Items tagged with Kindle Fire
Amazon produces quite a few tablet that it markets under the “Kindle Fire” brand. The online retailer has produced tablets in the 6-inch, 7-inch, and 8.9-inch size classes and seemed to be content with those offerings. Well, that is about to change, and we have mobile devices leaker Evan Blass to thank for giving us a sneak peak. The leak shows that Amazon is finally pushing past the 8.9-inch form-factor with the impending release of its first 10-inch tablet. There’s not much to go on from the renders which show the back and the front of the device, but we do see what looks a basic, almost generic-looking tablet with rear- and front-mounted cameras. It also appears that the volume button and...
Read more...
Before the iPad came around, tablets were just another has-been sector that didn’t show much promise (does anyone remember Windows XP Tablet PC Edition?). However, following the introduction of the iPad in 2010, the sector exploded in popularity. Numerous manufacturers have jumped onboard in the years since, although Apple is still the top tablet manufacturer, with Samsung taking up the second place position. But over the past year, we’ve seen some softness in the tablet market. Apple’s iPad has seen sales declines for the past few quarters. For fiscal Q1 2015 (actual Q4 2014), iPad shipments fell to 21.4 million units, representing an 18 percent year-over-year decline. However, the iPad sales...
Read more...
As the run-up to the annual holiday shopping season gets ever closer, major companies are unveiling their newest wares and putting them on sale just in time. Amazon's in that bunch as well, sprucing up its tablet line, revising its Android-based Fire OS, and even introducing a fancy new Kindle for those who'd prefer to stick to the basics of reading in outdoor light. Perhaps the most notable addition is the new Fire HD tablet, which is available in a 6" form factor for the first time. That one's shipping for just $99, which places Amazon in competition with a slew of other lower-end makers who have been hawking substandard slates for some time. The Fire HD also ships in a 7" version with five...
Read more...
Good news, football fans -- the NFL today announced new distribution partnerships with Amazon Fire TV and Kindle Fire, along with the Roku streaming platform for NFL Now, which is scheduled to launch in August ahead of the 2014 NFL season. NFL Now will be personalized based on each fan's interests, so they can follow the NFL how they want, where they want, and when they want. You'll be able to pick your favorite team, fantasy players, and which videos you like or don't like. Based on your choices, the content stream will be personalized to deliver customizable news, analysis, and highlights. NFL Now will also grant access to on-demand NFL video content. "We’re thrilled to bring on a trusted...
Read more...
It's not exactly a hot time for tablet shopping -- back-to-school is pretty far out, and the holidays are behind us. Which probably explains why Amazon is trying to jumpstart the movement of its Kindle Fire HDX. If you're still in the market, your patience has paid off: for a limited time, the heralded slate is being offered with a $30 discount, pricing the base model at $199 instead of the usual $229. Amazon's not saying how long the offer will last, but it has routinely done 24 hour offers in the past. The 16GB unit is the $199 model, while doubling that capacity to 32GB will put you at $239. The 64GB top-end model is $279, all 'With Special Offers' (which means that you can expect advertisements...
Read more...
The tablet wars rage on, and believe it or not, what used to be an online book seller is now at the forefront of the slate battle. Amazon has just unleashed a bevy of new products this evening, designed to tempt your wallet just as the holidays draw near. Let's take a look at what's on offer: The all-new Kindle Fire HDX was announced with a 7" or 8.9" display, a quad-core 2.2 GHz processor with 3x the processing power, 2x more memory as the prior flagship, 11 hours of battery life, and dual stereo speakers with Dolby Digital Plus audio. Amazon claims that the display has reduced glare and improved color accuracy, and the Snapdragon 800 should please power-hungry users. It's also equipped with...
Read more...
Rumors of a new generation of Kindle Fire tablets are starting to heat up, and it's probably no coincidence that Amazon recently lowered the price of its popular tablet family. Amid all the chatter is the first real glimpse of what the next generation slate will look like. What's been leaked to the web is in all likelihood a press photo of Amazon's next Kindle Fire. Twitter user "evleaks" frequently posts what turn out to be legitimate press shots of unannounced products, and the reason we think his latest photo is of the next Kindle Fire and not the HD version is because it lacks a front-facing camera. It wouldn't make sense for Amazon to yank this feature. Based on previous rumors, the next...
Read more...
If you're not yet ready to buy that special someone a diamond for Valentine's Day, perhaps an Android tablet is in order. It sends a message that you care on a level higher than chocolates and flowers, but without the clingy commitment that a diamond suggests. Lucky for you, Amazon has slashed the price of its Kindle Fire HD 8.9" line for a limited time. Through February 8, 2013, you can save $30 on the Kindle Fire HD 8.9" or $50 on the Kindle Fire HD 8.9" 4G LTE by entering promotional code FIRELOVE at checkout. With promotional code, pricing now looks like this: Kindle Fire HD 8.9" 16GB w/ Special Offers: $269 Kindle Fire HD 8.9" 16GB w/o Special Offers: $284 Kindle Fire HD 8.9" 32GB w/ Special...
Read more...
After being shunned by Target and Walmart, both of which stopped carrying Amazon's Kindle line because of the small profit margin (and because Amazon is major competitor to their brick-and-mortar business model), Amazon is taking its Kindle Fire tablets to GameStop. The new and used games retailer is more than happy to oblige and is already selling the Kindle Fire HD 7" ($200). Those interested in the Kindle Fire HD 8.9" ($300) and Kindle Fire 7" ($160) will find those devices in select stores. It's not such an unlikely match. GameStop recently made a push into tablet territory, recognizing the rabid demand for such devices, and also the ability of tablets to play games. And obviously Amazon...
Read more...
Text-to-speech and adjustable font sizes are two features that have been around for years on Kindle devices to help vision-impaired Kindle owners with learning disabilities. Now Amazon is bringing "Voice Guide" and "Explore by Touch" to its standard definition Kindle Fire and Kindle Fire HD 7" tablets. These two accessibility features were previously available on just the Kindle Fire HD 8.9" tablet. "We have heard from thousands of customers who are vision-impaired that Kindle has made a difference in their lives. With Kindle Fire HD 8.9" and soon our full line of new tablets, we are continuing our efforts to provide a range of accessibility features—Voice Guide, Explore by Touch, text-to-speech,...
Read more...
Cyber Monday is here, and if you managed to survive the craziness that is Black Friday (or skipped it altogether), this is the time to find some killer deals online. To get you started, here's a heads up that, for today only, Amazon is selling its original Kindle Fire device for $129, a savings of $30 over its normal retail price of $159 (add $15 to remove the sponsored "Special Offers" screensaver). That's a great price for what still amounts to a capable tablet (see our review for a refresher), and is less than what Amazon was selling refurbished units for earlier in the year. How does it compare to the Kindle Fire HD? Let's have a look at a side-by-side comparison: Kindle Fire Kindle Fire...
Read more...
In what amounted to a bold move, Amazon took the unusual step of announcing a new product -- Kindle Fire H 8.9" 4G LTE Wireless -- without first receiving approval from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). Amazon was gambling on the fact that the FCC would eventually approve the 4G LTE radio plopped inside its flagship Kindle device, and the mega e-tailer appears to have won that bet. According to Reuters, a company spokeswoman for Amazon confirmed that it now has the FCC's full blessing to sell Kindle tablets equipped with 4G LTE radios. As such, Amazon has gone and removed disclaimers on its website that previously alerted visitors that FCC clearance had not yet been obtained. All wireless...
Read more...
Score a victory for Microsoft, which was apparently able to ink a deal with Amazon to make Bing the default search engine on the e-tailer's new batch of Kindle Fire devices. If you're not down with Bing, don't worry, Amazon is giving users the option of switching their default search provider to other services, like Google (hooray!) or Yahoo (as if!). One thing to keep in mind if you pick up a Kindle Fire is that, in theory, Amazon could change your default search provider at any time, or at least that's how it's worded in Amazon's terms and conditions. "All text you enter in Amazon Silks address bar is sent to a default search engine. The initial default search engine is selected by Amazon Silk,...
Read more...
Mega e-tailer Amazon may be putting the cart before the horse in accepting pre-orders for its new line of Kindle Fire and Kindle Fire HD tablets. How so? Well, it's come to light that Amazon's new slates have not yet received approval from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), which is a requirement to sell any wireless product. It may be just a formality at this point, but it's still highly unusual to take orders for a device without FCC approval. Those who go ahead and submit a pre-order are reportedly being sent emails that say, in part, "We will send you an email asking you to confirm your pre-order of Kindle Fire when it is approved for sale by the Federal Communications Commission."...
Read more...
Amazon is awfully proud of its next generation Kindle Fire HD tablet and all the upgrades that went into making it. In particular, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos drew attention to the Texas Instruments OMAP 4470 processor that fuels the Kindle Fire HD's performance, claiming that it offers 50 percent more floating operations per second than NVIDIA's Tegra 3 System-on-Chip (SoC), and 40 percent more memory bandwidth (7.5GB/s versus 5.3GB/s). Plain and simple, Bezos said the OMAP part is faster and a better solution than Tegra 3. NVIDIA Senior Product PR Manager, Igor Stanek, had some things to say about Amazon's presentation. "It's good to see companies continuing to use Tegra 3 as the standard they compare...
Read more...
Later today Amazon is going to unveil its new Kindle lineup, but if you're a fan of football, you may have already spotted a glimpse of the e-tailer's next generation devices. Confused? The NFL season kicked off yesterday in Monday Night fashion, with the Dallas Cowboys toppling the New York Giants. If you happened to watch the game, and didn't skip out of the room during commercial breaks, you would have spotted an Amazon ad teasing its new Kindle devices. The ad is a one-minute spot consisting mostly of Amazon patting itself on the back, though it does provide a few quick shots of what appears to be a new Kindle eReader and Fire tablet. The eReader is slim and all black, an obvious new addition...
Read more...
Those sneaky Pete's in Amazon's marketing department sent out an announcement this morning stating that the Kindle Fire, the best selling product in the company's inventory since it launched nine months ago, is now sold out. As in, the general public completely depleted all of Amazon's Kindle Fire inventory. It's no coincidence the timing of Amazon's 'sold out' notice comes just weeks before the mega e-tailer plans to hold a press event launching new Kindle models, of which it's been rumored a larger size Kindle Fire is on tap. "We’re grateful to the millions of customers who have made Kindle Fire the most successful product launch in the history of Amazon," said Jeff Bezos, Amazon.com...
Read more...
Amazon has scheduled a press event in California for September 6, 2012, which is two Thursdays from now. Most people assume that's when Amazon will unveil a new batch of Kindle devices, including updated eReaders and possibly even a 10-inch Kindle Fire. There might even be a refreshed 7-inch Kindle Fire in the mix now that competition is heating up with the recent launch of the Nexus 7. But might Amazon also unveil a smartphone? It's a long shot, but while the smart money is on Amazon unveiling tablets and electronic readers, it's not totally inconceivable it will also launch a mobile phone. In fact, you shouldn't be totally shocked if the company does. It was reported by The Wall Street Journal...
Read more...
After Apple released the MacBook Pro with Retina Display last month, there's been a great deal of discussion around Apple's decision to make the device nearly impossible to repair. It's a "feature" that's Apple has steadily pushed across most of its product lines; the iPad 3 is similarly difficult to modify. iFixit has just posted their teardown of the Google Nexus 7 tablet, with an eye towards discovering whether Google took a page from Apple's book or pointedly refused to do so. 1mm difference Between iPad, Nexus 7 The Nexus 7 uses retention clips to hold the frame together; iFixit describes the process of releasing those clips as "smooth as butter." The size difference between Apple's glue...
Read more...
In the wake of Microsoft's Surface unveil last night, much of the buzz has been about Apple, and how Surface will (or won't) challenge Apple's domination of the mobile and tablet markets. This makes some sense, given Apple's recent high-profile unveil of the Macbook Pro with Retina Display, but Surface isn't really meant to go head-to-head against any Apple product. The true potential casualties are Android's share of the tablet market and AMD. When it launched Windows Phone 7, Microsoft effectively put world+dog on notice that it intended to deliver its own vision for a next-generation, scalable UI. Windows 7.5 and Windows 8 extend and build on that framework. Recall that much of the negative...
Read more...
If you're considering buying a Kindle Fire tablet (or glorified eBook reader, if you prefer to call it that), you may want to hang tight to see if you can score a better deal. Amazon is reportedly getting ready to cut the price of the Kindle Fire to around $149 as it makes room for newer tablet PC devices. That tidbit comes from DigiTimes, which isn't always accurate in its predictions and market rumors, though a price drop would certainly fit Amazon's M.O. Citing sources entrenched in the upstream supply chain, DigiTimes claims Amazon is taking a page from Apple by continuing to sell last generation devices at a discount while it makes room for newer models (think iPad 2). As the story goes,...
Read more...
Amazon released a free new software update for the Kindle Fire. With the update to version 6.3.1, you'll get additional parental controls that let you protect purchases with a password, disable access to content libraries, and block access to the web browser. The update also brings new sharing features to the tablet that let you share favorite passages and notes from books. After highlighting a passage, select Share, add a note, and send the content off to a social network of your choosing. Here's a closer look at the other new features that come with update 6.3.1: Book Extras: Powered by Shelfari, Amazon's community of book lovers, Book Extras make it easy to see supplemental material about...
Read more...
