Amazon has revised their HDX 8.9 inch tablet with a brand new version of 2014. It has a startlingly light design and stunning HDX display with a new, more powerful processor, exclusive Dolby Atmos and the latest Dolby Audio, and all-new Fire OS 4 “Sangria” features and services.
The Kindle Fire HDX 8.9 2014 edition has a capacitive touchscreen display with resolution of 2560 X 1600 and features exceptional pixel density (over 4 million pixels, 339 ppi) for vivid, lifelike images.
Fire HDX 8.9 features an 8MP rear-facing camera that allows for high-resolution photos and 1080p HD video. The rear camera includes an LED flash, Electronic Image Stabilization to remove hand jitters, a wide-aperture lens, and support for panorama and High Dynamic Range (HDR) imaging. The front facing 720p HD camera, perfect for Skype HD video calls and taking photos to share via Facebook or email.
Underneath the hood is a Quad-core 2.5 GHz processor, Dual band WIFI, and comes in 16, 32, or 64 GB variants. Even with a faster, more power-hungry processor, Fire HDX delivers incredible battery life—up to 12 hours of reading, surfing the web on Wi-Fi, watching videos, and 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 Smart Suspend. Smart Suspend develops a device-specific profile for when the tablet is typically not in use and proactively turns wireless off and on to save power. Smart Suspend will still turn on Wi-Fi periodically to fetch new emails or app notifications, so when you pick up your tablet it’s ready to go and up to date.
There are a number of new software enhancements that make the new 8.9 HDX a compelling tablet. If you are tired of waiting for a video to buffer every time you hit “Play.” a new service called Advanced Streaming and Prediction learns what movies and shows you like and gets them ready for you to watch. The more you view videos on your Fire tablet, the more accurate ASAP becomes, dynamically adapting to your viewing habits. It also has a custom variant of Firefly, which was the main selling point of the Fire Phone.
The new Fire HDX is available for pre-order starting today for just $379
Michael Kozlowski is the editor-in-chief at Good e-Reader and has written about audiobooks and e-readers for the past fifteen years. Newspapers and websites such as the CBC, CNET, Engadget, Huffington Post and the New York Times have picked up his articles. He Lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.