The Kindle family is whiter, brighter and faster than ever. Amazon CEO Jeff Benzos announced a brand new Kindle Fire HD and Kindle Paperwhite at a press conference on Thursday. With Kindle Fire sales only reaching 4.2 percent of the global market, can Amazon make a comeback with their new Kindle Family? They definitely seem to be trying.
The new 8.9-inch Kindle Fire HD comes complete with dual Dolby Audio stereo speakers, dual band 5 GHz Wi-Fi connection (41 percent faster than iPad3, says Amazon), anti-glare technology and a 254 pixels per inch anti-glare display (iPad retina display contains 326 pixels per inch). The new Fire also comes in 4G LTE wireless with 32 or 64 GB of storage (plus free unlimited cloud storage) and a 7-inch option.
The Fire HD also features Audiobooks by Audible (yes, your Kindle will read to you), Whispersync and X-Ray technology for movies, books and textbooks. Whispersync uses the cloud to save all gaming, video and reading progress to all devices. X-Ray uses touch to tap into the internet and allows the user to learn more about the media on the screen.
The new Kindle Paperwhite reader now comes with a front-projected lighted display, screen brightness adjustment, 25 percent higher contrast than the Kindle and an eight week battery life.
Amazon also updated their regular Kindle Fire which now boasts 40 percent faster performance, twice the memory and a longer battery life than its predecessor.
The entire new Kindle family is now available for preorder on amazon.
With an iPad-dominated market (68 percent in the first quarter of 2012), the old Kindle Fire with its rushed operating system, failed to become more than just a holiday gift.
With the speculation of an iPad Mini being released sometime soon (perhaps at the September 12th press conference), time will only tell if the new Kindle family can gain some footing in the race to be the number one tablet.
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Mollie Paige is an intern working at the Toronto Standard. You can follow her on twitter @MolliePB
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