Chapter 1

Overview of the Kindle Fire HD

In This Chapter

Comparing Kindle Fire HD to the competition

Surveying all the features of the Kindle Fire HD

Amazon, the giant online retailer, has access to more content (music, movies, audiobooks, and so on) than just about anybody on the planet. So when an Amazon tablet was rumored to be in the works, the mystery tablet was seen as the first real challenge to the Apple iPad.

Now, a year after the release of the first Kindle Fire, the Kindle Fire HD is available, and it turns out to offer several very nice improvements over the original. It has the right price and feature mix for many people while also offering the key to that treasure chest of Amazon content.

In this chapter, you get an overview of the Kindle Fire HD: how it compares to competing devices as well as a look at its key features. Subsequent chapters delve into how to use all those features.

A Quick Rundown of Kindle Fire HD Hardware Features

A tablet is a handheld computer with a touchscreen and an onscreen keyboard for providing input, and apps that allow you to play games, read e-books, check e-mail, browse the web, and more.

In the world of tablets, the first device to hit the big time was iPad, after which subsequent tablets, such as Samsung Galaxy, Google Nexus 7, and HP TouchPad, appeared. No tablet since iPad seemed to gain a foothold in the market until the Kindle Fire showed up.

The Kindle Fire HD, the second generation of the Kindle Fire, is lighter and smaller than the iPad, at 7.6 x 5.4 x 0.4 inches (see Figure 1-1) and weighing only 13.9 ounces, versus the iPad’s 9.7-inch display and 1.3-pound frame. For some, that smaller, lighter form factor makes the Kindle Fire HD easier to hold with one hand than the iPad. In addition, the rubberized back helps you keep a tight grip on the device in most circumstances.

The Kindle Fire HD has a projected battery life of 11 hours. The screen resolution on the Kindle Fire HD’s bright color screen is on par with the best tablets out there.

In its first-generation model, the Kindle Fire had no camera and no microphone. With the arrival of the Kindle Fire HD, you have a camera and microphone that are useful mainly for making video calls with the built-in Skype app. Unfortunately, this tablet still has no camera feature that you can use to take still pictures or videos, as some other popular tablets have.

Although a micro-USB cord is included with the Kindle Fire HD, no power adapter for plugging it into an outlet and charging it comes with the package. You can buy an adapter from Amazon for about $10 when you buy your device, or for $20 separately. Alternatively, you can root around in your kitchen drawer to see whether you have ever owned a smartphone that came with such an adapter. The adapter simply plugs into the USB end of the micro-USB cable.

Figure 1-1: The neat size and weight of Kindle Fire HD make it easy to hold.

Table 1-1 provides an at-a-glance view of Kindle Fire HD features.

Table 1-1 Kindle Fire HD Specifications

Feature	Kindle Fire HD Specs
Display size	7 inches or 8.9 inches
Processor	Dual Core Omap 4470 processor
Screen resolution	7 inch: 1280 x 800 8.9 inch: 1900 x 1200
Internal storage	7 inch: 16 or 32GB 8.9 inch: 32 or 64GB
Battery life	11 hours
Price	7 inch: $199 for 16GB and $249 for 32GB 8.9 inch: $299 for 16GB and $369 for 32GB 8.9 inch 4G LTE: $499 for 32GB and $599 for 64GB
Content	Amazon Appstore
Connectivity	Wi-Fi 4G LTE for 8.9 inch 4G LTE model
Ports	USB 2.0, mini USB
Browser	Silk
Camera	For video calls only
Sound	Dual stereo speakers, Dolby Digital Plus sound
Volume rocker	Physical volume rocker switches
Antenna	Dual band, dual antenna for Wi-Fi

Key Features of Kindle Fire HD

Kindle Fire HD is a tablet device with all the things most people want from a tablet packed into an easy-to-hold package. In the following sections, you get to explore some of the Kindle Fire HD’s great features.

Storage on earth and in the Amazon Cloud

Kindle Fire HD offers 16 to 32GB of storage in its 7" model. Either storage amount will probably work just fine for you because when you own a Kindle Fire HD, you get free, unlimited Amazon Cloud storage for all digital content purchased from Amazon. Cloud storage means that books, movies, music, and apps are held online for you to stream or download at any time, so you don’t have to store it on your Kindle Fire HD.

If you’ll be away from an Internet connection, download an item (such as an episode of your favorite TV show), watch it, and then remove it from your device. The content is still available in the Amazon Cloud Player, and you can download that content again or stream it anytime you like.

If you want to go whole hog into Kindle Fire HD land, you can opt for the highest memory device, the 64GB 8.9" 4G LTE Wireless version of the device. Just be aware that this version comes with the cost of an AT&T account for the 4G LTE access.

App appeal

Kindle Fire HD comes with built-in functions and apps like the Silk web browser, an e-mail client, calendar and contact apps, a Skype app, and the Kindle e-reader (see Figure 1-2). Many more apps are readily available from the Amazon Appstore.

At this point, the selection of apps available for Android devices isn’t quite as robust as those available for Apple devices, but that will change over time. See Chapter 11 for ten apps that can flesh out your Kindle Fire HD with popular features, and check out Chapter 12 for ten great game apps.

Check out the price

Amazon brought the Kindle Fire to market as a lower-priced device. Some consider it just a device for buying Amazon content, and it certainly lacks some features of more sophisticated devices such as the iPad. However, the lower pricing scheme has clearly been a hit with many people.

Figure 1-2: Where it all started, with Kindle e-reader functionality.

At the top end, you’ll pay $829 for a 64GB 3G iPad, compared to $599 for an 8.9" 4G LTE Kindle Fire HD. Amazon is positioning its device as a more cost-effective tablet, but do be aware that the lower cost on the Kindle Fire HD is subsidized by on-device advertising. You can pay $15 to have the advertising removed from your Kindle Fire HD experience. To send those ads packing, go to the Manage Your Kindle page on Amazon (http://amazon.com/myk) and click the Unsubscribe link by the device. Note that this action does not remove the Customers Also Bought banner that appears on your Home screen, but it does remove the Special Offers notices that appear when the device is in sleep mode.

Pre-installed functionality

Here’s a rundown of the functionality you get out of the box from pre-installed apps:

E-reader for use with both books and periodicals

Music player

Video player

Audiobook player

Contacts app

Calendar app

Document reader for Word, PDF, RTF, and HTML files

The Amazon Silk web browser

Photos viewer

The IMDb database of movie trivia and facts

E-mail client

Integration for Facebook and Twitter

OfficeSuite for simple word processing and spreadsheet functionality

Check out the available apps! Tap Apps on the home screen and then tap Store. Here you find a number of free apps such as a Wi-Fi analyzer to check your Wi-Fi connection, free games, and more.

Kindle Fire HD gives you the ability to

Shop at Amazon for music, video, apps, books, and periodicals and to view or play that content.

Store Amazon-purchased content in the Amazon Cloud and play music and video selections from the Cloud rather than download them to your device. Amazon content doesn’t count toward your Cloud storage limit (20GB), but other content that’s backed up there does.

Send documents to yourself at a Kindle e-mail address that’s assigned when you register your device (see Chapter 3 for more about your Kindle e-mail address).

Make video calls using the free, available Skype for Kindle Fire HD app.

Transfer content from your computer to your Kindle Fire HD by using the micro-USB cable that came with your device. Using this cable (see Figure 1-3), you can copy photos, music, videos, and documents (Word or PDF) from any source onto your Kindle Fire HD.

Figure 1-3: The micro-USB cable, included with Kindle Fire HD.

The magic of Whispersync

If you’ve ever owned a Kindle e-reader, you know that downloading Amazon content to it has always been seamless. All you need for this process is access to a Wi-Fi network. Kindle Fire HD enjoys the same kind of easy download capability. You simply order a book, music, or a video, and within moments, the item appears on your tablet.

Whispersync also helps to sync items such as bookmarks that you’ve placed in e-books. Additionally, it syncs to where you left off in a book or video, and it does this across various devices that you use. For example, say that you have the Kindle e-reader app on your Kindle Fire HD, PC, and smartphone. Wherever you left off reading, whatever notes you entered, and whatever pages you bookmarked will be synced among all the devices you use without your having to lift a finger.

A great addition to the Kindle Fire HD is something called Immersion Reading. This feature lets you listen to an audiobook and have the current word that’s being spoken highlighted in the text. A nice feature for those late-night study sessions with textbooks!

Content, content, content!

Kindle Fire HD lets you easily consume media, meaning that you can play or read all kinds of music, movies, TV shows, podcasts, e-books, audiobooks, magazines, and newspapers. Amazon has built up an immense collection of content (more than 22 million movies, TV shows, songs, books, magazines, audiobooks, apps, and games). These numbers are rising all the time, too. Figure 1-4 shows the opening screen for the well-stocked Kindle store.

Figure 1-4: The Kindle store offers more than 1 million books for the Kindle e-reader app.

Tap a library such as Books, Music, or Videos on the Kindle Fire HD home screen. Tap Newsstand to view periodicals; tap Music to view songs and albums; tap Video to watch videos; and tap Apps to view your downloaded applications. From each of those screens, you can find additional content in the Amazon store by tapping the Store in the top-right corner of the screen.

If you have an Amazon Prime membership, you can also take advantage of the Kindle Owner’s Lending Library. This service lets you choose from more than 190,000 books that you can borrow at no charge for as long as you like. Amazon Prime members can borrow one book a month.

If you’re concerned about kids who access content over your Kindle Fire HD, check out the limitations you can put in place using Parental Controls, which we cover in Chapter 3.

You can also transfer documents from your computer or send them via e-mail and read them on Kindle Fire HD or share them via Amazon Cloud. Note, however, that those personal docs are not backed up in the Amazon Cloud.

Browsing with Amazon Silk

Silk is Kindle Fire HD’s browser (see Figure 1-5). Silk is simple to use, but the real benefits of Amazon Silk are all about browsing performance.

Figure 1-5: Amazon Silk offers simple-to-use browsing tools.

Amazon Silk is touted as a “cloud-accelerated split browser.” The browser uses the power of Amazon’s servers to load pages of a website quickly. Because the page-loading process is partly handled by servers in the Amazon Cloud, your pages simply display faster.

In addition, you get what’s called a persistent connection, which means that your tablet is always connected to the Amazon Internet backbone (the routes over which data travels to move among networks online) whenever it has access to a wireless connection.

A world of color on the durable display

The display on Kindle Fire HD 7-inch model offers a 1280 x 800 HD display (see Figure 1-6). The high-resolution screen makes for crisp colors when you’re watching that hit movie or reading a colorful magazine. In-plane switching is a technology that gives you a wide viewing angle on the Kindle Fire HD screen. So if you want to share your movie with a friend sitting next to you on the couch, she’ll have no problem seeing what’s on the screen from that side angle.

Figure 1-6: The bright display on Kindle Fire HD makes media shine.

In addition, the Kindle Fire HD screen is extremely strong and durable, so it should withstand most of the bumps and scratches you throw at it.

Of course, you should avoid dropping your Kindle Fire HD, exposing it to extreme temperatures, or spilling liquids on it. Perhaps anticipating the temporary insanity of a panicky moment, the User Guide also advises that if you do spill liquids, you shouldn’t heat the device in your microwave to dry it off.

Understanding the value of Amazon Prime

Kindle Fire HD comes with one free month of Amazon Prime. If you decide to pick up the service after your free month, it currently will cost you $79 a year. So what do you get for your money?

Prime includes free two-day shipping on millions of items and overnight shipping for only $3.99. Not every item offered on Amazon is eligible for Prime, but enough are that it’s a wonderful savings in time and money over the course of a year. You can probably pay for the membership with the free shipping on the first few orders you place. And getting your Amazon orders in only two days every time is sweet.

In addition, Prime membership gives you access to Prime Instant Videos, which includes thousands of movies and TV shows that you can stream to your Kindle Fire HD absolutely free. We’re not talking obscure 1970s sleepers here: Recent additions to Prime Instant Videos include TV series such as Sherlock and Man vs. Wild, and popular movies such as Iron Man 2, Mission Impossible 3, and Winter’s Bone.

If you don’t have a Prime account, your 30 days for the free account starts from the time you activate your Kindle Fire HD, not the first time you make a Prime purchase. We recommend that you start using it right away to take full advantage and decide whether the paid membership is for you.