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The Amazon Kindle Fire HD promised to make waves in the tablet game when it was introduced starting at $200, and Amazon is celebrating another new milestone.
The Amazon Kindle Fire HD has supposedly become the retailer’s best-selling device since it’s launched. It seems Amazon’s devices never give up that top spot so we weren’t surprised to learn that the new hotness (no pun intended) claimed it.
To go along with that nice nugget of information Amazon also reminded us that the Kindle Fire HD will be receiving a new OTA upgrade that’ll be adding “FreeTime.”
The feature will allow parents to take parental control a step further by setting up a restricted list of apps for their children to use, setting how long they can use those apps, and requiring a password to exit FreeTime. We’re sure this’ll be a much-appreciated feature for families sharing devices and parents just wanting to limit their kids’ play-time alike.
Amazon has reason to believe that its 8.9-inch Kindle Fire HD will do just as great as the 7-inch version did. If you don’t remember, the 8.9-inch version — housing roughly the same features and specs except with a larger display — will be headed to store shelves November 20th for $300.
When you consider Google’s rumored to be introducing a 32GB Nexus 7 for $250 it doesn’t seem too wise to take Amazon up on its offering instead, but the Kindle Fire does still offer exclusive access to Instant Video and Cloud Storage.
We’re not sure if Amazon is purposely withholding these features in order to sweeten the deal for those who decide to go with Amazon’s drastically-different Android experience, but it would make a lot of sense.
Either way, it seems there’s a large demand for the Amazon Kindle Fire HD and you can only imagine how crazy things will get once the holiday season starts to roll around. Read on for full press details.
– Since launch, the $199 Kindle Fire HD is the #1 best-selling product across all of Amazon worldwide. Kindle Fire has been the bestselling product across Amazon.com since the launch of the original Kindle Fire last fall, and this continues Kindle Fire’s run as the world’s #1 bestselling 7-inch tablet.
– Today, we are starting to roll out a new, free, over-the-air software update that will make Kindle Fire HD even better, including bringing Kindle FreeTime. With FreeTime, parents can select all of the content their kids see, limit their kids’ screen time by content type and kids can’t exit FreeTime without a password.
– Kindle Fire HD offers customers premium hardware features:
o Stunning, custom HD display with 1280×800 resolution and a custom laminated touch sensor
o Dual-antenna, dual-band Wi-Fi with MIMO
o Dual stereo speakers with Dolby Digital Plus audio
o 16 GB and 32 GB of local storage
o High-performance processor and graphics engine for snappy and smooth performance
o 11 hours of battery life
o X-Ray for Movies, X-Ray for Textbooks, Immersion Reading, Whispersync for Voice, Whispersync for Games, and Kindle FreeTime
o Front-facing HD camera with custom Skype application
o Bluetooth and HDMI out
– Kindle Fire HD offers deep integration with the world’s best content ecosystem, offering over 22 million movies, TV shows, songs, apps, games, books, audiobooks and magazines.
– We offer the best cross-platform interoperability – the content customers purchase from Amazon isn’t just available on Amazon devices, it’s available on the largest number of devices and platforms, so customers can access content anytime, anywhere.
– We increased our exclusive content selection and the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library to more than 200,000 exclusive titles. We also expanded Kindle Owners’ Lending Library to the UK, Germany and France.
Kindle Fire HD is the best-selling product since launch and we haven’t even shipped the best tablet we’ve ever built. Kindle Fire HD 8.9” is shipping November 20, and starts at only $299. The holiday season is upon us and our customer service teams are ready for millions of people to unwrap Kindle Fire HDs around the world.
I really don’t care about Amazon and its Kindles….. Nexus all the way
Apple will sue them on the grounds that people will confuse this with “FaceTime”
Apple doesn’t know what ‘free’ means.
The Kindle HD is a great device (I’m using it for this). People seem to forget the the KFHD has 16gb of memory for $200 not 8gb like the Nexus 7. The $250 version has 32gb. The interface is a bonus, not a distraction, it is simple and does what it’s needed to do, run apps and seamlessly connect you to all of Amazon’s services.
Yup and while the Nexus 7 will have a storage bump at 29th it still has Better CPU/GPU better OS (The walled garden android fork in the Kindle is garbage and ruin android) better support and no popup ads, oh and did i say access to a market place with 700.000 apps and games AND also the amazon market and services?
There’s a free app at Play Store called Kid Mode by Zoodles. I used it with my 3 year old. You can restrict apps that could be open plus other great features. Also protects with a password.
I watch Instant Video on my Nexus 7 all the time. Flash apk + Firefox Beta = Amazon Instant Video. I understand the average consumer doesn’t know this, but it’s worth mentioning for anyone reading the article.
“but the Kindle Fire does still offer exclusive access to Instant Video”
I just want to know when they’re going to offer the opt-out (linked below) for the on-device ads so book ads for “Fifty Shades of Grey” stop showing up on my 11-yr old daughter’s Kindle Fire HD.