Amazon made a huge splash with the 8.9-inch Kindle Fire HD, a high-definition tablet computer priced aggressively against the iPad. In doing so, Amazon has just made it very clear it's playing to win, and not just be a cheaper alternative to Apple.
Those price points will be key, it turns out. Amazon is selling its Kindle Fire HD 8.9" for just $299 with 16GB. That's $100 less than the least expensive iPad, but that model—last year's iPad 2—sports a lower-resolution display. The best comparison for the Kindle Fire HD's 1,920-by-1,200-pixel screen is the new iPad, which has a 2,048-by-1,536-pixel Retina display. Those make for almost identical pixel density figures, at 254 ppi for the Kindle Fire HD and 264 ppi for the Retina display. Suffice to say text will look super sharp on both tablets.
That's not all, though; a 4G LTE-enabled, Kindle Fire HD 8.9" starts at $499 with 32GB, which is $230 cheaper than the equivalent iPad. And a 250MB data plan for Amazon's tablet costs just $49.99, or almost $130 less than what it would cost with the iPad.
The iPad has a 5-megapixel rear camera that records 1080p video; the Kindle Fire HD 8.9" lacks a rear camera entirely, although its front-facing camera is HD compared to the iPad's VGA sensor. Amazon stepped up the Kindle Fire HD's Wi-Fi capabilities significantly, with a pair of antennas (compared to the iPad's single antenna) and MIMO support. It also supports 2.4-GHz and 5-GHz bands, which the iPad already did (but the original Kindle Fire did not).
There are other features that aren't so quantifiable. For example, it's tougher to compare CPU power, given that there are so many details to weigh. Suffice to say both tablets contain cutting-edge processors and graphics capability. Once we get our hands on a Kindle Fire HD and put it through its paces, we'll have a better idea.
In addition, the Kindle Fire HD's new X-Ray feature for movies lets you tap on the screen to get details about all of the visible actors. New parental controls let you create child-specific profiles that limit playtime, as well as a FreeTime mode with a glowing blue screen so you can see it from across the room. You can also listen to Audible audiobooks and follow along on the screen with bi-modal reading. The iPad, meanwhile, has far and away the best third-party app store in the industry, with over 200,000 tablet-specific apps and some of the best games available.
The Amazon Kindle Fire HD 8.9" will be available Nov. 20. The iPad with Retina display, of course, is on sale now..
