If it’s October, that should imply the holiday shopping for season has begun - and that means Amazon will provide a brand new color pill. It’s the Kindle Fire HDX. It prices $230, and it’s terrific. The battery goes for about 11 hours, or 17 in a energy-saving, studying-solely mode. The stereo speakers sound nice. The plastic case weighs lower than the prior version and has narrower margins across the display. There’s a mediocre digicam on the front for video chatting (not on the again on the 7-inch mannequin). The one big misfire was putting the ability and quantity keys on the back; you’ll spend the first week hitting the Off button by mistake whereas trying to show it up the sound. The X in "HDX" is a reference to the screen’s readability. It packs in 323 tiny dots per inch, making it sharper than high definition, and making the iPad Mini’s 163 dots per inch look coarse. The HDX’s display really is spectacular, if infuriatingly reflective.
The difficulty is, you can see the brand new sharpness only when you’re taking a look at source material with decision that prime. The sort in books and magazines appears razor-sharp, but a lot of the 150,000 Tv reveals and movies in Amazon’s catalog don’t look any clearer. Movies are also the flawed shape for the display screen; you see black bands above and beneath. Although the Kindle relies on the Android operating system, Amazon has completely disguised it. The home display still options a sliding horizontal "carousel" of every thing you’ve had open not too long ago - books, films, music, apps. Below that carousel, you now see a standard grid of icons, just as on other tablets. Parental controls are easy and effective. You can restrict your kids’ time each day or limit which gadgets they'll use, watch or read. Amazon has began to carry its X-Ray trivia characteristic to movies and music. A few of the songs you purchase from Amazon (just a few thousand, apparently) now show scrolling lyrics.
And watching a movie with the X-Ray panel open is nice fun; it identifies the actors in the scene earlier than you, their bios one tap away, and tells you the name of the music taking part in within the background. The corporate says that in an upcoming software update, you’ll have the ability to fling the video to a PlayStation three or a Samsung Tv, whereas persevering with to learn the X-Ray details in your Kindle Fire. That doesn’t totally compensate, nonetheless, for the loss of some other approach to connect the Fire to a Tv (the HDMI jack is gone). Boldest and most stunning of all, although, is Mayday: a button that locations an instantaneous, free video name to a 24-hour assist technician. The brokers can see your display screen, however can’t see you. You may see the agents (in a tiny, 1-inch movable window), and accept their invitation to take control of your Kindle or draw with digital highlighter pens around components of the display screen. Post was created by G SA Con tent Gener ator DEMO!
Mayday is wonderful and truly sensible - but understand that the HDX (the 7-inch and its $380 9-inch sibling) won’t be for sale until later this month. Will there be sufficient of those video brokers to go around, particularly Christmas week? Now, $230 is an excellent value for a tablet this fast, smooth and satisfying - and this Amazon tablet finally features a wall charger. It’s $30 more than final year’s mannequin, but bargain hunters might be pleased with the revamped Kindle Fire HD, which is only $140 despite being, as a rep instructed me, "more performant" (I’m pretty sure that’s purported to imply "faster"). But $230 additionally occurs to be the price of Google’s Nexus 7 tablet, which is also quick, clean and satisfying, and in addition has a 323-d.p.i. display screen. On the Kindle, although, you see a full-display screen ad each time you turn on the gadget; getting rid of them eternally costs one other $15.
For one more $50, you should purchase a cover that attaches magnetically and folds in weird ways to act as a stand. So which is the better deal? Is dependent upon what you’re in search of. The Nexus is an actual tablet, with all of the flexibility and complexity that entails. The Kindle Fire is still clearly intended to exhibit the books, Tv exhibits, music and movies you’ve bought from Amazon. It nonetheless doesn’t seem like a "real" pill. There’s nonetheless no GPS navigation, no speech recognition, no to-do checklist or notes app. It doesn’t run normal Android apps, www.uneditedmeat.com and can’t access the Google Play retailer that houses one million of them. About 100,000 apps have been tailor-made for the Fire, however numerous essential ones are lacking - together with Dropbox, SkyDrive and something by Google. That’s not a slam, either. The Kindle’s simplicity and dedication to its goal has always been its main virtue. Amazon ought to tread fastidiously; piling on options risks junking up this targeted, efficient reader. Already, the corporate intends so as to add "enterprise" features in a software update this fall: V.P.N. Office-appropriate productivity suite, hardware information encryption and so forth. But by no means mind. As it is, the Kindle Fire HDX is a lightweight, sharp-screened, superfast pleasure.