Kindle Fire HD 7 And 8.9 Available for Pre-Order in 170+ Countries

The Amazon Kindle Fire HD slate was released as a 7 inch version on September 14, 2012, while the 8.9 inch version was only available since 20 November, 2012. Back in March, the 8.9 inch version had its price slashed and was released in multiple countries, but there were still many regions that had no access to the device. Now, more than 6 months after the original launched, Amazon has announced that its devices have now gone up for pre-order in over 170 countries and region worldwide.

Until recently, Amazon's slate only had eyes for the United States, Japan and parts of Europe. If you are eager to find out if your country made the pre-order list (with an expected shipping date of 13 June), have a look at the full release here. The Kindle HD 7" and Kindle HD 8.9" are currently available for $214 and $284, respectively.

A second press release by Amazon states that its Android Appstore is now fully operational in "nearly 200 countries."

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7 Comments Comment from the forums

killerclick

Thanks Amazon, but a year too late.
Reply
w8gaming

My view as well. Too late for Amazon. They should have expanded beyond United States and Europe markets when their products were selling well. Now the low end tablets market are dominated by Samsung, Asus and other Asian manufacturers. I do not see how they can compete effectively at this point.
Reply
Azn Cracker

^ They probably didn't have the supply to meet the demand of 170 more countries.
Reply
alidan

10876188 said:
My view as well. Too late for Amazon. They should have expanded beyond United States and Europe markets when their products were selling well. Now the low end tablets market are dominated by Samsung, Asus and other Asian manufacturers. I do not see how they can compete effectively at this point.

amazon puts these out for basically at cost prices, what that means is you get an overall better tablet than the competition at the same price point. all costs together, the ipad is about 200-230 in parts\labor, but costs 600 minimum.
Reply
icemunk

Nice tablets. The dual-core processor though kinda ruins it for me.
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donovands

The press release does not say what countries made the list. I was extremely upset when I bought the original Kindle Fire to discover that I could not access any of Amazon's content. No videos, no apps, nothing. It was a glorified e-reader. The release also does not mention if these services will become available on older devices like my Fire. Amazon, you suck.
Reply
Eric Martin

Killerclick, I disagree. I think the Kindle 7 Fire HD is a bit different than previous versions for several reasons.
first Wi Fi is expanded up to 5.0 frequency
Audio is much improved
Its more than just a watch and read tablet
and download speeds are much faster than other competing products such as the Apple Ipad.
Feel free to read my full review on these aspects at http://www.squidoo/com/kindle-fire-prices-and-review
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