![]() While the screen is still 7 inches, the face of Fire HD is larger than that of its predecessor: it's 2 millimeters taller and 17 millimeters wider. The very first thing I noticed when I picked up the Fire HD was how the new rounded edges nestled into my hands more naturally than the chunky, square edges of the original Fire. The depth of the hardware improvements can't be overemphasized. Enhancements to the Kindle Fire's core functions – reading books and watching movies purchased from Amazon's vast content store – have make consuming media on the tablet more enjoyable than before. The hardware is more elegant, too, with a better screen, a smarter set of controls, and a redesigned shell that no longer looks like a BlackBerry PlayBook. The Fire's user interface has been improved, and is now smoother and more polished. ![]() ![]() >The changes Amazon has made in order to stay at the head of the budget tablet pack have produced a machine that's just plain better all around. Most notably, there's Google's own Nexus 7, a consumer favorite that's set new expectations for how a $200 tablet should look and perform.Ĭompetitive pressure is usually a good thing, and after using the newly updated 7-inch version of the Kindle Fire HD for close to a week, I can say that the changes Amazon has made in order to stay at the head of the budget tablet pack have produced a machine that's just plain better all around. But things are different now, and other manufacturers have come out with devices that hit (or come close to) that magic price point. It turns out "cheap" was quite the trump card, and despite its many quirks, the Fire was a huge smash. Some of those things it did ably, some it did sloppily – but it did them all for $200, less than half the price of the cheapest iPad. Sure, Amazon's tablet did most of the same things as competing offerings. There were plenty of other 7-inch tablets running Android, but none of them were as successful. ![]() When the Kindle Fire first arrived last September, it was in a class all its own.
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