I have a confession to make, I have become a little bit of a tablet and gadget geek. The more I use them on a day-to-day basis, the more I seem to find they make life a whole lot easier, and more entertaining. Up until now the main tablet I have used had been my iPad air. I do own a Kindle Paperwhite, and when I travel it goes everywhere with me. I liked the idea of combining my Kindle with a tablet, especially for when I’m travelling. I realise there would have been other ways of me doing this, but I had heard so much about the new Kindle Fire HDX 8.9 I wanted to test it out. See if it really was as good as they say it is.
The NEW Kindle Fire HDX 8.9″ Tablet
The tablet comes in a neat box, stylishly packaged with a USB cable, mine came with a European plug, in error, so I used one of my own plugs with the USB cable. In the box are details of the warranty, and the instruction to get started. The instructions are as simple as 1,2,3.
1. Use the Power button at the back of the unit to power on.
2. Unlock the screen by dragging the lock icon (you can see this on the above photograph to the right) sweeping from right to left.
3. Charge using the USB Cable, in the opening to the left of the tablet.
Enter you Amazon account details, to register that tablet to your account, essential to start to buy and view things.
So far I’ve tested several functions on the Kindle Fire HDX 8.9″ Tablet. I’ve used it as a Kindle to read, to watch TV and films via Netflix, I’ve downloaded apps, and used the pre set apps like the calendar and the camera. I’ll talk more about that later though. I wanted to touch initially on my first impressions. First of all, its how light the tablet felt to hold and how slim it was. I have the same style cover for both my iPad air and the Kindle Fire HDX 8.9 – Living with children, I really can’t recommend investing in a decent cover enough. The Kindle definitely feels lighter, even in the cover, not much but I think it’s around 100g lighter. Both the volume and the power buttons are on the back, I think this makes it easier to use than the iPad, as your fingers whilst holding the tablet naturally are at those points, if you are using a case, and have it standing, I also found both of these button very accessible again.
Once you log on, if you have already got a kindle you will see that your ‘library’ of books are all there for you. It was a bit of a novelty seeing the cover of a book in colour rather than the black and white of the standard kindle. I tried downloading a magazine too, which was such a great way to see the colour vibrancy, and clarity. Definitely something I’ll use the kindle for more often now, and again a great bonus if want to use the device whilst out and about.
In terms of other apps, the Kindle HDX had all of the ones that I would use, WordPress and Facebook etc. I’m not a gamer though, so haven’t tested these types of apps.
Details :
- Stunning 8.9″ HDX display with incredible pixel density for vivid, lifelike images
- Breakthrough ultra-light design—weighing just 374g
- Ultra-fast 2.2GHz quad-core processor—with 2GB of RAM for fast, fluid performance
- New “Mayday” button— for FREE, 24/7, built-in tech support
- 8MP rear-facing camera with LED flash plus a front-facing HD camera
- Stay productive with ultra-fast web browsing, built-in OfficeSuite, plus e-mail and calendar support
- Ultra-fast 4G LTE technology lets you check e-mail, browse the web and more on the go (optional)
- Over 100,000 of your favorite apps and games available in the Amazon Appstore
- All-new Amazon Instant video – instantly watch anytime on your Kindle Fire. Buy or rent from a huge selection of more TV episodes and Films than all TV channels put together. Subscribe to Prime and enjoy unlimited streaming of thousands of popular films and TV shows from Britain’s largest subscription streaming service.
Now one of the main things I use a tablet for, is my addiction to Netflix though saying that, we are looking at getting Amazon Prime, so I shall test this, and amend the review once I have. I downloaded the Netflix app, even though this is an android tablet, it seems to work in exactly the same way as it does with my iPad version. The picture quality was excellent, I couldn’t really tell a difference between the iPad and Kindle Fire HDX but it has a much better spec, the HDX’s 339 pixels per inch as opposed to 264 PPI for the iPad Air. Sound quality (Dolby Digital Plus) was also excellent, as has been the battery life.
I haven’t as yet needed to test the Mayday button ( FREE, 24/7, built-in tech support) but again I will update this review with my thoughts on it, if I ever do need to use it.
Overall I am extremely happy with the Kindle Fire HDX, its been simple to use and set up, it hasn’t crashed at all whilst I’m using it. I will use this on a day to day basis, but for me, its perfect as my tablet to use whilst travelling too. In fact it has definitely fed my addiction to tablets all thinks geekery!
To Purchase :
Priced at £329 for a 16MB from Amazon.
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