
from the mentioned email, calendar and contacts apps, Amazon has
included IMDb (which, as we've said, integrates nicely with video).
There's
also a version of Skype to take advantage of that front-facing camera,
as well as OfficeSuite for viewing MS Office files.
Arguably, the
biggest omission here is a complete lack of mapping. Again, why Amazon
didn't compromise a little and adopt Google's ready-made Maps app we're
not sure. It's a mapping misstep of Apple proportions - although at
least Apple tried to offer an alternative.
Battery and connectivity
Amazon
claims that the Amazon Kindle Fire HD is good for 11 hours of use in
between charges, and everything we've experienced in our hands-on time
suggests that they're about right.
With the screen cranked up to
full brightness and in heavy usage (video watching, gaming and web
browsing) we came in a little short of double figures, but it's still
very respectable and in line with its big rival, the iPad mini. After
playing our standard self-installed test movie, which is 720p and one
hour and thirty minutes long, with the screen brightness cranked up to
full and Wi-Fi and notifications on, we were left with more than 80 per
cent battery life in the tank. Not bad at all.
Arguably of more
interest when it comes to battery life is Amazon's decision to omit a
mains charger from the package. You get a USB lead, which will charge
the tablet through your computer or a generic USB mains adapter, but
it's an odd omission nonetheless.
Instead, Amazon is pushing its PowerFast adapter,
which at least has something of a price drop to £8.99, showing that
consumers may have been more than a little angry that they have to
charge such a high drain object through a computer... and the Nexus 7
doesn't charge for the privilege of being able to plug into the wall.
That's
a bit steep, but it does promise to fully charge your Amazon Kindle
Fire HD in less than four hours. Of course, that's no quicker than the
iPad mini, despite both having a capacity of 4,400 mAh.
Connectivity
The
Amazon Kindle Fire HD is Wi-Fi-only, so you won't be able to carry it
around and take advantage of 3G connectivity. Still, with tablets that's
far less of an issue for most users.
Besides which, Amazon claims
that the Amazon Kindle Fire HD's Wi-Fi is superior to its rivals,
utilising a dual-antenna system and MIMO (Multiple In, Multiple Out)
technology to boost Wi-Fi speeds.
This approach effectively
increases the amount of bandwidth in the link between your tablet and
your Wi-Fi hotspot, as well as improving stability.
Both are good
things to have in a device that's so reliant on internet connectivity,
and we can confirm that our connection didn't drop in the slightest,
regardless of where we were in the house.
In practice, though, that supposed extra Wi-Fi speed really isn't noticeable.
We
tried downloading a number of large email files on our Amazon Kindle
Fire HD and then did the same on our third-generation iPad, but couldn't
see any difference.
In fact, the iPad seemed to process the files (if not download them) faster overall.
Amazon
can pack its tablets with super-fast Wi-Fi if it wishes, but it's no
substitute for a slick OS working well with its processor.
Outside
of this, the Amazon Kindle fire comes with a microUSB and a microHDMI
port for outputting your video content directly to your HDTV.
It also comes with Bluetooth for use with speakers, keyboard and other wireless peripherals. There's no microSD card slot.
The
company claims that the display features a polarising filter and
anti-glare technology, which apparently boosts colour and contrast, as
well as improving viewing angles.
Below
the main content bar you get a smaller carousel of context-sensitive
icons running parallel to it. As you scroll through the main items, this
will shift accordingly. 
The
favourites command remains present even on the home screen, and grants
fast access to selected apps, which can be added individually by
pressing and holding on their icon from the main carousel or within the
apps menu. 
That's
the theory. In practice, we can't say we really noticed. That's not to
say it's slow - it's just not noticeably snappier in general browsing
conditions than its competition.
If
you're a Lovefilm customer, you get access to a bunch of films and TV
shows which can be streamed to your tablet at no extra cost. 
We
do like the integration with IMDb for the Lovefilm streams, though,
which provides an overlay called X-Ray detailing the actors while the
film plays.
While
the reading experience itself isn't as good as on a pure Kindle device -
that bright screen makes for some sore eyes after a while - it is very
accomplished in short spells thanks to that crisp HD screen. 
So,
the Amazon Kindle Fire HD is a bit of a wizard when it comes to
funneling the company's own online media content to your eyes and ears. 
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