The Amazon Kindle Fire HDX 8.9 was released towards the end of 2013 as a successor to the HDX 7. It’s a tablet that lets you seamlessly explore Amazon’s ecosystem. While it’s an impressive gadget, you’d best look elsewhere if you’re keen on flexibility.
Build
Just as the name suggests, the Amazon Kindle Fire HDX is an 8.9 inch tablet. It comes with a matte rear that is soft to the touch and has a black plastic body. It features wide angled borders with sloped edges with the camera lens and speaker grilles framed with glossy plastic strips running from the top. It is also lightweight and only weighs 369g, which is lighter than the iPad air, and it is well-built. However, it comes with a smaller screen. The positioning of the power and volume button is on the rear, located towards the right edge.
Hardware
When it comes to the hardware, the HDX 8.9 is a match for the iPad Air. It comes with a 2560 x 1600 IPS unit resolution which makes it a 339ppi density gadget. It uses the QUALCOMM dual-core 1.4GHz Snapdragon 800 CPU with a 330 graphics Adreno, which is similar to its predecessor. It comes with a back facing 13MP camera and front-facing 1.3 MP camera with LED flash. However, this gadget leaves a lot to be desired in the area of expandable memory as it lacks a microSD slot. In many ways, the HDX 8.9 is ahead of the iPad Air, and it is a few dollars cheaper than the latter.
The Display, Performance and Battery Life of the HDX 8.9
With all the great specs on the hardware, how exactly does it perform?
This Kindle Fire comes with an excellent display which makes gaming, video streaming and book reading a pleasant experience. The only down side is its small backlight bleed mostly on the bottom-left corner, but it is only visible under dim light.
It features a quad-core CPU that delivers with respect to general responsiveness, benchmarks and gaming. The Android based Amazon operating system is as sleek as the iOS 7 on iPad Air. You can play demanding games like Asphalt 8: Airborne, Despicable Me and Minion Rush. When it comes to benchmarks, it is slightly behind the iPad Air, but is two times faster than the Nexus 10.
The battery life is amazing in flight mode and comes with low resolution on continuous video looping, and can last up to 16 1/2 hours. The audio from the rear speakers is loud, clear and full-bodied as it is with other same sized tablets. However, the rear camera is not as impressive as it loses out on auto-focusing and clear shots.
The HDX 8.9 OS
The OS is easy and convenient to use as it is with the HDX 7. When you turn on your tablet, it is already registered to your account, and all you have to do to access content is to navigate to the desired sections to download or stream. It comes with additional features such as a 2nd screen, MayDay feature and Miracrast. The only downside is that you cannot fully access Google Apps, which are available on Nexus 7 and 10 tablets.
Pricing
Pricing depends on the storage specifications. They range from 16GB, 32GB and 64GB. They can come with or without ads and with 4G LTE or Wi-Fi only. Price ranges from $563 to $765 depending on the configuration.
Conclusion
If you are in the market for a large-sized tablet, the HDX 8.9 is a good pick. It comes packed with features that make it fun to use.
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