It’s important to understand where Amazon is pitching the Fire HD. First, nothing has changed in terms of the walled garden. Unlike regular Android tablets such as the Hudl, the Fire HD has a highly customised version which has one clear aim: to let you get at (read: purchase) Amazon’s digital content. That means your apps, books, videos, music and magazines come from Amazon rather than Google.
There’s no access to the Google Play store, just as you would expect.This is still primarily a content consumption device, although the new Fire OS 3.0 does bring email and web browsing into the foreground more than the earlier Fire tablets.There are no cameras (the old model had a front-facing webcam), no cellular capabilities and a fixed amount of internal storage that can’t be expanded via microSD cards. The base model has just 8GB of storage - the Hudl has 16GB - and offers on the lock screen (you can choose to pay an extra £10 when ordering to remove these). Bearing in mind that the 8GB model has less than 5GB of usable storage, you might want to spend the extra £20 on the 16GB version.Unlike the old model, the new Fire HD has no HDMI output, nor support for Miracast.
There’s just a microUSB port for charging and synching.The new, angular design matches the new Fire HDX models but the Fire HD doesn’t get the ‘X’ suffix as its screen has a 1280x800 resolution, rather than Full HD. It also lacks the 100 percent sRGB gamut, meaning colours aren’t quite as accurate.Honestly, though, the screen is perfectly good for reading, watching videos, playing games and browsing the web. You barely miss the extra pixels offered by the Hudl: the Fire HD’s screen is brighter and colours are a touch more vibrant; viewing angles are excellent as you would expect from an IPS panel. he stereo speakers are decent, too, and we like the new button positions on the rear. They’re much easier to find without looking.Weight-wise, the Fire HD is 50g lighter than before, making it fractionally lighter than the Hudl. It isn’t that slim at 10.6mm but you don’t notice because of the tapered edges.
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