A slight improvement in specs, but not a great deal else from what we can see here. The new Kindle Fire HDX 8.9 is still the same price as last year but with an uplift in specs (2.5GHz quad core Snapdragon 805), Dolby Atmos surround sound and a new Dynamic Light Control feature for tweaking the white balance to make it match your surroundings. Oooo.. 🙂
The new Fire OS 4.0 (Sangria) is available and there’s the usual large dollop of content from Amazon in the form of books, movies and Fire TV – a system that’ll guess what you’re searching for and will begin buffering it before you’ve even chosen the item.
The shopping-helper, Firefly, will let you scan and buy items and … Well, when you get the Fire 4.0 OS update on older models you’ll pretty much have the same thing, albeit a smidgen slower.
Full details and features include..
– Powerful 2.5 GHz processor with a 70% faster graphics engine.
– HDX display (339 ppi) with Dynamic Light Control, which makes the pages of a book resemble a real piece of paper more closely in different lighting conditions.
– Lighter than the iPad Air.
– Exclusive new audio—with crisp, clear sound and no distortion.
– Faster Wi-Fi, with support for 802.11ac MIMO
– New Fire Keyboard with a trackpad to make productivity and navigation easier
– Family Library lets all members of your household access your apps, games, books and Prime Instant Video content, even if they use a different Amazon account.
– Free, unlimited Cloud storage of photos taken with Fire tablets,backed up automatically and wirelessly.
– Front-facing HD camera makes it easy to stay in touch with Skype; 8 MP rear-facing camera
– The Mayday button delivers live tech support free.
This new Fire HDX 8.9 starts at £329 and you can pre-order today at www.amazon.co.uk/hdx. It’ll start shipping on 4th November. The 4G version starts at £439 for 32GB, so get that one on www.amazon.co.uk/fire-hdx-8.9-4g and it will begin shipping on 4th November.
Full details below.
Introducing the All-New Fire HDX—Higher Performance, Faster Wi-Fi, and Still Startlingly Light with a Stunning HDX Display
Fast and fluid—Fire HDX 8.9 is powered by the latest-generation quad-core 2.5 GHz processor and a 70% faster graphics engine
Perfect colour, 339 ppi HDX display features Dynamic Light Control which adjusts the colour of the display automatically to make the pages of a book resemble a piece of paper more closely in any light
Fire OS 4 “Sangria” adds hundreds of new features and platform enhancements, including Firefly, ASAP, SmartSuspend and other Amazon-exclusive features
Family Library lets family members easily share apps, games, books and Prime Instant Video content, even if they use different Amazon accounts
Free, unlimited Cloud storage for photos taken with your Fire HDX
New Fire Keyboard is a slim and lightweight full-featured tablet keyboard, with a trackpad that makes productivity and navigation easier than ever
Luxembourg—18 September 2014—Amazon today introduced the all-new Fire HDX 8.9, which combines a startlingly lightweight design and stunning HDX display with a new, more powerful processor, and all-new Fire OS 4 “Sangria” features and services. The new Fire HDX is available for pre-order starting today for just £329—learn more atwww.amazon.co.uk/hdx.
The new Fire HDX features:
– Powerful 2.5 GHz processor with a 70% faster graphics engine for exceptional speed and fluidity, especially for graphically-intensive games.
– HDX display with incredible pixel density (339 ppi) and perfect 100% sRGB colour accuracy—now with Dynamic Light Control, which makes the pages of a book resemble a real piece of paper more closely in different lighting conditions.
– Startlingly light design—lighter than the iPad Air.
– Exclusive new audio—with crisp, clear sound and no distortion.
– Faster Wi-Fi, with support for 802.11ac MIMO which delivers up to 4x the peak bandwidth.
– Available with ultrafast 4G LTE wireless on the Vodafone and other 4G/LTE networks.
– New Fire Keyboard is a slim and lightweight full-featured tablet keyboard, with a trackpad to make productivity and navigation easier than ever, sold separately.
– Powered by the latest version of Fire OS—Fire OS 4 “Sangria”—with hundreds of new and upgraded features, platform updates and Amazon-exclusive services.
– Family Library lets all members of your household access your apps, games, books and Prime Instant Video content, even if they use a different Amazon account.
– Free, unlimited Cloud storage of photos taken with Fire tablets, backed up automatically and wirelessly.
– Front-facing HD camera makes it easy to stay in touch with Skype; 8 MP rear-facing camera allows for high-resolution photos and 1080p HD video, and includes an LED flash, Electronic Image Stabilisation, and a wide-aperture f/2.2 lens. The Camera application also allows customers to capture panoramas, lenticulars, and HDR recommended shots, and the film strip gives access to recent photos and videos, along with the ability to view, edit, share and delete right from the camera.
– Firefly lets you quickly identify printed web and e-mail addresses, phone numbers, QR and barcodes, plus over 90 million items, including movies, TV episodes, songs and products.
– ASAP (Advanced Streaming and Prediction) predicts which movies and TV episodes you’ll want to watch and buffers them for playback before you even hit play, so videos start instantly.
– The Mayday button delivers revolutionary, live tech support—one touch connects you to an Amazon expert who can guide you remotely through any feature—24/7, 365 days a year, and it’s free.
“The team has packed an incredible amount of technology and innovation into the new Fire HDX—an incredible HDX display, a powerful quad-core processor, a 70% faster graphics engine, exceptional audio, and faster Wi-Fi—and it’s still startlingly light,” said Jeff Bezos, Amazon.com Founder and CEO. “Fire HDX combines excellent hardware with exclusive features and services from Fire OS 4 including Firefly, the Mayday button, Family Library, ASAP and more.”
Exceptional Performance, World-Class Hardware
2.5 GHz, Quad-Core Processor Plus 70% Faster Graphics Engine
Fire HDX is powered by the quad-core Snapdragon 805 processor, with each core running at up to 2.5 GHz. With the updated CPU and a 70% faster GPU than the previous-generation Fire HDX, the all-new Fire HDX provides fast and fluid gaming and video.
Incredible HDX Display—Plus Dynamic Light Control
With 30% more pixels than iPad’s Retina display, Amazon’s HDX display combines exceptional pixel density (over 4 million pixels, 339 ppi) and perfect colour accuracy (100% sRGB), resulting in lifelike images. The HDX display features Dynamic Light Control, which changes the white point of the display based on the ambient light of the surroundings in order to make the page of a Kindle book more closely resemble a piece of paper— this makes the best reading experience on a tablet even better on the new Fire HDX. Dynamic Light Control will be enabled starting later this year as part of a free, over-the-air software update.
Exceptional Audio
Fire HDX sounds twice as loud as the iPad Air, delivering crisp, clear audio without distortion.
Startlingly Light Design—Lighter than Air
Fire HDX is startlingly light, lighter than the iPad Air. Weighing just 375 grams, Fire HDX’s frame is made of a single piece of machined magnesium with a blend of glass and nylon moulded onto the unibody to create openings for the antennas and maximise signal strength without sacrificing weight or durability.
Incredible Real-World Battery Life—Even Longer with SmartSuspend
Even with a faster, more power-hungry processor, Fire HDX delivers incredible battery life—up to 11 hours of reading, surfing the web on Wi-Fi, watching videos or listening to music—without adding weight or thickness to the design. The new Fire HDX also has weeks of standby battery life, so you don’t have to worry about waking up in the morning to find your tablet battery depleted because you forgot to plug it in. This standby battery life is made possible by combining power-efficient hardware components, low-level software improvements, and a new feature called SmartSuspend. SmartSuspend develops a device-specific profile for when the tablet is typically not in use and proactively turns wireless off and on to save power. SmartSuspend will still turn on Wi-Fi periodically to fetch new e-mails or app notifications, so when you pick up your tablet it’s ready to go and up to date.
Faster Wireless—4x the Peak Bandwidth with 802.11ac
Fire HDX supports the latest-generation wireless standard 802.11ac, which is capable of a peak bandwidth of 600 Mbps, 4x the peak bandwidth of the previous-generation Fire HDX.
Fire Keyboard—Slim and Light Full-Featured Keyboard with a Trackpad
Tablet keyboards have been frustrating to use because they work for typing but not for navigation, so you have to keep switching between typing on the keyboard and reaching up to tap the tablet display. Fire Keyboard solves this by including a trackpad within its incredibly slim and lightweight design—it weighs just 190 grams and is 4.8 mm thin. Fire Keyboard also includes Instant Search—just start typing and the search bar will appear, letting you search across your content libraries, Amazon and the web. The keyboard connects magnetically to the new Fire HDX 8.9 Origami cover, making it simple to carry and easy to remove if you aren’t using it—since the Fire Keyboard is detachable you can place it as close to or as far from the tablet as you wish for the most comfortable typing position. The keyboard is available for £54.99—learn more atwww.amazon.co.uk/keyboard.
Origami Cover
The new Origami cover is 20% lighter than the previous generation, and attaches magnetically so it’s easy to take on and off. The Origami design provides a stable stand for both portrait and landscape positions, and turns the tablet on automatically when it’s opened, and off when it’s closed. The cover features a customised slide feature that exposes the rear-facing camera quickly and launches the camera application automatically so you won’t miss a great photo opportunity. The cover is available starting at £49.99—learn more atwww.amazon.co.uk/origami.
Connect to TV, Monitor or USB Accessories
Fire HDX’s micro-USB port is used not only for charging, but also to connect Fire HDX to your other devices. With the Amazon HDMI and VGA adaptors you can connect Fire HDX to your TV, a computer monitor or projector. With the Amazon USB adaptor you can connect USB flash drives, SD card readers, or a wired keyboard or mouse.
Introducing Fire OS 4 “Sangria”
Fire HDX is powered by the newest version of Fire OS—Fire OS 4 “Sangria”—which introduces hundreds of new and updated features. Fire OS delivers the most customer-friendly Android user interface—it starts with Android KitKat, and improves upon it by deeply integrating the hardware, platform, software, content and the Amazon Cloud. If an app runs on Android, it can run on Fire OS with little to no work. Read more: www.amazon.co.uk/fire-os.
Profiles
Give everyone a personalised experience—each family member gets his or her own Profile, including individual e-mail, Facebook and Twitter accounts, settings such as display brightness, page in the book, spot in a movie, and game levels, without taking up extra storage on the device.
Family Library
Never again worry about whose account has the Prime membership or who bought that book you want to read. Family Library links your Amazon account to that of your spouse or partner so you can easily share apps, games, books and Prime Instant Video content within your household without changing accounts. Family Library lets family members share their content while using a single Fire tablet with different profiles, or across multiple devices—including Kindle e-readers, Fire tablets, Fire phone and Amazon Fire TV—as well as on all of the other most popular devices and platforms with the free Kindle and Amazon Instant Video apps.
Firefly
Available for the first time on a tablet, Firefly combines Amazon’s deep catalogue of physical and digital content with image, text and audio recognition technologies to quickly identify web and e-mail addresses, phone numbers, QR and barcodes, plus over 90 million items, including movies, TV episodes, songs and products. Simply tap on Firefly in the Quick Settings menu to use Firefly for text, songs, videos, products and more.
ASAP—Advanced Streaming and Prediction
You shouldn’t have to wait 10 seconds for a video to buffer after you press “Play”—it should start immediately. The new ASAP feature predicts which movies and TV episodes you’ll want to watch and prepares them for playback before you even tap play. This feature is smart—the caching predictions get better over time, so ASAP will continuously improve as you use your tablet.
The Mayday Button—Revolutionary On-Device Tech Support
On Fire HDX, simply hit the Mayday button in quick actions and an Amazon expert will appear via live video to guide you through any feature on the device. Amazon experts are able to draw on the screen, talk you through how to do a task, or do it for you—whatever works best. Mayday is available 24/7, 365 days a year, and it’s free. Amazon’s response time goal for Mayday is 15 seconds or less.
View, Edit and Create Office Documents, for Free
Fire HDX comes pre-loaded with WPS Office, the most popular Android Office app with over 245 million customers and 250,000 five-star reviews. This lets you create, edit and view Office documents, and is fully compatible with Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint. WPS Office also integrates with Cloud Drive, so Office documents created or edited on Fire HDX are automatically backed up and available through the Cloud Drive app on other mobile devices and computers.
All the Content
Amazon offers the best selection of digital content—over 33 million movies, TV shows, songs, apps, games, books, audiobooks and magazines—including hundreds of thousands of exclusives:
– Over 50,000 movies and TV episodes—stream or download, purchase or rent.
– 15,000 popular movies and TV episodes are available at no additional cost for Prime members with Prime Instant Video, the exclusive subscription streaming home to shows such as Extant, Vikings, Under the Dome, Ripper Street, Black Sails, Alpha Houseand many more.
– Over 240,000 apps and games in the Amazon Appstore, including the most popular titles such as Facebook, Netflix, TuneIn Radio, Twitter, Angry Birds Stella, Minecraft and more
– Millions of songs—purchases are stored for free in the Cloud for access anytime, anywhere.
– Hundreds of magazines and newspapers, including Vogue, Cosmopolitan, Marie Claire, The Telegraph, The Guardian and Mail Plus
– Millions of books, including hundreds of thousands of titles that are exclusive to the Kindle Store.
– Over 90,000 professionally narrated audiobook titles, with free samples to listen to before buying.
The Fire Family
Fire HDX 8.9 starts at £329. It is available for pre-order starting today at www.amazon.co.uk/hdx and will start shipping on 4th November. The 4G version starts at £439 for 32GB—you can pre-order today atwww.amazon.co.uk/fire-hdx-8.9-4g and it will begin shipping on 4th November.
Fire HDX 7 will continue to be available and will receive the Fire OS 4 update with many of these features later this year. Order today atwww.amazon.co.uk/fire-hdx-7 from £199.
Amazon also today introduced the new Fire HD which comes with a stunning 6” or 7” HD display, quad-core processor, Dolby Digital audio, front- and rear-facing cameras, and an incredibly reliable design—and starts at just £79. Order today atwww.amazon.co.uk/fire-hd.