Amazon's 8.9-inch Kindle Fire HD Now Shipping

By Kevin Parrish
published

The Wi-Fi version of Amazon's 8.9-inch Kindle Fire HD tablet is now shipping and will be available at Amazon and Best Buy on Friday.

Amazon said on Thursday that its 8.9-inch Kindle Fire HD is now shipping, just in time to be wrapped and adorned with a bow this holiday season. The Wi-Fi-only version can now be purchased directly from Amazon starting at $299 by heading here. Alternatively, customers can purchase the tablet at Best Buy starting Friday, and then Staples and Radio Shack in the coming weeks.

The Kindle Fire HD 8.9-inch 4G model will ship next week, Amazon said.

"Kindle Fire HD has been Amazon’s best-selling product worldwide since launch, and that was before we even started shipping the best tablet we’ve ever built," said Dave Limp, Vice President, Amazon Kindle.  "With the holiday season upon us, we’re excited to make our $299 Kindle Fire HD 8.9-inch available early."

This is the highest spec Amazon tablet yet, sporting an 8.9-inch 1920x1200 resolution display at 254 ppi, and dual-band Wi-Fi connectivity, allowing users to access the less-used 5 GHz band when connecting to a dual-band network. Powering this device is a dual-core TI OMAP 4470 SoC with an Imagination SGX544 graphics engine that's capable of over 12 billion floating point operations per second.

The new tablet also packs dual stereo speakers with Dolby Digital Plus, a front-facing HD camera, and a battery promising up to 10 hours. There's also plenty of Amazon exclusives like X-Ray for Movies, X-Ray for Textbooks, Immersion Reading, Whispersync for Voice and Whispersync for Games.

As previously stated, Amazon will begin shipping the 4G LTE model next week, November 20, priced at a heftier $499 or more. For connectivity on the go, the tablet's 12-session AT&T 4G data package will mean a one-time payment of $49.99, and include 250 MB per session of data, a $10 Amazon Appstore for Android credit and 20 GB of Amazon CloudDrive. This package will only be available for the first year of service.

"Customers can also choose to upgrade to 3 GB or 5 GB data plans from AT&T directly from the device," Amazon said. "Kindle Fire HD 8.9-inch features the latest 4G LTE technology for ultra-fast mobile broadband, letting customers connect to the internet, stream, and download at speeds even faster than Wi-Fi.  Unlike some 4G devices, Kindle Fire HD includes support for 10 bands, so even when a customer is in a place with no 4G LTE network they’ll fall back to the fastest available network and won't lose coverage."

For more information about the Kindle Fire HD 8.9-inch, head here. Pricing information is located below:

Kindle Fire HD 8.9 16 GB – $299 (with ads) or $314 (without ads)
Kindle Fire HD 8.9 32 GB – $369 (with ads) or $384 (without ads)

Kindle Fire HD 8.9 4G LTE 32 GB – $499 (with ads) or $514 (without ads)
Kindle Fire HD 8.9 4G LTE 64 GB – $599 (with ads) or $614 (without ads)

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Kevin Parrish
10 Comments Comment from the forums
  • Onus
    Pay me $0.25 for every ad sent to the device (whether or not I see it), then we'll talk.
    Reply
  • slabbo
    Now I might have to head to my nearest Best Buy just to play around with the device.
    Reply
  • alxianthelast
    So if you're trying to use this device as an endpoint for Amazon's streaming video services..? $$$
    Reply
  • kinggraves
    JacekRingwait wait wait...$49.99 for 12 sessions 250mb each session? So $50 for 3 gigs? WOW that's expensive.
    You clearly haven't seen the usual AT&T pricing. $50 a year breaks down to about $4 a month, which is far cheaper than the usual minimum plan from them. Of course, one would question how overage goes with this plan.

    The Fire HD 8.9 could have been awesome. Why did they choose the lousy TI processors for them? Google can build a competitor with Tegra without ads. Suck up the cost Amazon, you can make a fortune on your market. Allowing Google to build a superior device allows their market to gain more footing.

    The tablet market is such a frustrating mess of compromise. No HDMI here, no SD slot there. This one uses a lousy processor, that one has no GPS. Really, I understand cutting costs means sacrifice, but how much would building a tablet with all the bells and whistles cost if they can fit in one of them per device and still keep it low?
    Reply
  • beardguy
    kinggravesYou clearly haven't seen the usual AT&T pricing. $50 a year breaks down to about $4 a month, which is far cheaper than the usual minimum plan from them. Of course, one would question how overage goes with this plan.The Fire HD 8.9 could have been awesome. Why did they choose the lousy TI processors for them? Google can build a competitor with Tegra without ads. Suck up the cost Amazon, you can make a fortune on your market. Allowing Google to build a superior device allows their market to gain more footing.The tablet market is such a frustrating mess of compromise. No HDMI here, no SD slot there. This one uses a lousy processor, that one has no GPS. Really, I understand cutting costs means sacrifice, but how much would building a tablet with all the bells and whistles cost if they can fit in one of them per device and still keep it low?
    Why did they choose the lousy TI processors for them?
    Though we have to wait for actual benchmarks, most tech forums agree (google it) that the TI OMAP 4470 SoC is actually superior to the Tegra 3. It can do 12 Billion floating point operations/sec vs. Tegra 3's 8 Billion. Also Tegra 3 still doesn’t support dual-channel memory, the OMAP does and uses dual-channel along their processors.

    To each his own, but here is the reason I bought a Kindle Fire HD over a Nexus 7:

    - Better screen
    - Better speakers
    - Better build quality (Also, uses actual Gorilla glass unlike the Nexus)
    - Faster Wireless (dual band wifi)
    - No slowdown issues when near capacity
    - HDMI out

    I agree though, it would be awesome to see a budget tablet that includes everything.
    Reply
  • alidan
    OnusPay me $0.25 for every ad sent to the device (whether or not I see it), then we'll talk.
    its about 3$ per 1000 views, up to 10$
    that normal rates
    now targeted rates, on something like travel, when you are somewhat sure people are traveling, that can get you up to 100-200$ per 1000 views. or commission based ads, where you only pay when people click or when someone buys could be 1 cent a click up to 1% their purchase price.

    at least understand how ads work before you want something for nothing.

    you are getting the thing for 30~ less with ads, odds are you will never see 10000 ads from the time you buy it till the time you replace it.
    Reply
  • kinggraves
    beardguyWhy did they choose the lousy TI processors for them? Though we have to wait for actual benchmarks, most tech forums agree (google it) that the TI OMAP 4470 SoC is actually superior to the Tegra 3. It can do 12 Billion floating point operations/sec vs. Tegra 3's 8 Billion. Also Tegra 3 still doesn’t support dual-channel memory, the OMAP does and uses dual-channel along their processors.To each his own, but here is the reason I bought a Kindle Fire HD over a Nexus 7: - Better screen - Better speakers- Better build quality (Also, uses actual Gorilla glass unlike the Nexus)- Faster Wireless (dual band wifi)- No slowdown issues when near capacity- HDMI outI agree though, it would be awesome to see a budget tablet that includes everything.
    I'm not sure which tech forums said that, every comparison I've seen, including Tom's own, had the Tegra 3 much faster than the TI 4460. If we're comparing the 4470, Google has a different chip for their 10" model.
    Reply
  • burnley14
    Time for a comparison article, Andrew Ku! Let's see how it stacks up against the likes of the Nexus 7 and others.
    Reply
  • somebodyspecial
    I'd rather see it compared to something like a onex+ for Soc's sake ;) A 1.2ghz when they have a 1.7 TEgra3+ with a gpu that runs 520 instead of 416? Nexus7 is nice but they should offer a larger battery model with the tegra3+ as an option or something. I'd say you could easily make it up on price at say another $50-60 and it would sell even better than now. Look at which model of the 10 sold out first. 32GB. People will pay for better stuff. 1.2ghz just is a loser in the tegra field. You're dismissing another 500mhz for crying out loud. That's a crapload of performance. You need to benchmark vs. something with Nvidia's latest or you can't claim Tegra's suck. Yes 1.2ghz sucks. But 1.7ghz is plenty fine.

    http://www.engadget.com/2012/10/31/htc-one-x-plus-review/
    Granted it's a phone, but look at the benchmarks. It's wining almost everything but glbench which they even say is overly taxing and not representing real gaming. It took this long for everyone to catch Tegra, and only beat it in gpu (which should be remedied shortly Q1 with Wayne which doubles gpu and then some). The cpu won't gain much but it doesn't need to. Basically pairing mali604 nexus 10gpu perf with quad tegra+ a little oomph...Tough to beat that. Hoping google rev's the 10 in 3-4months with WAYNE. Just for tegrazone games coming. Slap in a SD slot and boom, ipad sales crumble.
    Reply
  • klockwerk
    With 700+ gigs of media data why would I want a cloud oriented tablet?
    Reply