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After Motorola’s and Nokia’s revelations yesterday, it is Amazon’s turn. As expected, today Amazon has unveiled two new tablets today: 7-inch Kindle Fire HD and 8.9-inch Kindle Fire HD.
The 8.9-inch Kindle Fire HD is, obviously, the superior device between the two. The 8.9-incher sports a 8.9-inch, 1920 x 1200 IPS display powered by a dual-core 1.5GHz TI OMAP 4470 processor, SGX544 GPU, an unknown amount of RAM, and Amazon’s heavily customized version of Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich). The tablet also has an “HD” camera on the front (no back camera), dual speakers, dual-band dual-antenna 802.11 a/b/g/n (2.4GHz and 5GHz) which Amazon claims is 40% faster than the iPad 3, Bluetooth, and microUSB and microHDMI ports.
There doesn’t appear to be support for microSD but Amazon does offer decent amount of internal storage. The 16GB, WiFi-only version of the 8.9-inch Kindle Fire HD costs US$299; the 32GB, WiFi-only version costs US$369. If you want wireless network connectivity, Amazon is offering a 32GB 8.9-inch Kindle Fire HD with LTE for US$499. The LTE version of the tablet runs on AT&T’s 4G network and you can get 250MB of data per month for US$50 per year. A 64GB version of the LTE 8.9-inch Kindle Fire HD is available for US$599.
The 7-inch Kindle Fire HD is similar to the 8.9-inch version except it takes a step down on most of the main hardware. For US$199 you can grab a 7-inch Kindle Fire HD that has a 7-inch, 1280×800 IPS display, dual-core 1.2GHz TI OMAP 4460 processor, SGX544 GPU, an unknown amount of RAM, Amazon’s version of Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich), 16GB internal storage, “HD” front-facing camera (no back camera), dual speakers, dual-band 802.11 a/b/g/n (2.4GHz and 5GHz), Bluetooth, and microUSB and microHDMI ports. For 32GB internal storage, you will have to cough up US$249.
Amazon says the 7-inch Kindle Fire HD has a battery life of “up to 11 hours” but doesn’t specify the battery life for the 8.9-incher.
All of the above-mentioned tablets are available for pre-order starting today; the 7-incher will start shipping on September 14 whereas the 8.9-inch versions will come out on November 20. For the time being it looks like these tablets are USA-only but Amazon may start selling them in its other markets in the near future. To start pre-ordering, hit up the links below.
7-inch Kindle Fire HD on Amazon.com
8.9-inch Kindle Fire HD WiFi-only on Amazon.com
8.9-inch Kindle Fire HD LTE on Amazon.com
