Amazon Kindle Fire HD: 7- and 8.9-inch tablets starting at $199

Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Corporate News, Handhelds

Alongside the Kindle Paperwhite, the other big news from this morning's Amazon Kindle event was the new Kindle Fire HD. The Fire HD will be available in two sizes--a 7-inch model, and an 8.9-inch version.

The larger version sports a 1920 x 1200 254 ppi display that has a polarizing filter (and laminated touch sensor) to reduce glare. On the inside, the Kindle Fire 8.9 is powered by a TI OMAP 4470 CPU and 1GB RAM. It's got dual stereo speakers (very nice for a tablet,) a high definition front-facing camera (with Skype support,) and even HDMI out. Additionally, it has MIMO dual-band Wi-Fi support, making its wireless connection up to 41% faster than that of the new iPad. Amazon is selling these for just $299 for the 16GB model, a full $100 less than we expected, and they'll ship on November 20th. The 32GB model sells for $369. Those who need mobile data connectivity aren't left out in the cold, as there's also a Kindle Fire HD with 4G LTE.

If you're looking for something a little more portable, Amazon also unveiled a 7-inch version of the Kindle Fire HD that costs $199 for 16GB, or $249 for 32GB. Everything is pretty much the same, although the display resolution on the smaller version is 1280 x 800, understandably. That's the same as you'd find on Google's Nexus 7. Amazon says you'll get 11 hours of battery life when using the 7-inch model.

You can order the Kindle Fire HD 8.9 and Kindle Fire HD 7 now.