Tablets that Kindle new hope

It pulled others into the 7-inch game. Now, Amazon ups the stakes with its new range of Kindle Fire tablets.

Kindle Fire HD 8.9”

After pulling Google and Apple into the 7-inch game, Amazon upped the stakes and is entering into a duel with the iPad on its own turf with the 8.9-inch Kindle Fire HD. The Kindle Fire HD, at $299, is not a great looking, well designed tablet. All it does is provide a wonderful window for services from Amazon like books, music, apps and magazines. The 1920x1200 HD display with anti-glare technology is supported by a 1.5-GHz dual-core processor with powerful 3D graphics for fast gaming performance. The dual-band, dual-antenna WiFi allows for very fast downloads, and the Dolby surround sound speakers provide a cinema-like experience.

Kindle Fire (7-inch)

The original Kindle Fire got an upgrade. Amazon claims it is not only faster by 40 per cent but is also cheaper by $40 at $159. Unlike the HD version it has a thin bezel, which makes it portable and durable. Along with getting access to all of Amazon’s content, you also get a very fast browser, free unlimited cloud storage for all your Amazon content, and Kindle FreeTime for kids. With a 1.2GHz processor, 1GB of RAM, and 8GB of internal memory, the Kindle Fire is a better tablet than it was an year ago. If you want a small sleek tablet and are not much worried about design, then look no further. The only bone of contention though is that it runs on Android 2.3, Gingerbread. But since it is heavily modified by Amazon you should not even feel the difference. 

Kindle Paperwhite

The problem with the original Kindle was that you could not read it in the dark, and the screen was like paper, but a little brownish paper. The Paperwhite wants to rectify that. As the name suggests, the screen has more pixel density and better contrast and so looks like real paper. While this makes it look like real paper even in bright sunlight, the in-built light illuminates the screen so that you can read in any light conditions. With the light-on you get a battery life of 8-hours.