Amazon launched the Kindle Paperwhite ebook reader and Kindle Fire HD range of tablets
in India recently. Kindle Fire HD, a 7-inch tablet, and Kindle Fire HD
8.9, its 8.9-inch avatar, sport very similar looks, though they differ
under the hood. We spent over a week with the smaller sibling and were
quite impressed. Read on for the full review.Build/ Design
Kindle Fire HD is a 7-inch tablet, but seems even smaller when you see it at first. It fits well in your hand, and feels just the right weight as well. The high quality plastic that the tablet is made of gives it a premium finish.
The Kindle Fire HD looks pretty plain from the front, with the screen surrounded by a thick bezel on all four sides. There are no buttons or sensors on the front of the tablet, with only the presence of the camera module at the top breaking the monotony. The back is bare as well except for a strip that runs across the length of the tablet about two-thirds from the top. The strip sports Kindle branding and also houses the two speakers hidden behind a beautifully done grill alongside both edges. There's some Amazon and FCC branding towards the bottom.
The left edge of the Kindle Fire HD is completely bare, while the top features the microphone, located exactly above the camera. The bottom houses the Micro-USB and Micro-HDMI ports. The right edge has the headphone jack, volume rocker and the power button. The power and volume buttons are completely flush with the body, which means they can be a little hard to locate when you are using the tablet. Even after spending 10 days with our Kindle Fire HD, we found ourselves turning the tablet over to find the power button, instead of instinctively reaching for the controls like one tends to do after spending some time with a device. This was our biggest gripe with an otherwise very well designed tablet.
Display
Software/ UI
Kindle Fire HD runs a customised version of Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, though it looks nothing like other Android devices you may have come across. Instead of multiple home screens with small icons you can click to launch applications, you are greeted by a carousel with giant icons that take up the entire screen. The carousel houses everything that's installed on your Fire HD, from Books and Apps to Movies and Music. It starts off looking pretty bare but it can get rather cumbersome to navigate using just the carousel once you start accumulating stuff.
Thankfully, you can switch to viewing just your Apps or Music or any other type of content, by selecting the category from the top of the screen. Items inside a particular category are listed as a grid of icons, with an option to switch to list view if desired. You can also use the favourites feature to quickly get to your most frequently accessed apps, books, movies, or other types of content. However, there's no app-switcher as seen in Android or iOS.
Though the Kindle Fire HD runs a variant of Android 4.0, you do not have the option to install apps from Google Play. Instead, you get access to Amazon's own Appstore that features a curated set of apps. Unlike Google Play, that can resemble Wild West at times, apps need to be approved by Amazon before they get into Appstore, similar to the policy that Apple follows with its App Store, so discovering quality apps is a little bit easier.
However, unlike Apple, which does not officially support jailbreaking your iOS devices, Amazon lets you install apps from other sources (also called side loading) by simply enabling the relevant preference. This lets you install apps like Dropbox and Firefox that are not available in Amazon's Appstore by visiting the respective websites, or by getting the APK file from other sources.
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