Amazon announces $499 Kindle Fire HD with 4G LTE Today

[Lone Crusader]

Kindle Fire HD 8.9 4G $499

Kindle Fire 8.9" Wi-Fi Model $299

Kindle Fire HD 7" $199

Engadget

More tablets with more ways to connect! Jeff Bezos has just announced another flavor of the Kindle Fire HD, this one offering connectivity to AT&T's 4G LTE network. It's the 8.9-inch model, meaning you're paying a $200 premium for that LTE antenna. But, Amazon has paired that with an absolutely killer data deal. For $50 a year you'll get 250MB monthly. AT&T's current data plans would have you paying $14.99 monthly for that much data. If we were a mathematician we'd say that's a savings of 129.88 a year. But, since we're not, we'll just say that sounds like good value to us. The Kindle Fire HD with 4G LTE will be available for pre-order today, shipping on November 20th.

 

[Groo The Perverted]

That does sound like a good data plan, but what about after that first year? Does the price go up, or is it a permanent price point of $50 a year for 250mb a month?

 

[digitalbabe]

Links added

 

[Lone Crusader]

Hands on: Amazon Kindle Fire HD review

techRadar

The Kindle Fire HD brings several new features that streamline the experience
Amazon's Kindle Fire quickly became a powerhouse of media content consumption when it was introduced in 2011, and Amazon's looking to maintain that momentum with the just-announced Kindle Fire HD.

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos took the stage in Santa Monica, Calif. on Thursday to introduce the Kindle Fire HD, a new umbrella that covers 7- and 8.9-inch tablets with a variety of data options.

TechRadar was on hand to take the Kindle Fire HD in all its flavors out for a spin.

Kindle Fire HD specs and design

The base 7-inch Kindle Fire HD is incredibly light, at 13.9 ounces and 8.8mm thin, with a rubbery backing that makes it easy to grip.

The new HD display packs a 1920x1200 resolution with in-plane switching and 254 PPI, and frankly it looks gorgeous. HD movies like The Hunger Games flow by with perfection, and games like Jetpack Joyride looked crisp despite their pixelated graphics.

An advanced true wide polarizing filter and omni-directional, full spectrum color make the display look great from every angle, and a touch sensor laminated to the display rather than simply being stacked on top of it means a sharper image, better contrast and 25 percent less glare, according to Bezos.

A new HD front-facing camera supports Skype integration, and also provides a handy way to tell when the Kindle Fire HD is upside-down, since there are no physical buttons on the front bezel (volume and lock controls are on the side of the device).

An HD tablet isn't complete without HDMI out, and the Kindle Fire HD sports bluetooth as well.

All that would be meaningless if the Kindle Fire HD didn't pack a punch, and under the hood you'll find the TI OMAP 4470 processor, 16GB of storage (vs. the Kindle Fire's 8GB), new dual stereo speakers with Dolby Digital Plus, and two dual-band 2.4 and 5GHz Wi-Fi antennas for more consistent and speedier connections.

Combined with new-ish MIMO tech that improves reception of redundant signals, all-in-all the Kindle Fire HD's Wi-Fi is reportedly 41 percent faster than the latest Apple iPad and 54 percent faster than the Google Nexus 7.

That all sounds great on paper, though in practice the Kindle Fire HD may be overreaching a bit - it stuttered for up to 10 seconds as we switched between games, videos, music, web, periodicals, and other categories on the home screen, though the new carousel/quick access interface is snappy enough.

Pre-order from Amazon UK

• Kindle Fire HD from $255 ($255 ($255 (£159.00)))
• Kindle Fire from $207 ($207 ($207 (£129.00)))

Pre-order from Amazon US

Links in the OP

Kindle Fire HD UI
Games took a rather long time to load as well, though that may come down to developers more than the hardware itself.

The Kindle Fire HD brings several new features that streamline the user experience: Whispersync saves game, book (audio books, too) and movie progress in the cloud, and X-Ray for movies (using IMDB) can tell you what actors are in every scene, providing profiles, filmographies and everything else you expect from the site.

They've even got X-Ray for textbooks now.

"Immersion Reading" fuses audio and text books for, mixing the two together by highlighting words on the screen as the narrator speaks them.

And Kindle FreeTime lets parents set different time limits for different types of content, so kids can read unlimited books but only play, say, an hour of movies and games.

Early Verdict
Like the new Kindle Paperwhite to the original Kindle, the Kindle Fire HD is an upgrade to the Kindle Fire in every way.

More than anything, it continues to provide an easy-to-navigate gateway to Amazon's massive content library, and now more than ever before, everything is in the cloud.

Buggy navigation can be fixed, so we'll reserve judgment until the device ships.

The 7-inch Kindle Fire HD ships Sept. 14 at $199 for 16GB, while the 8.9-inch Kindle Fire HD ships for $299 on Nov. 20, also with 16GB.

There's also a $499 8.9-inch option with 32GB and 4G LTE compatibility - plans will cost $50 per year for 250MB a month, 20GB of cloud storage, and $10 in Amazon credit.

Additional data will run 3GB for $30 and 5GB for $50 through AT&T, an Amazon representative revealed at the event.

The 8.9-incher was not available for a hands-on demo at the unveiling on Thursday, though TechRadar did manage to snap some images of it.

 

[Lone Crusader]

The Catch in Kindle’s Data Plan

The Wall Street Journal
At its Kindle Fire launch, Amazon touted a new data plan that it said would help save customers $410 over the cost of owning the iPad. What it left out is that those megabytes aren’t likely to go very far.

The Seattle Web giant says that for just $50 a year, you can use the antenna on the new $499 Kindle Fire to dial into AT&T's cellphone network and “connect to the Internet, stream, and download at speeds even faster than Wi-Fi.”

The plan buys 250 megabytes of data a month. But if you want to view 30 or more Web pages, or stream more than four minutes of video, or listen to more than 20 minutes of streaming music per day, that isn’t going to be enough.

Watching a single two-hour HD movie would use up 614 megabytes, according to AT&T’s data calculator. A 1.5 hour HD movie would use up 461 megabytes. What happens if you go over? AT&T turns off the service until the next month – which means a long intermission.

That’s a real problem considering Amazon is selling the devices cheap in hopes buyers will regularly access its expanding selection of streaming videos via the wireless network.

Kindle users who know they’ll want more data will have to pay a lot more than $50 a year: $30 a month for 3 gigabytes or $50 for 5 gigabytes – plus a $36 activation fee (which isn’t charged with the Amazon promotional plan, but will apply to any upgrades).

If you already pay for AT&T service, you can also share the data you’re paying for with the Kindle Fire for an extra $10 a month on one of the company’s new shared-data plans.

The new $499 Kindle Fire runs on a wireless network technology called LTE, which covers at least 74 million people at AT&T. (Verizon Wireless’s LTE network is bigger, but the company initially won’t carry the Kindle Fire.) LTE is much faster than the 3G you’re used to, but because it’s so fast it can lead to unexpectedly high data charges.

Back in March, some of the first customers of Apple Inc’s LTE iPad found out they chewed through $30 worth of data in hours. With a high definition screen and Dolby stereo sound packed in, the new Kindle Fire could entice many more people to do the same.

 

[mytran80]

have to check this out in person....

 

[Blu-devil]

It seems that mobile broadband packages are much cheaper in the UK. I get 7GB for £25/ $40 PM as PAYG.

 

[Blu-devil]

The 8.9" now has Dolby Atmos mobile.