A big price tag isn't necessarily indicative of a great tablet. Google's Nexus 7 (The Nexus 7 Review: Google's First Tablet Gets Benchmarked) proves that you don't have to pay out your ears to get a lot of value. Prior to the Nexus 7, most of the tablet devices selling for less than $300 were either light on performance or features, hobbled by an older operating system, a lack of storage capacity, or previous-gen hardware.
Yes, trade-offs between pricing and performance even applied to Amazon's original Kindle Fire (The Amazon Kindle Fire: Benchmarked, Tested, And Reviewed). With the company's name and shopping structure behind it, though, a $199 price tag pushed Kindle Fires out the doors with haste, even if it wasn't the fanciest tablet on the block. As a delivery mechanism for content purchased from Amazon, the Fire did what it needed to do well enough to get folks thinking twice before spending two or three times as much on an iPad.

A year later, tablet vendors know that cutting corners to hit lower prices won't work. The Nexus 7 changed the rules, and it's now possible to get the performance of a $500 device in a $200 package. This, along with plans to roll out a slightly improved Kindle Fire HD, likely compelled Amazon to drop the price on its Kindle Fire by $40.
| Tablet | Operating System | Screen Size | Resolution | Launch Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nexus 7 (8 GB) | Android 4.1 (Jelly Bean) | 7" | 1280x800 | $199 |
| Nexus 7 (16 GB) | Android 4.1 (Jelly Bean) | 7" | 1280x800 | $249 |
| Kindle Fire (8 GB, First-Gen) | Customized Android 2.3 (Gingerbread) | 7" | 1024x600 | $199 (no longer available) |
| Kindle Fire (8 GB, Second-Gen) | Customized Android 4.0 (ICS) | 7" | 1024x600 | $159 |
| Kindle Fire HD (16 GB) | Customized Android 4.0 (ICS) | 7" | 1280x800 | $199 |
The more affordable Kindle Fire is also faster. Priced at $159, it now includes a 1.2 GHz processor (200 MHz quicker than the first-gen model), 1 GB of RAM (up from 512 MB), and Google's Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) operating system. Amazon refers to this product refresh as the "second-generation" Kindle Fire. Since the first-gen Kindle Fire differs considerably from the second-generation tablet, Amazon plans to support each product separately, and the discontinued first-gen Kindle Fire will not be upgradable to Android 4.0.
Stepping up to the Kindle Fire HD reveals Amazon's new pride and joy, though. Like the non-HD-named model, the Kindle Fire HD boasts a 1.2 GHz CPU, 1 GB of RAM, and the same Android 4.0 operating environment. The HD suffix indicates that the 7" tablet gets a 1280x800 screen, along with an OMAP 4460 SoC. The 4460 is almost identical to TI's OMAP 4430, which was used in the first- and second-gen Kindle Fires, except for its faster graphics hardware.
| Specifications | Length | Width | Height | Screen Size | Resolution | Aspect Ratio | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Google Nexus 7 | 7.8” | 4.7” | 0.41” | 7” | 1280x800 | 16:10 | 0.75 lb. |
| Amazon Kindle Fire (1st- and 2nd-Gen) | 7.5" | 4.7" | 0.45" | 7" | 1024x600 | 16:10 | 0.89 lb. |
| Amazon Kindle Fire HD | 7.6" | 5.4" | 0.41" | 7" | 1280x800 | 16:10 | 0.87 lb. |
| Apple iPad 2 (3G) | 9.5" | 7.31" | .34" | 9.7" | 1024x768 | 4:3 | 1.33 lb. |
| Apple iPad 3 (3G) | 9.5" | 7.31" | .37" | 9.7" | 2048x1536 | 4:3 | 1.46 lb. |
| Motorola Xoom | 9.8 | 6.6" | .5" | 10.1" | 1280x800 | 16:10 | 1.5 lb. |
| Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 | 10.1" | 6.9" | 0.34" | 10.1" | 1280x800 | 16:10 | 1.3 lb. |
Although its internals are improved, the second-gen Kindle Fire is identical to its predecessor on the outside. Unfortunately, that means our criticisms of Amazon's first-generation tablet carry over to the latest incarnation. Mainly, it's both heavy and thick for its seven-inch screen. And, aside from its beefcake dimensions, matching physical attributes make telling the tablets apart almost impossible without turning them on and digging into their software.

There is no mistaking the Kindle Fire HD, however. The imperceptibly lighter and slightly thinner Kindle Fire HD is more comfortable to hold, though we're not crazy about the wider chassis that extends out beyond the non-HD models and Google's Nexus 7. Fortunately, there are some practical advantages to the extra width. Holding onto a narrow tablet often forces your thumb to press against the display trim, resulting in inadvertent gesture commands. You may like the wider Kindle Fire HD, then, if only because it helps ergonomically in certain situations.

Back to the second-gen Kindle Fire. Like its predecessor, the Fire lacks any physical controls, aside from a power button on the tablet's bottom edge. In contrast, the Kindle Fire HD features a physical volume control positioned between the headphone port and power button along the tablet’s top edge.

The Kindle Fire HD endears itself to home theater enthusiasts with a Type D micro-HDMI port that facilitates easy connectivity with HDTVs. Naturally, Amazon provides this feature with the hope that you'll watch purchased movies on a big screen. But keep your charger handy when you hook up to an entertainment system because watching movies drains your battery quite rapidly.

Although they're certainly appreciated, physical volume control and HDMI output hardly impress us; most other tablets already include those capabilities. But Amazon has one other ace up its sleeve, the Kindle Fire HD's "exclusive custom Dolby audio dual-driver stereo speakers," which can be inspected by popping off the rubberized plastic back cover. Holding the tablet in landscape mode, the speakers are located directly beneath the textured strip running along the back.

Amazon claims its audio setup results in "deeper bass in your music, loud, rumbling movie soundtracks, and room-filling stereo sound without distortion, even at higher volumes." Listening to music, we definitely perceived lower-frequency bass. The improved speakers are more difficult to appreciate during movie dialog, but sound effects are pretty great.
These are still very small speakers, though. They're not altogether different from what you might find on an Ultrabook. And while they're superior to the speakers found on competing tablets, their value is situational. We're most inclined to reach for headphones or earbuds when it comes time to watch movies (particularly in public places).
Amazon uses Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) as the operating system on its new tablets. However, the user interface doesn't really change. Content is still arranged in a revolving carousel (view in portrait mode), where you'll find the most frequently used apps and programs. Recently-visited websites show up in the carousel as well, depicted with a small thumbnail snapshot of the site.
Swiping from the top displays a number of options, including Wi-Fi settings, brightness, volume, and more. This drop-down menu also serves as a notification tray and download tracker.
Applications are divided between those installed on the device itself, or those that exist in the cloud. Some of the options, like Contacts and Personal Videos, exist on both, enabling offline access. Other Web-based services like Hulu and Skype, obviously require network connectivity.
The Kindle Fire and Kindle Fire HD are primarily consumption devices for content purchased through Amazon. This much is known and accepted. Clicking on a product link takes you to its page on amazon.com. An initial simplified product view hides user reviews, which only become visible when you switch to the more detailed product view. The UI is clean, and its focus is unquestionably designed to encourage transactions. Snagging a Bear Grylls Jacket on an Amazon Lightning Deal is quick and simple, with easy-to-select drop-down boxes for size/color, and simple checkout and payment, with or without Amazon’s 1-Click ordering.
Once purchased, books become available for offline viewing, and they're automatically formatted to enable viewing text at the appropriate size.
Magazines uniquely give you an animated motion when you flip through their pages.
Alternate Views For Newsstand In Portrait Mode
Amazon's Prime service provides access to Instant Video titles, videos available for instant streaming at no additional change with your Prime membership ($79 annually).
There is a catch with Amazon's Prime service, though: these videos cannot be downloaded. Other videos listed with the "rent" or "buy" options can be downloaded and viewed offline without a Wi-Fi connection.
All streaming videos are displayed within the same horizontally-oriented interface featuring controls for volume, track position, play/pause, quick rewind (10 seconds), and general navigation. Other than repositioned controls, it is a near duplicate of what we saw a year ago on the first-generation Kindle Fire. The interface is designed to give you access to more information and control, but it can also be a distraction. Tapping on the screen lets you toggle the controls on and off (including the top status bar).
A new feature is X-Ray, which displays a quick link to the IMDb bio information of actors on-screen at any given time.
If the screenshots look a little dark, that's because the controls are overlaid on top of the video image. Any rotation from landscape to portrait mode is automatically detected, and the controls automatically reorient themselves. This was lacking in the past.
As we'd expect, video is mirrored when you hook the Kindle Fire HD up to an external display. This isn't a bug or anything, but the fact that we're not able to extend the tablet's display to the second screen is an annoyance we can trace all of the way back to Motorola's Xoom.
Apple's iPads only output video to the external monitor, and that approach makes more sense. If you're going to the trouble of connecting a screen to your tablet for movie playback, you don't want the image playing back on the smaller device simultaneously. We'd like to see the behavior of Android-based devices change, if only to preserve battery life.

CPU Performance
| Hardware Comparison | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| SoC | CPU | RAM | GPU | |
| Kindle Fire (First-Gen) | OMAP 4430 | 1.0 GHz Dual-Core Cortex-A9 | 512 MB | PowerVR SGX540 @ 304 MHz |
| Kindle Fire (Second-Gen) | OMAP 4430 | 1.2 GHz Dual-Core Cortex-A9 | 1 GB | PowerVR SGX540 @ 304 MHz |
| Kindle Fire HD | OMAP 4460 | 1.2 GHz Dual-Core Cortex-A9 | 1 GB | PowerVR SGX540 @ 384 MHz |
| Nexus 7 | Tegra 3 (T30L) | 1.3 GHz Quad-Core Cortex-A9 | 1 GB | ULP GeForce |
The OMAP 44x0's dual-core ARM Cortex-A9 processor now operates at 1.2 GHz, but it still falls between 20 and 30% behind the quad-core Tegra 3 at 1.3 GHz in our integer and floating-point benchmarks. Although its new tablets sport a faster SoC, Amazon continues to trail when it comes to performance. When competing tablets based on Qualcomm's S4 Pro emerge, the Kindle Fire and Kindle Fire HD will fall even further behind.
| GeekBench v2 | Overall | Integer | FPU | Memory |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| A5/A5X (Dual-Core Cortex-A9, 1.0 GHz) (iPad 2/iPad 3) | 764 | 691 | 921 | 830 |
| OMAP 4430 (Dual-Core Cortex-A9, 1.0 GHz) (Kindle Fire, First-Gen) | 827 | 591 | 1139 | 974 |
| OMAP 4430 (Dual-Core Cortex-A9, 1.2 GHz) (Kindle Fire, Second-Gen) | 1085 | 881 | 1571 | 1001 |
| OMAP 4460 (Dual-Core Cortex-A9, 1.2 GHz) (Amazon Kindle Fire HD) | 1113 | 900 | 1540 | 1098 |
| Tegra 3, T30L (Quad-Core Cortex-A9, 1.3 GHz) Google Nexus 7 | 1527 | 1298 | 2288 | 1222 |
| S4 Pro (Quad-Core Krait, 1.5 GHz) Qualcomm Dev Platform | 1960 | 1400 | 3292 | 1276 |
GPU Performance
Both the OMAP 4430 and 4460 employ Imagination Technologies' PowerVR SGX 540. If this graphics engine sounds familiar to you, that might be because it's derived from the same architecture as the GPUs in Apple's A4 and A5.
| GPU Subsystem | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| PowerVR SGX 535 (Apple A4) | PowerVR SGX 540 (OMAP 4430) | PowerVR SGX 543 (Apple A5) | |
| SIMD | USSE | USSE | USSE2 |
| Pipelines | 2 | 4 | 4 |
| TMUs | 2 | 2 | 2 |
| Bus Width (in bits) | 64 | 64 | 64 |
| Triangle rate @ 200 MHz | 14 MTriangles/s | 28 MTriangles/s | 35 MTriangles/s |
The SGX 543 used in the Apple A5 includes four USSE2 (Universal Scalable Shader Engine 2.0) pipes. In comparison, the SGX 540 found in Amazon's new tablets features the same number of pipes based on the older USSE design. The SGX 535 used in Apple's A4 hails from the same GPU generation as the SGX 540, but features only two USSE pipes.
| GLBenchmark 2.1.2 | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Egypt Standard | Pro Standard | Egypt Offscreen (720p) | Pro Offscreen (720p) | Fill Rate | |
| PowerVR SGX543MP2 (iPad 2) | 6661 frames (59 FPS) | 2962 frames (59 FPS) | 10 146 frames (90 FPS) | 7352 frames (147 FPS) | 998.24 Mtexels/sec |
| PowerVR SGX543MP4 (iPad 3) | 6709 frames (59 FPS) | 2975 frames (60 FPS) | 15 663 frames (139 FPS) | 12 546 frames (251 FPS) | 1964.68 Mtexels/sec |
| PowerVR SGX540 (Kindle Fire, First-Gen) | 2966 frames (26 FPS) | 1952 frames (39 FPS) | 2632 frames (23 FPS) | 2079 frames (42 FPS) | 234.3 Mtexels/sec |
| PowerVR SGX540 (Kindle Fire, Second-Gen) | 3492 frames (31 FPS | 2399 frames (48 FPS) | 3296 frames (29 FPS) | 2478 frames (50 FPS) | 226.1 Mtexels/sec |
| PowerVR SGX540 (Kindle Fire HD) | 2835 frames (25 FPS) | 2073 frames (41 FPS) | 3709 frames (33 FPS) | 2656 frames (53 FPS) | 225.01 Mtexels/sec |
| Tegra 3 (Nexus 7) | 5968 frames (53 FPS) | 2830 frames (57 FPS) | 7073 frames (63 FPS) | 4095 frames (82 FPS) | 467.57 Mtexels/sec |
| Adreno 320 (S4 Pro MDP) | - | - | 15447 (137 FPS) | 9560 frames (191 FPS) | 795.62 Mtexels/sec |
If you've already read Snapdragon S4 Pro: Krait And Adreno 320, Benchmarked, then you know Qualcomm's S4 Pro has a performance advantage thanks to its Krait processor cores. It doesn't have the lead in graphics, though. Rather, the S4 Pro normalized to 720p edges-out Nvidia's Tegra 3 and comes up just short of the PowerVR SGX543MP4 in Apple's A5X.
Of course, it's interesting to compare graphics engines rendering at the same resolution for evaluation purposes. But, in the real-world, the devices you find each SoC in employ different resolutions. Amazon's second-gen Kindle Fire outperforms its predecessor, but the Kindle Fire HD is actually the slowest of the three. It does benefit from a slightly faster GPU, but is then hampered by a higher resolution.
The second-generation Kindle Fire outperforms its predecessor, but the Kindle Fire HD is actually the slowest of the three. It benefits from a slightly higher GPU clock speed, but it is hampered by its higher resolution. Compared to the Kindles, Google's Tegra 3-equipped Nexus 7 dominates, even though it uses the same resolution as the Fire HD.
| GLBenchmark 2.5 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Egypt HD | Egypt HD Offscreen Fixed Time (1080p) | GLBenchmark Egypt HD Offscreen (1080p) | Fill Rate Offscreen | |
| PowerVR SGX543MP2 (iPad 2) | 2446 frames (22 FPS) | 102.7 s (11 FPS) | 1507 frames (13 FPS) | 938.6 Mtexels/sec |
| PowerVR SGX543MP4 (iPad 3) | 2363 frames (21 FPS) | 57.4 s (20 FPS) | 2731 frames (24 FPS) | 1772.8 Mtexels/sec |
| PowerVR SGX540 (Kindle Fire, First-Gen) | 824 frames (7.3 FPS) | 275.4 s (4.1 FPS) | 532 frames (4.7 FPS) | 289.3 Mtexels/sec |
| PowerVR SGX540 (Kindle Fire, Second-Gen) | 960 frames (8.5 FPS) | 267.3 s (4.2 FPS) | 566 frames (5.0 FPS) | 297.8 Mtexels/sec |
| PowerVR SGX540 (Kindle Fire HD) | 919 frames (8.1 FPS) | 271.3 s (5.2 FPS) | 691 frames (6.1 FPS) | 284.0 Mtexel/s |
| Tegra 3 (Nexus 7) | 1464 frames (13 FPS) | 148.2 s (7.6 FPS) | 995 frames (8.8 FPS) | 490.3 Mtexels/sec |
| Adreno 320 (S4 Pro MDP) | - | 54.1 s (21 FPS) | 2927 frames (26 FPS) | 530.1 Mtexels/sec |
Going back to normalized testing, forcing each solution to run at 1920x1080 changes the story. Now, Qualcomm's Adreno 320 wins by a small margin over the SGX543MP4, even though it can't compete with the PowerVR architecture's fill rate.
GLBenchmark 2.5 improves on the prior version in a number of ways. First, the benchmark focuses exclusively on the Egypt scene. Adding higher-quality textures makes it a more taxing workload, and cranking up the intensity hurts the A5X.

Although cables are inconvenient, plugging your tablet into your PC or Mac should be the quickest and easiest way to get content on it. Unfortunately, our experience with the first-gen Kindle was downright terrible. Transferring data was "excruciatingly slow," to quote our original review, requiring more than 17 minutes to copy a 2.8 GB movie. Those are nearly USB 1.1-class speeds.
Fortunately, this problem is fixed in the new tablets.
| USB File Transfer 2.8 GB H.264-Encoded MP4 Movie | ||
|---|---|---|
| Avg. Transfer Rate | Time | |
| Amazon Kindle Fire, First-Gen (OS-Level File Transfer) | 2.76 MB/s | 17:14.615 |
| Amazon Kindle Fire, Second-Gen (OS-Level File Transfer) | 7.58 MB/s | 06:17.324 |
| Amazon Kindle Fire HD (OS-Level File Transfer) | 11.13 MB/s | 04:17.435 |
| Apple iPad 2 (iTunes) | 19.19 MB/s | 02:29.090 |
| Google Nexus 7 (OS-Level File Transfer) | 10.07 MB/s | 04:44.235 |
It appears that Amazon resolved its storage performance issues, seeing that the second-generation Kindle Fire requires just over six minutes to transfer our 2.8 GB file. That's roughly one-third of the time it took on the first-gen Fire. The Fire HD is actually the fastest Android-based tablet, averaging 11.13 MB/s. The iPad 2 outperforms them all, though, nearly halving the time taken by Amazon's Kindle Fire HD.
| Amazon Kindle Fire (First- and Second-Gen) | Amazon Kindle Fire HD | Apple iPad 2 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| NAND Chip | Samsung KLM8G2FEJA | Samsung KLMAC2GE4A | Toshiba TH58NVG7D2FLA89 |
| NAND Bus | eMMC v4.41 | eMMC v4.45 | Toggle 1.0 |
| NAND Bus Speed | 104 Mb/s | 200 Mb/s | 133 Mb/s |
Why is there a discrepancy between the first- and second-generation Kindle Fires, and why does the iPad 2 perform so well?
Kindle Fire: Samsung KLMAC2GE4A
Almost every Android-based tablet we have ever tested employs eMMC NAND, whereas Apple is the only major tablet manufacturer to use vanilla MLC NAND (the same stuff found in our favorite SSDs). Apple's SoCs contain extra logic to add block management and ECC. In contrast, MMC-based solutions handle management at the NAND level, so the operating system doesn't have to bother issuing commands. This also means that eMMC NAND is blind to most operating system functions, resulting in a significant amount of performance overhead.
USB MSC: First-Gen Kindle Fire
MTP: Second-Gen Kindle Fire & Kindle Fire HD
Also, on its first-gen Kindle Fire, Amazon implemented a generic USB Mass Storage Class (MSC) driver. It is a detriment to performance, but a boon for system compatibility, since the tablet appears as a removable drive under Windows 7 and Mac OS X.
Mac OS X: Sideloading Onto MTP Tablet
Like most other Android-based tablets, the second-generation Kindle Fire and Fire HD employ Microsoft's Media Transfer Protocol, which yields a significant storage performance bump. The tablets show up as plug-and-play media devices in Windows 7, but require Android File Transfer for compatibility in Mac OS X.
LCD Performance (Background Info)
After spending considerable time benchmarking Amazon's newest tablets, two things can be definitively concluded:
- The second-generation Kindle Fire is identical to the first with respect to LCD quality.
- The Kindle Fire HD is a marked improvement over its non-HD counterpart.
The Kindle Fire HD's pixel density is 216 PPI, identical to the Nexus 7. This doesn't mean the two tablets' screen perform the same, though. In fact, the Kindle Fire HD proves to be substantially brighter, reaching a maximum of 414 cd/m2, which is roughly 10% higher than the Nexus 7.
Despite a slightly low contrast ratio at ~860:1, the Kindle Fire HD renders 59% of the Adobe RGB 1998 and 84% of SRB. This is a marked improvement over the Nexus 7. Google's tablet excels in red and blue production. However, that performance advantage occurs only in midtones. At lighter hues, Amazon's HD tablet shines.
| Specifications | Screen Size | Resolution | PPI |
|---|---|---|---|
| Google Nexus 7 | 7” | 1280x800 | 216 |
| Amazon Kindle Fire | 7" | 1024x600 | 169 |
| Amazon Kindle Fire HD | 7” | 1280x800 | 216 |
| Apple iPad 2 (3G) | 9.7" | 1024x768 | 132 |
| Apple iPad 3 (3G) | 9.7" | 2048x1536 | 264 |





Battery Life & Recharge Benchmarks (Background Info)

The second-generation Kindle Fire and Fire HD are middle-of-the-road performers in our movie playback test, delivering about six hours of battery life.
Notably, the MIMO Wi-Fi antenna configuration seems to be a major benefit in the browsing test, where the Kindle Fire HD overcomes the deficit seen above to enable more than seven hours of use. That's enough to almost match the Nexus 7.

Normalized Brightness Benchmarks
We know that a great number of users set their mobile devices to maximum brightness, which is why most of our battery data is taken in this real-world way. However, tablets don't share the same brightness ceiling, making such a comparison imprecise.
Although the battery life numbers below are captured at standardized settings to put each screen on even ground, it's common to dial up brightness on a low-gamut LCD to improve readability or visibility. Moreover, even if you put two devices calibrated for the same brightness side by side, there's no guarantee they'll look the same due to differences in screen quality. The only thing we're doing is fixing the luminance of a display for testing purposes.

Normalized to 200 cd/m2 (or nits), the Kindle Fire HD runs for nearly 10 hours while watching H.264-encoded video content. We don't have the first-gen Kindle Fire here to compare any more, but the second-generation model runs for seven and a half hours. But both tablets fall slightly behind Google's Nexus 7.

When it comes to Web browsing and music playback, the Kindle Fire HD jumps to the front of the pack, topping the third-gen iPad.

Gaming is becoming far more common on tablets. Unfortunately, it's difficult for us to find cross-platform benchmarks because there are so few games that run on both iOS and Android. Riptide GP is one of the few, and we put it on a demo loop to drain battery life. In some ways, this test is less forgiving to Tegra 3-based tablets because Riptide is specially optimized for Nvidia's SoC. As a result, we do see the Fire HD and second-gen Fire ahead of the Nexus 7, though behind the iPads.
Recharging
Amazon no longer ships an AC charger with its tablets. So, our recharge benchmarks for the second-generation Kindle Fire and Fire HD are the result of using the Amazon's new PowerFast charger, sold separately for $10.

With charging times to 90% under three hours and to 100% just over that, the second-gen Kindle Fire and Kindle Fire HD are ready to hit the road again in less time than either of our iPads and both of Samsung's Galaxy Tabs.


Amazon knows that its customers will be using the Kindle Fire and Kindle Fire HD to stream multimedia content from its paid subscription and Instant Video (on-demand) services. So, the company claims to have prioritized wireless networking performance, which should theoretically improve the experience of anyone using the tablets the way Amazon anticipates.
Naturally, then, Amazon makes a big deal about the Kindle Fire HD's dual Wi-Fi antennas. By enabling reception/transmission over both antennas simultaneously, data throughput and quality of service should both increase at longer distances away from your wireless router.
We're happy to see Amazon minimizing the device-side bottleneck, but it's of course important to point out that most of us don't have Internet connections able to keep up with what the Kindle Fire HD is purportedly able to accommodate. Amazon's chart suggests its latest tablet is capable of 31 Mb/s. The fastest U-verse plan from AT&T, Max Turbo, has a downstream data rate between 18.1 and 24 Mb/s. Even at that speed, the difference between Google's tablet and Amazon's is almost completely masked.
| Average Throughput of 1 GB file, 10 feet From Linksys E4200 | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Google Nexus 7 | Amazon Kindle Fire, Second-Gen | Amazon Kindle Fire HD | |
| 802.11g, 2.4 GHz | 21.7 Mb/s | 13.5 Mb/s | 16.5 Mb/s |
| 802.11n, 2.4 GHz | 22.6 Mb/s | - | 19.1 Mb/s |
We aren't quite able to replicate Amazon's numbers in our lab. Achieving 19.1 Mb/s, the Kindle Fire HD is just slightly slower than Google's Nexus 7 using 802.11n. But Amazon has certainly come a long way in improving wireless performance. After all, the second-gen Kindle Fire only manages 13.5 Mb/s on an 802.11g network.
| Distance Before Signal Drop During Transfer Test, Linksys E4200 | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Google Nexus 7 | Amazon Kindle Fire, Second-Gen | Amazon Kindle Fire HD | |
| 802.11g, 2.4 GHz | 15 feet | 18 feet | 22 feet |
| 802.11n, 2.4 GHz | 15 feet | - | 22 feet |
Even if performance doesn't increase substantially due to MIMO, that's not the only variable in play here. We're also looking to see if the antenna configuration helps maintain a wireless connection farther from the access point. Again, using a Linksys E4200, we held onto each tablet and started walking away with our file transfer test in progress.
We passed our first interior wall three feet from the access point. The second wall was seven feet away. And the third wall was about 11 feet away. Before we could pass through an exterior wall, the Nexus 7 cut out. We made it an additional two feet past that final wall, 16 feet away from the access point, before the second-gen Kindle Fire spat back an error. And the Kindle Fire HD held on for four more feet.
Although we can't quite get behind Amazon's performance claims, we can say that the Kindle Fire HD outperforms any of the company's prior efforts with regard to wireless performance, and it does so from greater distances thanks to a dual-antenna configuration.
The Kindle Fire HD delivers better ergonomics, a slight bump in performance, better audio quality, improved color fidelity/vividness, more consistent network connectivity, and the refinements introduced in Google's Ice Cream Sandwich release. In short, the Kindle Fire HD is perhaps the first tablet truly worthy of Amazon's established brand name.
I know it's way too easy to say something like this in retrospect, but this is what the first-gen Kindle Fire should have been, and it really makes the second-gen version of the non-HD tablet seem unnecessary. Amazon might have sped up its SoC and installed a new operating system, but the vanilla Fire still comes across as outdated. For $40 less than the Kindle Fire HD or Nexus 7, you only get half of the storage space. Plus, the second-gen Kindle Fire is significantly slower than Google's tablet.

As enthusiasts, performance is really where we get rubbed the wrong way. Amazon leverages a tried-and-true fourth-generation OMAP SoC. But it's already losing to more competitive Tegra 3-based tablets, which will be replaced by Tegra 4 early next year, we hear.
And our complaints extend beyond the CPU or graphics functionality. Amazon improves the Kindle Fire HD's Wi-Fi connectivity, but the second-gen model is still quite a bit slower than Google's Nexus 7. Further, the benefits enabled by Amazon's Silk browser haven't changed for the most part. In the end, you're better off disabling "accelerated page loading" under the browser's settings.
So, why not just buy a Nexus 7 and be done with it? After all, that was the first tablet we pinned an award to.
Well, content distribution is still a battleground. Buying a Nexus 7 locks you into Google's Play store and its movies, newspapers, magazines, and music. Amazon does the same thing with its Kindle Fire and Kindle Fire HD, but this is arguably Amazon's home turf more than Google's. If you want to watch streaming Amazon Prime content on a Nexus 7, you have to install Flash and Firefox. And you can't access Google Play on one of Amazon's tablets unless you root them and load Google API programs.
The tablet business model is different now than it was last year. The major content distributors have seen the potential, and are jumping into the hardware game with gusto. They don't mind selling cheap tablets, so long as they make their money back on music, movies, books, and magazines. Unlike before, where you'd get locked into Apple's ecosystem, Google's (with any Android-based device), or HP's, now you have companies like Amazon carving out their own niche, locking you into a separate network, almost like a cellular provider. You'll have to be the one to decide if you're cool with that.
For us, our opinion of last year's Kindle Fire still holds true for today's Kindle Fire HD. If you are an Amazon content addict, this tablet is going to seem like a substantial upgrade over the older Kindle Fire; it actually might be worth upgrading. But if you don't make frequent purchases from Amazon, you're going to want to think about a more performance-oriented Android-based tablet from a manufacturer offering faster hardware and a less restrictive software environment.
Amazon doesn't include drivers that support the native Android Debug Bridge for Android's SDK, which means you need to perform a manual modification for Windows to recognize the tablet (a necessary step if you want to take screen shots on it).
- Turn on "Allow Installation of Applications From Unknown Sources" and "Enable ADB"
- In Windows, put following device descriptions into the [Google.NTx86] and [Google.NTamd64] sections of extrasgoogleusb_driverandroid_winusb.inf:
;Kindle Fire
%SingleAdbInterface% = USB_Install, USBVID_1949&PID_0006
%CompositeAdbInterface% = USB_Install, USBVID_1949&PID_0006&MI_01
;Kindle Fire HD
%SingleAdbInterface% = USB_Install, USBVID_1949&PID_0007
%CompositeAdbInterface% = USB_Install, USBVID_1949&PID_0007&MI_01 - Add 0x1949 into the .android/adb_usb.ini file in the Home directory by using following command from the shell prompt.
In Windows:
echo 0x1949 >> %HOMEPATH%.androidadb_usb.ini
In OS X:
echo "0x1949" >> $HOME/.android/adb_usb.ini - In Windows: Restart. Plug in the tablet, and when driver installation fails, select "Have Disk" under "Device Manager." Select the driver named "Composite ADB Interface."



















