Amazon Kindle Fire HD review

FIRE-FIGHT

At 394g it’s a little heftier then than the Nexus 7, which weighs 340g, and bigger too, see below. The Fire HD’s IPS touchscreen has the same 1,280×800 resolution as that device. Even the price is the same, although Amazon offers double the storage on its basic model (16GB), and an HDMI output for watching movies on your HD TV.

The Kindle Fire HD is a fair bit bigger than the Nexus 7

But it does come with an HDMI output for connecting to a bigger screen

The big difference between the Fire HD and the Nexus 7 isn’t in the hardware, though – it’s the user interface. Where the Nexus sticks with stock Android 4.1 Jelly Bean, with the focus firmly on apps and widgets and customisability, the Fire HD’s interface sets its sights firmly on content.

From one point of view, this is a good thing. The tablet arrives in the mail already linked to your Amazon account and credit card, with barely any setup required at all. And the user interface is at least simple to use.

The first thing you’ll see when you power on the Kindle Fire HD is an ad on the lockscreen – still image with a shortcut on the left to the appropriate Amazon product page. Different adverts appear every time you see this screen, though from a limited selection and with no apparent targeting to date. By paying £10 extra you can get rid of these, and after seeing the same advert for Titanic three times over, we’d have happily parted with the cash.

The adverts on the lockscreen won’t bother some, but we hated them

Once you’re past that, the main element of the home screen comprises a horizontal row of thumbnails displaying recently accessed items. This can include books, videos, music or apps – whatever you’ve been using recently – it can be swiped left or right to reveal more, and as you go a handful of smaller icons below it update dynamically, suggesting relevant related content under the heading “customers also bought”.

The interface presents and sells content well, but it’s not very useful otherwise

Above the carousel sits a search box, and below that another horizontally scrolling menu provides access to various themed sections: Shop comes up first, with links to books, games, apps, video and so on next to it. Selecting any one of these brings up the relevant library page displaying items stored on the tablet, and also items you may have already bought – but not downloaded yet – accessible by tapping the Cloud button at the top of the screen. It works in a similar manner to the Archive section on the classic E Ink Kindles. Purchasing further content is carried out within this interface, with items available to purchase with a couple of clicks.