Amazon today introduced all-new Fire HD tablets, in either 8-inch or 10.1-inch screen sizes, that boast an incredibly thin and light design, quad-core processor, stereo speakers with Dolby Audio, front- and rear-facing cameras, and microSD card support providing up to 128GB of expandable storage.
With its 8” display, Fire HD 8 is the perfect tablet for web browsing, reading, or gaming. It is available in four color options: black, magenta, blue, and tangerine, and offers an incredible value at only $149.99. Fire HD 10 is Amazon’s largest tablet yet, with a 10.1” display that is perfect for widescreen entertainment. Available in two color options, black and white, it’s only $229.99. Fire HD tablets start shipping September 30.
New Fire HD features:
- Thin and light industrial design—at 7.7mm, Amazon’s thinnest tablets ever.
- Crisp and vivid HD display with over 1 million pixels; with a 16:10 widescreen aspect ratio, Fire HD 8 offers 15% more HD video viewing area and Fire HD 10 offers 22% more HD video viewing area than similarly-sized tablets with a 4:3 aspect ratio.
- Powerful quad-core processor running at up to 1.5 GHz for fast app switching and fluidity.
- Up to 128GB of expandable storage via microSD—enjoy even more videos, music, games, and photos while offline.
- Stereo speakers with Dolby Audio, which are custom-tuned for immersive, high-quality sound.
- Powered by the latest version of Fire OS—Fire OS 5 “Bellini”—with an updated user interface that is inspired by the beautiful layouts of high-quality magazines, making it fun to browse for your next movie, song, or book, or easy to pick up where you left off. Plus, Fire OS 5 includes hundreds of new and upgraded features, platform updates, and Amazon-exclusive services.
- First tablet with Amazon Underground, a one-of-a-kind app store experience where over $10,000 in apps, games, and even in-app items are actually free—including extra lives, unlocked levels, unlimited add-on packs, and more.
- For Prime members, On Deck automatically keeps your Fire tablet current with popular Prime movies and TV shows, as well as Amazon Original Series, so you always have something good to watch. Importantly, On Deck only uses the available storage on your tablet, opportunistically in a special shadow mode. When you download something, On Deck automatically makes room for your selected content—there’s no hassle of needing to clear out space yourself.
- Word Runner, a new feature designed to help you read faster—one word at a time— brings each word to the center of the screen to where your eyes are already focused. Word Runner gradually builds to your preferred reading speed, then algorithmically and automatically slows down for difficult words, punctuation, and paragraph breaks.
- Amazon FreeTime, Activity Center provides an easy way for parents to see how their kids are spending time on their Fire tablet—from how much time their kids spend playing games to which websites they visit.
- Mayday Screen Sharing lets an Amazon expert guide you remotely through any feature on your screen, available 24×7, 365 days a year—for free.
- Access to over 38 million movies, TV shows, songs, books, magazines, Android apps and games, and more—with free, unlimited cloud storage for all Amazon content.
- Amazon-exclusive features customers love, including ASAP, X-Ray, Second Screen, Family Library, Amazon FreeTime, Prime Video downloads, and more.
- Video chat with friends and family with the 720p front-facing camera; take photos and capture videos in 1080p full HD with the 5MP rear-facing camera.
- Free, unlimited cloud storage for all photos taken on Fire devices, automatically backed-up wirelessly.
- All-day battery life delivers up to 8 hours of reading, browsing the web, listening to music, and watching video.
Amazon’s thinnest tablets ever at 7.7mm, the new Fire HD tablets are incredibly light—in fact, at 432 grams, Fire HD 10 is lighter than iPad Air. Fire HD 8’s widescreen 16:10 aspect ratio also offers 15% more HD video viewing area than the new iPad mini 4; Fire HD 10 offers 22% more HD video viewing area than the latest generation iPad Air. Finally Amazon says Fire HD is almost 2x more durable than the latest generation iPad Air, thanks to its Gorilla Glass display.
Price and Availability (September 30, 2015)
- Amazon Fire HD 8 is available for pre-order beginning today with 8GB or 16GB of memory starting at $149.99 at www.amazon.com/FireHD8 and comes in four fun color options: black, magenta, blue, and tangerine.
- Amazon Fire HD 10 is also available for pre-order beginning today with 16GB or 32GB of memory starting at $229.99 at www.amazon.com/FireHD10. It is available in two color options: black starts shipping September 30, 2015 and white starts shipping in the coming weeks.
Customers can also purchase Fire HD protective covers starting at $39.99 and a protective Bluetooth keyboard case for Fire HD 10 for $99.99.
