Amazon launched a new program that allows you to scan physical books and convert them into eBooks. The application is called Kindle Convert, and it's available for Windows 7 and Windows 8.

The application allows users to downsize their physical book collection while keeping a copy of the data, or keep a backup in the case of the loss of or damage to the physical copy. Kindle Convert sells for $49, but it's currently on sale for $19. Users who try the application might be in for more than they bargain for, though.

When you first scan a book with Kindle Convert, the app scans the book and searches for similar titles in Amazon's library. Users can then purchase the eBook if it is available, or they can continue to "make" their own eBook.

After deciding to proceed with creating the eBook manually, you can then scan pages into the system one by one, which is a rather long and tedious process.

The application is capable of picking up images and handwriting and will save this, too. It is all downhill from this point on in the process, though. Each scanned page needs to be looked over before you save it. Mistakes can happen when scanning the text and require manual editing to get the exact text correct.

This, clearly, makes the long and tedious task of scanning a book into an eBook all the more arduous.

With the amount of work required to convert a regular book into an eBook using this program, some might begin to wonder if it is really worth it. Having the book saved in an eBook format would be better in some cases, because it would allow users to create searchable eBook text that's stored on their computer; thus, they can search the text for certain words or topics rather than flipping through the indexes and pages hoping to find it. On the other hand, many users will likely find the time needed to create the eBook will be greater than the time it takes to dig through the physical book for answers.

An alternative to creating an eBook using Kindle Convert would be to simply scan pages into PDF documents. This saves time as it does not require the tedious editing of each page, but it still has the problem of needing to scan pages one at a time. The main target for this application is likely to be for preserving old documents and books that are not otherwise saved in an electronic format.

Some might also question why the largest book seller in the world would make a program like this, but given the amount of time needed to convert physical books to digital, it is unlikely that many users will choose to use this program at all. The $49 price tag does not help, and in addition to the typical retail price, users also need a scanner.

Assuming the user doesn't already own a scanner, users could easily end up paying $70 or more for both items and still have a lot of work ahead of them. While some eBooks are expensive, most people will likely decide that it's just better to buy the eBook rather than take this route because of the cost and time required.

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While many Americans were gathered around a tree ripping colored paper off gifted fruit cakes and socks, some Amazon employees were hard at work answering the Mayday-branded calls of distress by new Kindle Fire HDX customers.

According to Amazon, the company was shooting to reach 15 seconds after a Mayday button was hit, but Amazon employees managed a 9-second average instead.

Mayday, for the uninitiated, is a specific software-based button on Amazon's new tablets that contacts the support center. Once pressed, an Amazon technician will appear on the screen and co-pilot the user through any feature by drawing on the screen. Tech support can walk users through the steps to do something specific, or customers can sit back and let the tech do the steps solo.

Mayday is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year, and it's free.

"We set a goal for ourselves to have a response time of 15 seconds or less when a customer tapped the Mayday button--we're proud to say that on Christmas Day we met this goal, with an average response time of just 9 seconds," said Dave Limp, Vice President, Amazon Kindle. "We're excited that millions of customers opened a Kindle Fire tablet this holiday season, and we're glad so many customers tried out the Mayday button."

Amazon on Thursday listed a number of customer reactions on Christmas day, including one girl who received a Kindle Fire HDX for Christmas. She was reportedly playing around with the tablet until she accidentally hit the Mayday button. An Amazon tech popped up on the screen, making the girl scream. Her parents were reportedly heard laughing in the background.

Other notable Mayday experiences include a group of carolers calling in to wish tech support a Merry Christmas.

Gagging for a Kindle Fire HDX but balking at the price tag? Amazon might have a tempting solution for you on that front. The company today launched a new payment plan for the Kindle HDX. The payment plan is interest free and allows customers to make payments towards their Kindle Fire HDX or Kindle Fire HDX 8.9 over the course of nine months, paying for only a percentage of the device up front. The offer is only good until December 24.

Amazon's Kindle Fire HDX payment plan is based on an up front payment of 25 percent of the device's cost. After that, the remaining balance is billed to your credit card in three equal installments every 90 days. Nine months after you click 'buy,' the tablet is paid off. Interested parties should note that you'll need an Amazon account that has been active for two years to avail of this offer. The 7-inch model starts at $57.25 per payment (plus tax), while the 8.9-inch model starts at $94.75 per payment (plus tax).

The 7-inch Kindle Fire HDX packs a 1920 x 1200 (323 ppi) display and a front-facing HD camera whereas the 8.9 inch model has a heftier 2560 x 1600 resolution (339 ppi) display, a HD camera on the front and an 8MP camera on the back. This camera includes an LED flash, Electronic Image Stabilization, and a wide-aperture 5P f2.2 lens.

Both the 7- and 8.9-inch models are powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 chip clocked at 2.2 GHz, Adreno 330 graphics, 2 GB of RAM, and a battery promising up to 11 hours of mixed use and up to 17 hours of reading. They run on the Fire OS 3.0 "Mojito."

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We've already seen Microsoft make fun of Apple's Siri in its commercials, and now it looks like Amazon is taking aim at another Apple personality: Sir Jony Ive. Amazon's latest commercial for its Kindle Fire tablet compares the 8.9-inch slate to Apple's own iPad Air. The commercial features a British narrator that sounds like Jony Ive and sings the praises of Apple's newest iPad. This person is challenged by an American narrator that points out the Kindle Fire's lighter weight, higher pixel count, and lower price. Not as in your face as Apple's 'I'm a Mac' campaign, but not subtle either. Check out the commercial for yourself below:

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When Amazon updated its Kindle line of e-readers and tablets back in September, the Kindle Paperwhite didn't change much at all. Aside from a higher contrast display, a 25 percent faster processor, and improved touch technology, the changes were mostly software-related. However, it looks like the next iteration of Kindle Paperwhite will see some bigger changes.

According to the rumor mill, Amazon is prepping a new Paperwhite for launch in Q2 of next year. TechCrunch claims to have seen a prototype device and reports that the third generation Kindle Paperwhite will have a 300 ppi screen (as opposed to the 212 ppi display present in the current model) with an ambient light sensor that automatically adjusts brightness based on the light in the room.

The new Paperwhite's display will also be flush with the edges of the device, and is made of matte glass, while the back of the device will be more like the Kindle Fire HDX. The edges of the new Paperwhite, codenamed Ice Wine, will apparently sport 'squeezable' buttons with haptic feedback. It's not clear whether this will replace the current tap-to-turn mechanism for flipping the page or if it is an additional feature.

TechCrunch reports that there will be no 'major' software improvements, though there will be upscaling for all those new pixels and a custom font. No word on a release date just yet, but we'll keep you posted if we hear anything more about this new Kindle. TechCrunch is saying Q2, which doesn't really gel with the regular fall update for the Kindle line, but you never know. 

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Amazon customers who own the new Kindle Fire HDX tablets are in for a treat, as the company just launched Fire OS 3.1, which is packed with a list of new features for both the consumer and businesses. One such feature is the deep integration of Goodreads, the world's largest community of book lovers. For the very first time, Goodreads is integrated directly into the reading experience, so Kindle HDX owners have no need to leave a book and open a Goodreads app.

Another feature brought to the platform is Second Screen, which seemingly brings the Google Chromecast experience to the new Kindle tablets, allowing owners to fling TV shows and movies to a big-screen TV. Thus with the content on the larger screen, the tablet is freed up to provide playback controls, allow owners to send an email, browse the Internet, view X-Ray info and more. Second Screen is available on Samsung TVs and the PlayStation 3, and is coming to the PlayStation 4 later this year.

"Fire OS 3.1 delivers the ability to connect to secure enterprise Wi-Fi networks and access corporate apps, documents and resources like SharePoint; native VPN client for instant access to corporate networks; and a native SCEP (Simple Certificate Exchange Protocol) client to retrieve digital certificates for secure resources," reads the Amazon press release. "Fire OS also now supports Kerberos authentication, which enables the ability to browse secure Intranet websites from the Silk browser."

The announcement also said that the new Kindle Fire tablets include Kindle-specific device management APIs that integrate with existing mobile device management (MDM) systems to make it easy for IT departments to manage Kindle Fire.

On a more consumer-friendly level, the new platform provides Cloud Collections, which helps users organize their books, newspapers, magazines and apps in customized collections. Whispersync synchronizes the collections across all Kindle devices and reading apps so they're available on all devices. Other features include voice dictation that converts speech to text, one-tap archiving, wireless printing of photos, PDF, emails, contacts, calendars and docs, new accessibility enhancements, and dozens more features.

"The response to our new family of Kindle Fire tablets has been fantastic, and we're excited to add new features we think our customers will love," said Peter Larsen, Vice President, Amazon Kindle. "This free, over-the-air Fire OS update brings new features like Goodreads integration, Second Screen, Cloud Collections, enterprise support, wireless printing, and more."

This free, over-the-air update will be delivered automatically in the coming weeks, or owners can head here to download and install the update starting today.

Amazon is throwing brick-and-mortar book stores a lifeline by providing them with a 10 percent discount on all Kindle books sold on devices purchased in their stores. The news arrives as retail and used book sellers face a decline in physical sales as consumers scoop up tablets, smartphones and e-readers to consume books in digital form.

Even more, now that the government has wrangled the publishers into providing fair, competitive prices, retailers are facing even more declining sales. Previously, e-books soared up into the $15 realm thanks to an agreement between Apple and five publishers. All five have settled out of court, while Apple decided to duke it out with the Justice Department over the summer. Prices are now beginning to drop once again.

Amazon's new program is called Amazon Source, and allows independent bookstores and other retailers to sell Kindle devices and accessories, actually making money in the process. The program also provides retailers with an option of receiving 10 percent of every Kindle book purchased on Kindle devices sold by the bookstore for the first two years after a customer buys a device.

"We believe that retailers, online or offline, small or large, should be striving to offer customers what they want—and many customers want to read both digital and print books," said Russ Grandinetti, Vice President, Amazon Kindle. "For many years, bookstores have successfully sold print books on Amazon—now Amazon Source extends this opportunity to digital. With Amazon Source, customers don't have to choose between e-books and their favorite neighborhood bookstore—they can have both."

Amazon Source provides two programs: Bookseller and General Retailer. Booksellers can buy Kindle devices at a 6 percent discount and Kindle accessories at a 35 percent discount, while receiving a 10 percent commission on the price of every e-book purchased from the sold Kindle device. The General Retailer program allows stores to buy Kindle devices at 9 percent off the retail price and Kindle accessories at 35 percent off the retail price. This program does not provide a commission.

"To qualify, you must operate a physical retail store (at this time, online sales are not permitted through this program) and be able to provide state resale exemption certificates for each state in which you have a store," reads Amazon's eligibility rules. "Signing up takes just a few minutes, and if you meet these basic requirements we'll activate your account within two business days."

Amazon Source is based on the deal that Amazon made with Waterstones in the UK back in 2012. The first order from Amazon Source is worry-free for retailers, Amazon promised. If a retailer decides they no longer want to sell Kindle, Amazon will buy back the inventory for up to six months after their first order with no questions asked.

Unfortunately, not every state is eligible for this program including Alabama, North Carolina, Texas, Vermont and a number of others listed here.

Now that the 7-inch Kindle Fire HDX is out and about, new owners are starting to notice that the display has a bluish tint around the edges. Not to worry; it's not a defect, but a side effect from the use of blue LEDs in the lighting to achieve the boasted "perfect" color accuracy. Amazon claims that this lighting technique increases the tablet's battery life by 20 percent.

"You may notice a very narrow, faint blue tint around the edge of the device when looking at items with a white background, such as books or web pages," the company explains via the 'we want you to know' pop-out window. "All displays have some level of light emission around the edges, and the light on the Kindle Fire HDX 7" is blue due to the technology used to render perfect color accuracy."

"Most LCD displays use white LEDs, and then apply filters to extract the desired color," the company continues. "The result is oftentimes a compromise to tone and color accuracy, or -- if attempting to address these compromises -- an increase in battery consumption and, thus, device weight."

"We've taken a different approach. To achieve the perfect color accuracy on Kindle Fire HDX 7 inch at the lowest possible battery consumption and device weight, we used blue, not white, LEDs," the explanation concludes. "Blue LEDs allow for a much more accurate and rich representation of color and result in an up to 20% improvement in power efficiency."

Amazon began shipping the 7-inch Kindle Fire HDX on Friday. The device was first introduced back on September 25, sporting Fire OS 3.0 "Mojito" and exclusive new features like the Mayday button, Prime Instant Video downloads and X-Ray for Music. Pricing starts at $229 for the 16 GB Wi-Fi only model with special offers, and up to $424 for the 64 GB model with 4G LTE connectivity and no special offers.

The 7 inch tablet packs a 1920 x 1200 resolution (323 ppi) screen powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 chip clocked at 2.2 GHz, Adreno 330 graphics, 2 GB of RAM, and a battery promising up to 11 hours of mixed use and up to 17 hours of reading. Additional specs include a front-facing HD camera, dual-band Wireless N connectivity, dual speakers, a built-in microphone and Dolby audio. The tablet measures just 0.35 inches thin, and weighs 10.7 ounces and 11 ounces for the Wi-Fi and 4G LTE models, respectively.

Amazon sent out a friendly reminder that the company is now shipping the 7 inch Kindle Fire HDX tablet. The device was first introduced back on September 25, sporting Fire OS 3.0 "Mojito" and exclusive new features like the Mayday button, Prime Instant Video downloads and X-Ray for Music. Pricing starts at $229 for the 16 GB Wi-Fi only model with special offers, and up to $424 for the 64 GB model with 4G LTE connectivity and no special offers.

"With a beautiful 323 ppi perfect-color HDX display, 3x the processing power, 2x the memory, 4x the graphics performance, and Fire OS 3.0, we think customers are going to love the new Kindle Fire HDX," said Peter Larsen, Vice President, Amazon Kindle. "We can't wait to get this tablet into our customers' hands."

The 7 inch tablet packs a 1920 x 1200 resolution (323 ppi) screen powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 chip clocked at 2.2 GHz, Adreno 330 graphics, 2 GB of RAM, and a battery promising up to 11 hours of mixed use and up to 17 hours of reading. Additional specs include a front-facing HD camera, dual-band Wireless N connectivity, dual speakers, a built-in microphone and Dolby audio. The tablet measures just 0.35 inches thin, and weighs 10.7 ounces and 11 ounces for the Wi-Fi and 4G LTE models, respectively.

"The Mayday button revolutionizes on-device tech support—simply tap the Mayday button in Quick Settings, and an Amazon expert will appear on your Fire HDX and can co-pilot you through any feature by drawing on your screen, walking you through how to do something yourself, or doing it for you—whatever works best," reads the company's announcement. "15 seconds or less is the Mayday response time goal. Mayday is available 24x7, 365 days a year, and it's free."

Amazon's Fire OS 3.0 supports HTML5 apps, allowing developers to create their web apps without the need for third-party software. Other platform features include carousel and grid home screen views, streamlined cloud collections, 1-tap archiving, Kindle Free Time parental control, deep social integration for Twitter and Facebook, and loads more. The company's OS also provides a number of Enterprise-based features so the tablet can be easily integrated into a corporate network.

The 4G LTE versions of the Kindle Fire HDX aren't expected to ship in North America until November 14. Meanwhile, just recently iFixit tore apart the tablet to reveal its juicy innards. Amazon also just started taking pre-orders for the Kindle Fire HDX and revamped Kindle Fire HD in the UK.

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If you're in the UK and looking to get one of Amazon's newest Kindle Fire tablets, then you might like to know that they're officially up for pre-order. Announced in September, the Kindle Fire HDX

The Kindle Fire HD will start shipping in the UK on October 24, which is next Thursday. The Kindle Fire HDX will ship on November 19. The Kindle Fire HD is priced at £119 for the 8 GB model and £139 for the 16 GB model. The 7-inch Kindle Fire HDX will cost £199 (16 GB), £229 (32 GB), and £259 (64 GB). If you want to drop the special offers promo and ditch Amazon's ads, you can expect to pay £209 (16 GB), £239 (32 GB), and £269 (64 GB) for the various models of 7-inch Kindle Fire HDX. The 8.9-inch Kindle Fire HDX is priced at £329/£339 (16 GB), £369/£379 (32 GB), and £409/£419 (64 GB).

The 7-inch Kindle Fire HDX features a 1920 x 1200 resolution (323 ppi) and a front-facing HD camera whereas the 8.9 inch model has a heftier 2560 x 1600 resolution (339 ppi), an HD camera on the front and an 8MP camera on the back. This camera includes an LED flash, Electronic Image Stabilization, and a wide-aperture 5P f2.2 lens. Both are powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 chip clocked at 2.2 GHz, Adreno 330 graphics, 2 GB of RAM, and a battery promising up to 11 hours of mixed use and up to 17 hours of reading. They run on the Fire OS 3.0 "Mojito."

The new 7-inch Kindle Fire HD tablet features a slimmer, lighter design to match the HDX models, as well as the new Fire OS 3.0 platform, dual speakers with Dolby Digital Plus audio, and a slightly faster dual core processor clocked at 1.5 GHz (1.2 GHz on the older model).

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Introduced at the end of last month, the brand new Kindle Fire HDX is available in two sizes: 7 inches and 8.9 inches. Both of these sport storage capacities of 16 GB, 32 GB and 64 GB, and the teardown team at iFixit just tore into the 16 GB 7-inch model. iFixit reports that this Kindle scored the lowest of any Kindle ever on its repairability scale.

What did they find inside (once they finally managed to get in)? A Snapdragon 800 SoC with a quad-core CPU clocked to 2.2 GHz, 2 GB of Samsung K3QF2F200B LPDDR3 SDRAM, 16 GB of Toshiba THGMAG7A2JBAIR eMMC NAND Flash, a Synaptics S7301B Touchscreen Controller, a Qualcomm WCD9320 Audio Codec, a Qualcomm PM8941 Power Management IC, and a Summit Microelectronics SMB349 Lithium-Ion/Lithium-Polymer Battery Charger.

As far as getting inside the tablet is concerned, iFixit mentioned powerful adhesive gluing down the battery, while the LCD and digitizer cables are trapped between the LCD and mid frame (which meant removing the mid frame from the display assembly). Both of these factors contributed to the pathetic 3/10 the Kindle Fire HDX scored on the repairability scale.

Click through to iFixit for the full teardown!

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BGR has obtained photos of what appears to be the unannounced next-gen 7 inch Kindle Fire HD tablet that Amazon will supposedly reveal later this month. The pictures arrive by way of a "trusted source" and reveal an extensive design overhaul, ripping out the rounded shape on the back of the current models for a more angular design. The buttons have also been completely redesigned and reshuffled, and the stereo speakers are now located at the top-rear of the device.

The pictured 7 inch Kindle Fire HD device will reportedly feature a 1920 x 1200 display powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 (MSM8974) SoC, possibly clocked at 2 GHz. The tablet will also include 2 GB of RAM, a front-facing camera, Wi-Fi connectivity and an optional cellular connectivity. Storage options will include 16 GB, 32 GB and 64 GB, and the forked OS will be based on Android 4.2.2 "Jelly Bean".

Not shown in the batch of pictures is the 8.9 inch Kindle Fire HD model. This version will be updated with a 2560 x 1600 screen powered by the same specs offered in the 7 inch version, and will also include an additional 8MP camera on the back. Both tablets will be more comfortable to hold and lighter than the previous generations.

A third Kindle Fire 7 inch model will also be released to replace the current entry-level model, sporting a higher resolution of 1280 x 800 (the current model has a 1024 x 600 screen).

Sources claim that Amazon may stagger the tablet launches like it did last year, releasing the 7 inch models first and then the 8.9 inch version in November. Amazon revealed the Kindle Fire HD devices on September 6, 2012 and made them both available for pre-purchasing. The 7 inch tablet didn't become available until September 14 followed by the 8.9 inch model on November 20.

According to the screens, the volume buttons, power buttons and speakers appear to be mounted on the back, leaving the face of the tablet void of anything but the screen and the front-facing camera. So far this tablet design appears to be Amazon's best yet, especially with the Qualcomm chip and double the RAM. We're eager to see how these two tablets perform in benchmarks this fall.

Amazon officially confirmed its new Kindle Paperwhite ereader this morning, and now the company is addressing the matter of international availability. When Paperwhite 2.0 hit Amazon.com yesterday, there was no sign of the device on Amazon UK or Amazon Canada. Though the local Amazon sites in Canada and the UK showed the current Paperwhite as unavailable, neither offered any information on the new model.

What a difference a day makes. Both sites now have news of the new Paperwhite on their homepages, and both are offering the device for pre-order starting today. Priced at £109 in the UK and $139 in Canada, the device is shipping to Canadians on October 10, about a week and a half after it ships in the United States. Amazon offered no indication as to when UK shoppers can expect their pre-orders to ship.

The sixth generation Kindle is marginally lighter than the previous generation Paperwhite. It boasts a faster processor as well as new display technology that offers higher contrast, an improved lighting system, and improved touch technology. The new Kindle will also come with Good Reads integration (included in an update planned for later this year), FreeTime (which hopes to get kids reading more via a tracker and rewards system), and a new Page Flip feature that lets you skim page-by-page, scan by chapter, or skip to the end without losing your place.

A WiFi+3G model will launch in the States on November 5. No word on international availability on that one.

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Amazon yesterday surprised us all with a brand new Kindle Paperwhite. Despite the fact that the current Paperwhite isn't even a year old, a newer model appeared for pre-order on the company's website. Today, Amazon made Paperwhite 2.0 official.

In a press release issued this morning, Amazon unveiled the sixth generation Kindle, which is marginally lighter than the previous generation Paperwhite and carries a faster processor, as well as new display technology that offers higher contrast, an improved lighting system, and improved touch technology. In addition to the new Kindle, Amazon this week introduced Kindle MatchBook, which bundles ebook versions of physical book purchases for a reduced price. The new Kindle will also come with Good Reads integration, FreeTime (which hopes to get kids reading more via a tracker and rewards system), and a new Page Flip feature that lets you skim page-by-page, scan by chapter, or skip to the end without losing your place.

"Kindle is the best-selling e-reader in the world for six years running," said Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos. "No one is investing on behalf of readers or pushing the boundaries of hardware, software and content for readers like this team: the new Kindle Paperwhite has brand-new display technology, the next generation of our built-in light, a faster processor, plus all of the exclusive benefits of the Kindle ecosystem like Kindle MatchBook, Kindle Owners’ Lending Library, over 400,000 exclusive titles, Goodreads, Kindle Singles, Kindle Worlds, Kindle FreeTime, and much more."

The new Kindle Paperwhite is priced at $119 for the special offers version or $139 regular price. Anyone pre-ordering can expect their new reader in about a month, as Amazon says the Paperwhite won't ship until September 30. A new Kindle Paperwhite Wi-Fi + 3G will be priced at $189 but isn't yet available for pre-order. it will go on sale on November 5.

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Yesterday, Amazon's new Kindle Paperwhite went up for pre-order in the United States. Though the listing seemed to appear on Amazon.com somewhat prematurely (there was, after all, no official event or announcement), Amazon apparently decided to roll with it. However, the company is only taking pre-orders from shoppers in the United States. What about the rest of the world?

While Amazon is remaining tight-lipped on details of international availability, Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.ca offer some clue that the arrival of Paperwhite 2.0 isn't too far off. A quick glance at the Paperwhite listings on both sites show that the WiFi-only version of the Paperwhite is currently unavailable in the UK and Canada. Under the 'currently unavailable' status message on Amazon UK is the disclaimer: "We don't know when or if this item will be back in stock." Amazon Canada invites users to sign up for updates on when the product might become available.

While it's not as good as a release date, it surely means that the new Paperwhite can't be that far off. The new model packs a higher contrast, a 25 percent faster processor and improved touch technology as well as some software improvements. These include Good Reads integration, which Amazon says is coming soon; Kindle FreeTime, which is aimed at getting kids reading more via a tracker and rewards system; and a new Page Flip feature that lets you skim page-by-page, scan by chapter, or skip to the end without losing your place. Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be any audio or text-to-speech, both of which were notably missing from the first Paperwhite. It also still has only 2 GB of storage, compared to the 4 GB of storage of other Kindle models.

We'll keep you posted on international pricing and release dates for the new Paperwhite. So far, only the U.S. is confirmed for the September 30 launch.

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Soon after Amazon announced the Kindle Paperwhite, the company copped to some limitations that early adopters had noticed in the device. Perhaps those issues will be addressed in Paperwhite 2.0? Because the device is on Amazon.com right now.

The device's appearance online seems to be a little ahead of schedule, as Amazon pulled the listing this morning. However, it seems the company has made peace with the early leak as the new Paperwhite is once again appearing on Amazon.com and is actually available for pre-order. The Kindle Paperwhite is priced at $119 with special offers or $139 without Amazon's deals.

So, what's different? Amazon is promising higher contrast, a 25 percent faster processor, and improved touch technology as well as some software improvements. These include Good Reads integration, which Amazon says is coming soon, Kindle FreeTime, which is aimed at getting kids reading more via a tracker and rewards system, and a new Page Flip feature that lets you skim page-by-page, scan by chapter, or skip to the end without losing your place. Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be any audio or text-to-speech, both of which were notably missing from the first Paperwhite. It also still has only 2 GB of storage, compared to the 4 GB of storage of other Kindle models.

The new Kindle Paperwhite will be available September 30, though Amazon is currently only taking pre-orders from customers in the United States. No word on a release date or pricing for the rest of the world.

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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."

Amazon's Newest E-Book Reader: Now, With Light

The clunky first-generation Kindle employed E Ink's electronic paper technology, which is a far cry from today’s hi-res Kindle Fire HD. Interestingly, though, despite the more modern device's seemingly indelible display advantage, the e-book reader and tablet markets haven't really converged. 

Amazon continues to develop e-book readers because digital book sales remain a cornerstone of the company’s business. And that goes a long way to explain the concurrent release of Amazon's Kindle Tough and fourth-generation Kindle alongside the original Fire tablet. The newest dedicated e-book reader from Amazon is called the Kindle Paperwhite, and its name does a pretty good job of describing its role.

The Paperwhite's most significant evolutionary feature is lighting. You don’t need a reading lamp over your shoulder to see this device clearly, as you might have in the past with previous e-book readers. Amazon considers this its flagship e-book reader, and the unlit models are available at even lower price points.

The generic Kindle moniker now refers to the fourth-generation model we reviewed in Hands-On: Amazon’s Fourth-Gen Kindle Refresh; the only difference is that it’s now also available in black. Yes, today, the “Kindle” is Amazon's barebones budget model, retailing for just $69. It lacks touch sensitivity, so you need to use navigation buttons to hit keys on a virtual keyboard. If that’s too much of a pain for you, Amazon still sells the Kindle Keyboard 3G, though it'll run you an additional $60 bucks.

In comparison, the Wi-Fi-equipped Kindle Paperwhite costs $139, or $119 with special offers (basically, Amazon’s ad system). If you’re constantly on the move, with less access to Wi-Fi, it might be worth paying $60 more for the 3G-equipped model, which lets you make purchases on the road without 802.11 connectivity.

Physically, the Kindle Paperwhite is slightly larger than the base Kindle e-book reader. The major difference between them is weight, though the flagship mode is only an ounce-and-a-half heavier. Compared to the Kindle Keyboard 3G, there’s no question that Amazon's Paperwhite is both smaller and lighter.

This product effectively replaces the Kindle Touch, which explains why it feels so familiar in our hands. As a touch-based e-book reader, the Paperwhite is devoid of physical I/O, aside from a power button along its bottom edge. Amazon continues to use a rubberized plastic back cover, which is texturally comfortable to grip, and unlike the aluminum and glass iPad.

Interestingly, Amazon claims that the Paperwhite boasts an astounding eight weeks of battery life. That's double what you can expect from the base-model Kindle, but seemingly plausible, given the Paperwhite's larger 1,470 mAh power source. With that said, the battery's scaling suggests that the e-book reader's light isn't a significant drain. Although it's impractical to run our usual battery life tests on the Paperwhite, a week of constant use gives us every reason to believe that you can read for a few hours a day and not have to bother reaching for a charger.

Frontlighting, Examined

E Ink, Revisited

At its core, the Paperwhite remains an E Ink-based e-book reader. So, page refresh times are still significantly slower than what you’ll ever see on a tablet’s LCD.

E Ink employs charged microscopic capsules in order to generate images. So, the screen's refresh rate directly correlates to the time it takes to charge electrodes and move the capsules. This process isn't measured in single-digit milliseconds, as it might be on a tablet. Rather, the latency is quantified in the hundreds of milliseconds.

Paperwhite: What’s Different?

For starters, the Paperwhite employs a capacitive touch sensor, as opposed to the previous Kindle Touch's infrared sensor. This improves response times noticeably. Back in January of last year, we benchmarked screen refresh rates on the Kindle Touch and found them to be about 50-100 ms slower than the non-touch version and older Kindle Keyboard. The capacitive sensor yields a substantial speed-up; we can't detect a noticeable difference in the delay.

Perhaps more important, Amazon adds LED lights to the Paperwhite, allowing you to read the display in the dark. Backlight might be the wrong term to use, though. While tablet screens and computer monitors are illuminated by LEDs that emit light out towards the user, the Kindle Paperwhite shines light back down towards the screen. Ergo, the Paperwhite’s backlight is actually a frontlight.

The clip below is an excerpt from Amazon’s official Quick Tour video, which gives a breakdown of this technology:

In the next video, Amazon employees talk about the challenges they faced designing the Kindle Paperwhite.

It was actually very hard: We had to spend many hours in dark rooms to pick LEDs. We looked at samples and looked at for this batch here these are the best LEDS to match the characteristics of a white, very neutral color. We spent a lot of time looking at how many LEDs to put in, how hard to drive them, how bright we could get it without impacting the battery life. You don’t want someone to have to [consciously] manage their light, and say, I’d really like to have the light on but that’s gonna hurt my battery life.

In a nutshell, Amazon combined the extremely power-efficient characteristics of a non-glare display with a touch-sensitive screen, and managed to tack on illumination for good measure. This is nothing short of a tremendously impressive feat.

To be precise, the Paperwhite’s display employs a light guide that sits atop the capacitive touch sensor. The guide is made of a transparent material, and light from white LEDs enters at the bottom edge of the display, bouncing along nanoimprinted channels within the guide. Amazon says it operates in much the same way as a fiber optic cable, though the company doesn't share much more detail than that.

The nanoimprinted channels are responsible for an even distribution of light across the entire display. Because the LEDs provide the strongest illumination towards the bottom edge of the screen, the criss-cross pattern of these channels becomes denser towards the upper edge, intensifying the output to maintain even distribution of brightness throughout.

Results: Are Some E-Book Displays Better Than Others?

We’ve measured varying levels of contrast between different E Ink-based displays. In fact, the fourth-generation Kindle's display actually seemed worse than its predecessor's.

At first, we couldn’t be sure if this was an optical illusion or an actual step backward. However, like actual paper, E Ink-based displays require reflected light to read text. So, we took a cue from our exploration of printer paper (Tom's Hardware Benchmarks Inkjet Printer Paper!), where our NIST-certified i1Pro calibration tool allowed us to measure paper's color performance. The i1Pro contains a finely-calibrated light source that illuminates a color patch with a fixed amount of light, removing our eyes as a variable.

We can apply that same methodology to e-book readers because E Ink-based displays operate on the same principle.

The benchmark process is fairly simple. Since E Ink Pearl supports 16 different shades between black and white, we're using Photoshop to create monotone backgrounds starting from #000000 (the six-digit hexadecimal number for black) and progressively increasing the hue until reaching #FFFFFF (white). The end is 16 evenly-spaced shades, from white to black. We then use our spectrophotometer's printer measurement mode to take color space readings.

The L value on the Y-axis is traditionally referred to as the "lightness of a color." This is measured on a 0-to-100 scale, where higher values indicate lighter colors. So, true black would have an L value of 0, while pure white has a value of 100.

According to our previous results, the fourth-generation Kindle suffered a slight reduction in contrast compared to previous models. Subjectively, the Kindle Paperwhite appears very close to the third-generation Kindle (known as the Kindle Keyboard), and our benchmark results largely concur, with a couple of caveats. First, solid black appears slightly darker on the Paperwhite compared to previous Kindles. Unfortunately, lighter shades also appear a tad darker on the Paperwhite.

Interestingly, Amazon's Kindle Paperwhite lets you set the contrast on a five-point scale. This is a new feature unique to the company's e-book reader flagship. By default, the Paperwhite is set to the middle point, which we’re calling “normal contrast.” Notched up to “high contrast,” you’ll see a bigger difference between pure black and true while. However, this comes at the expense of the shades in between.

That's not the end of the story, though. There's a long-running debate about the quality of E Ink screens. Specifically, is there actually a difference between Kindle generations, or are our eyes playing tricks on us? Our benchmarks prove a difference exists using hard data. But that doesn't eliminate another possibility: quality variation. To quote our fourth-generation Kindle review:

“We called up E Ink Corporation to ask if this was a batch-related issue, and was told that this is most likely due to Amazon choosing a particular grade of display panels.”

While we discussed many aspects of e-book readers in that review, that line in particular stirred up quite a lot of controversy. We want to once again say that it is possible to purchase two e-book readers of the same model and get a different experience. It’s not just in your head. E Ink uses a chip called Broadsheet to control its panels, and the following is a quote from GPL source code in the Linux broadsheetfb driver:

Broadsheet is a framebuffer device. It is slightly different from a typical framebuffer controller that drives a normal TFT-LCD display. Most E-Ink display panels require a waveform in order to function. That is, in order to drive the state of a pixel to black, gray, or white, a specific waveform is utilized. Basically, that waveform represents the specific E-field wiggling needed to get the pixel to its optimal state given current temperature, and its previous state. TN/IPS-LCDs use a similar concept but the driving waveform is sufficiently simple that it is internalized in the TFT source/gate driver. These E-Ink waveforms are specific to a production batch. That is, a batch of display films are produced, then they get characterized and a waveform is generated for that batch. Broadsheet, typically, is attached to its private SPI flash which is then flashed with this waveform. Users won't be able to see the waveform and typically won't ever need to know about it. If however, the display panel attached to broadsheet is changed out, then they will need to update their waveform. That would typically be done at a factory or repair facility rather than by a user.

In a nutshell, once a batch of E Ink displays are manufactured, they go through quality control where a set of unknown characteristics get analyzed. This data is then used to generate a waveform for that batch. The waveform itself represents the specific electrical technique used to transition from black to white (and vice versa). While E Ink manufactures its panels to a tight spec, it’s very possible to get displays at the outer limits of what might be considered acceptable.

Does that mean our benchmarks are moot?

Yes and no. We’ve benchmarked multiple Kindles, and there still appears to be a slight difference between certain models. Fortunately, if you are having a problem, Amazon’s free return policy makes a replacement rather painless, so the possibility of getting stuck with a lemon shouldn't get in the way of your purchasing decision.

The Paperwhite Under Various Lighting Conditions

Next, let's compare the Kindle Paperwhite under various lighting conditions and brightness settings.

Regardless of whether you use it in bright sunlight or in a well-lit room, the Paperwhite looks surprisingly natural. Truly, like a piece of paper. There's no washout, and text appears crisp throughout the display.

Even when we dial it down to 66% brightness, the Paperwhite still manages to look great.

In poorly-lit environments, Amazon recommends setting the Paperwhite to a low brightness level. If you’re in complete darkness, you can even dial the brightness down to its absolute minimum and still read the screen reasonably well. The Kindle Paperwhite presents a perfect solution for those of us keeping our significant others up at night with a bedside lamp.

The Touchscreen And Special Offers

The Kindle Paperwhite succeeds Amazon's Kindle Touch, which also employed a touchscreen. In fact, the home screen and general interface layout of the two devices are quite similar.

As a touch-based e-book reader, the Paperwhite naturally lacks physical buttons. Instead, Amazon employs a user interface that it calls EasyReach, which relies on defined zones for menu access and turning pages.

It's easy enough to access the menu and toolbar; simply tap the top of the screen. To flip to the next page, tap the lower-right half of the screen. Likewise, tap the leftmost edge to go back to the previous page. To take a screenshot, simultaneously tap and hold any two opposite corners of the screen (for example, the top-right and bottom-left, or top-left and bottom-right).

Our only complaint is that EasyReach, in its current form, is optimized for right-handed users. Ideally, we'd like to see an alternative layout for lefties.

After you open a book, the menu is automatically hidden. Only after you tap the top edge does it reappear.

If you're not familiar with the Kindle family, models sold with ”Special Offers" do not differ in any significant way from those without. The sleep screen is the only thing that sets them apart. Instead of pictures, Special Offers models display Amazon advertisements. And they’re not just limited to books. Kindles with Special Offers push ads for anything Amazon sells that the company wants to promote, such as a coupon for $30 off a pair of $100 jeans (an actual example). If you don't mind the ads showing up when you're not using your Paperwhite, buying a Special Offers model allows you to secure a lower price.

Kindle Paperwhite: The Best-Looking E-Book Reader We've Seen

Bibliophiles will love Amazon’s latest e-book reader. For a long while, LCD-based tablets had the a big advantage over these devices based on their bright, vibrant, screens. But the Kindle Paperwhite no longer requires ambient lighting for you to use it.

Reading e-books on a tablet was never a pleasant experience for me. The very nature of LCD technology leads to eye strain and battery life measured in hours. In comparison E Ink's technology is very efficient, enabling devices that run for weeks between charges instead. Having used the Paperwhite for several months now, I can personally comment that using Amazon's reader is no more taxing on my eyes than an actual book. If you can't put down that page-turner, you don't have to. I've never felt like I needed to take a break. The same is not true of an inexpensive tablet like the Nexus 7.

Ah, the inexpensive tablet dilemma. The Nexus 7 and Kindle Fire HD both sell for $199. The non-HD version of the Fire is now $159. Meanwhile, Amazon is asking $119 for the Special Offers version of its Paperwhite. It's really hard not to pay a little bit more for a more feature-rich tablet, isn't it?

Not only are tablets commonly used for reading e-books, but you can browse the Web, play games, take notes, listen to music, watch movies, balance your budget...the list goes on and on. You can also browse the Web on the Paperwhite, though it's impossible to get the full online experience without color. And your choice of games is limited to crossword puzzles and solitaire. And so, the decision to buy a tablet or an e-book reader comes down to what you do most. If you plan on reading books more than anything else, a reader gives you a much better experience than a tablet, and Amazon's Kindle Paperwhite approaches the bibliophile’s dream device. It's only lacking the ability to display colors, and Amazon is already working on that.

In the meantime, the Paperwhite is enough of an upgrade over past Kindles that we're awarding it our Tom's Hardware Approved Award. There's a lot to like here, though we'd like to see an even lower price to keep the e-book reader more differentiated from modern $200 tablets. But for what it's designed to do, this is definitely the Cadillac of e-book readers.

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The Kindle Paperwhite went on sale in the UK on October 25. However, some customers that purchased the device from retailer Waterstones have found reason for complaint. Pocket-Lint reports that Kindle Paperwhite units bought at Waterstones are displaying permanent advertisements for the retailer instead of the cycling screensavers on units purchased directly from Amazon.

Users reviewing the Kindle Paperwhite on Waterstones' website have complained that the stock Amazon screensavers have been replaced by a Waterstones ad and it's enough of an issue that these poor reviews have dragged the overall review score of the device down to 2.5 stars on the book-sellers website.

Though you could argue that the screensaver doesn't have much bearing on your reading experience with the Kindle Paperwhite, customers are, understandably upset, that they've purchased what they thought was an ad-free device only to have what amounts to an ad slapped on it. For its part, Waterstones says the screensaver doesn't constitute advertising.

"It is our view that this screensaver does not constitute advertising and differs substantially to the advertising-supported Kindles available to the US market," the company said in a statement. "The Waterstones screensaver is a non-dynamic, static image that will change infrequently and not advertise any specific product, offer or website. It is not possible to remove the Waterstones screensaver to replace it with the former Amazon screensaver. We apologise that this change was made without consultation, and hope it does not detract from or alter your reading experience."

While the screensaver doesn't highlight Waterstones offers, several customers reviewing the device say it has tarnished the experience. One mentions that she cannot unsubscribe from the Waterstones blog, which suggests all Waterstones-purchased Kindles also carry permanent subscriptions to the retailer's blog.

"I can live with [the screensave] but what I cannot live with is the notion that I have paid full-price for a product that is now my own private property; yet I cannot get rid of the sleep screen or permanently unsubscribe from the Waterstones blog," wrote one user. "If I wanted these I would go out of my way to subscribe but I don't and so, Waterstones are imposing on my private property."

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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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Apple's iPad mini competes with Amazon's Kindle Fire tablet and Google's Nexus 7 in terms of size. However, Apple's iPad mini is quite a bit more expensive and Amazon doesn't want anyone visiting its site to forget that the Kindle Fire HD offers more bang for your buck.

The etail giant's homepage has been displaying the image below for the last 48 hours. The side-by-side comparison of the Kindle Fire HD and the iPad mini is complemented by a quote from technology news blog Gizmodo highlighting the fact that the iPad mini has fewer pixels than the other 7-inch tablets.

" [... ] your 7.9-inch tablet has far fewer pixels than the competing 7-inch tablets! You’re cramming a worse screen in there, charging more and accusing others of compromise? Ballsy."

Apple CEO Tim Cook recently said that the company would never make a 7-inch slate (the iPad mini has a 7.9-inch display). "We would not make a 7-inch tablet. We don't think they're good products," he said recently, adding that the iPad mini is "in a whole different league" compared to competing devices.

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Back in September, Amazon took the wraps off of a brand new line of Kindle devices. Thankfully, unlike last year's Kindle Fire, the company confirmed shortly after the unveiling that its new line of Kindle Fire tablets would be launching outside of the United States. Though the UK wasn't going to get it at the same time as the U.S., the Kindle Fire was finally destined for British soil. Amazon confirmed an October 25 launch for both the 7-inch Kindle Fire and the 7-inch Kindle Fire HD, and later added the Kindle Paperlight to the billing.

So, in case you haven't yet checked your calendars, it's October 25, which means it's Kindle day! The Kindle Fire is priced at £129 for the 8 GB model, while the 7-inch Kindle Fire HD is priced at £159 for the 16 GB model and £199 for the 32 GB model.

Unfortunately, while the 7-inch Kindle Fire (regular and HD) are available through Amazon UK right now, there's no sign of the 8.9-inch Kindle Fire HD. Amazon has yet to detail a UK launch for that particular device.

Rounding out the Kindle's UK line-up is the Kindle Paperlight, which packs 25-percent better contrast with 212 ppi, 62-percent more pixels than the previous model, a capacitive, frontlit display – light travels down to the screen like ambient light, eight weeks of battery, and a UI that's similar to that of the Kindle Fire. It's priced at £109/£169 (WiFi/3G).

If you're thinking of getting a Kindle Fire, be sure to hit up our review, which just went live this morning.

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Amazon's Second-Gen Tablets: The Kindle Fire And Kindle Fire HD

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.

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.

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).

Kindle UI: If It's Not Broken, Don't Change It

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

Prime: Streaming Video And HDMI Output

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 And GPU Performance

CPU Performance

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Storage Performance: Amazon Fixes A Big Weakness

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.

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.

Why is there a discrepancy between the first- and second-generation Kindle Fires, and why does the iPad 2 perform so well?

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.

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.

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 Analysis

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.

Battery Life And Recharge Time

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.

Wi-Fi Performance: Faster From Farther Away?

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.

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.

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.

Kindle Fire HD: Another Tablet That Plays Into Amazon's Business

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.

Appendix A: USB Debugging, Screenshots, And Rooting

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).

1. Turn on "Allow Installation of Applications From Unknown Sources" and "Enable ADB"
2. 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
3. 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 
4. 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."

Me and My Kindle reports that Amazon has seemingly discontinued its Kindle Touch e-reader, which originally sold at $99 before the new generation crashed the scene last month. The news follows reports that Amazon discontinued its 9.7-inch Kindle DX earlier this month.

Although Amazon hasn't made an official announcement, the company's highly-popular touch-based Kindle e-reader is listed as "currently unavailable". That doesn't necessarily mean the product is officially dead, but the product webpage points to the just-released Kindle Paperwhite, describing the new illuminated e-reader as a "newer model". It's also no longer appearing on Amazon's Kindle lineup.

"We don't know when or if this item will be back in stock," the product page states.

On the Kindle DX front, a search through Amazon doesn't even pull up a product page, but instead points to third parties still offering the device both new and used. This was perhaps Amazon's least popular model of the Kindle family, a 9.7-inch version of the original E Ink Kindle sporting 3G connectivity. This unit has undoubtedly been kicked out of the Kindle club in favor of Amazon's slick new 8.9-inch Kindle Fire HD tablet starting at a moderate $299 USD.

As for the Kindle Touch replacement, the Kindle Paperwhite starts at $119 and features a patented, built-in light that illuminates the screen. So far the device has earned an average rating of just over 4 stars based on 756 reviews. The majority of the customers seem elated with the new e-reader, with 321 customers giving the device five stars and 142 customers giving it 142 stars.

Still, the gadget has received its share of criticism. Earlier this month, Amazon posted a letter to consumers and critics who have complained about some of the Paperwhite's new features like the illuminated screen. The company acknowledged that the gadget has "certain limitations" including a lack of audio or Text-to-Speech functions.

"Under certain lighting conditions, the illumination at the bottom of the screen from the built-in light is not perfectly even," the company explained. "These variations are normal and are located primarily in the margin where text is not present. The illumination is more even than that created by a book light or lighted cover. The contrast, resolution and illumination of the Paperwhite display is a significant step-up from our prior generation.

"The Kindle Paperwhite has 2 GB of storage," Amazon continued. "Some previous Kindle models had 4 GB of storage. 2 GB allows you to hold up to 1,100 books locally on your device. In addition, your entire Kindle library is stored for free in the Amazon cloud, and you can easily move books from the cloud onto your device."

Regardless of the Paperwhite's flaws, it seems that the Kindle Touch is retiring alongside the Kindle DX. Consumers not satisfied with what the new e-reader has to offer can always upgrade to one of the Kindle Fire tablets.

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Back in September, Amazon took the wraps off of a brand new line of Kindle devices. Almost immediately, the company announced that, unlike last year, the 2012 Kindle Fire tablets would be launching internationally. Specifically, the etail giant said that the 7-inch Kindle Fire and the 7-inch Kindle Fire HD would arrive on UK shores on October 25. However, the company didn't mention much about the Kindle Paperwhite.

That all changed today, though, as Amazon confirmed that the Kindle Paperwhite is scheduled to arrive in the UK on the same date as the Kindle Fire. The 6-inch Kindle Paperwhite features ambient lighting around the edge of the display allowing you to read in the dark and eliminating the need for a case with a built in reading light.

The Kindle Paperwhite boasts 25 percent more contrast with 212 ppi, 62-percent more pixels than previous model, eight weeks of battery life with the light on, an interface similar to Kindle Fire's UI, and 3G service for free. Pricewise, you're looking at £109 via Amazon.co.uk and you can pre-order now. The Kindle Paperwhite launched in the United States on October 1.

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Last week Amazon began shipping the Kindle Paperwhite, the company's latest e-reader with a patented built-in front light and hand-tuned fonts. Other features include 25-percent better contrast, 62-percent more pixels, built-in Wi-Fi, an 8-week battery life, and new services like X-Ray, Time to Read and more.

Hack a Day now reports that the device has already been jailbroken. This hack is based on a jailbreak of the Kindle Touch which was performed by removing the case, connecting to the serial port and downloading the firmware. The bootloader wasn't locked, and the JavaScript (used for the UI) wasn't obfuscated.

"Gaining access to the device is as easy as injecting some HTML code into the UI," Hack A Day said regarding the Kindle Touch hack. "It is then run by the device as root (no kidding!). [Yifan] grabbed an MP3 file, changed its tag information to the HTML attack code, then played the file on the device to exploit the flaw. How long before malicious data from illegally downloaded MP3 files ends up blanking the root file system on one of these?"

The new hack for Amazon's Kindle Paperwhite requires the user to upload the data.stgz file to the root directory of the device, and then restart. The next time the device boots, it will be jailbroken, allowing hackers to use a Linux device (like the Raspberry Pi) connected to the Paperwhite's e-ink screen.

"USB downloader mode isn’t yet enabled," Hack A Day warns. "If you brick your device, you’ll need to connect your Kindle to a serial port."

Naturally hacking into Amazon's new e-reader will void the warranty, and could possibly render the device useless. Consumers attempting to jailbreak the device are doing so at their own risk.

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Amazon said on Monday that it is now shipping both versions of the Kindle Paperwhite e-reader. The company says they're the most advanced e-reader ever built, offering 62-percent more pixels, a 25-percent higher contrast, and a patented built-in front light. The design is even sleeker and slimmer than previous Kindle models.

"Kindle Paperwhite is the most advanced e-reader ever created and the Kindle we always wanted to build," said Jay Marine, Vice President, Amazon Kindle. "Pre-orders have far exceeded our expectations and we’re excited to start shipping Kindle Paperwhite to customers today."

The Kindle Paperwhite actually arrives in four flavors: two Wi-Fi only versions ($119 with Special Offers, $139 without), and two Wi-Fi + 3G versions ($179 with Special Offers, $199 without). The 3G models allow owners to download books at any time and wherever there's network coverage thanks to Amazon's free 3G service – no annual contracts or monthly fees included. Wi-Fi only models can download books and content for free using AT&T hotspots across the nation.

The Kindle Paperwhite's screen features three components: a 0.5-mm Light Guide, the capacitive touch screen layer, and the Paperwhite display itself. "We worked on Kindle Paperwhite for over two years to perfect the uniformity of the built-in light, flattening out a fiber optic cable into a sheet, and nanoimprinting to ensure perfectly even distribution of light," Amazon states on the product page. "Our design uses nanoscale optical diffractive patterns to enable tight control over the direction of the light."

The Kindle Paperwhite also features new "hand-tuned" fonts in six styles and eight adjustable sizes. The battery promises up to 8 weeks on one charge even with the unique light on. Even more, a new Time to Read feature uses your reading speed to let you know when you'll finish your chapter, and X-Ray allows readers to explore the "bones of the book."

To get a Kindle Paperwhite e-reader, order the Wi-Fi model here, and the Wi-Fi + 3G model here. Consumers waiting for these devices to hit store shelves at Target and Walmart will be waiting for a long time, as both outlets are no longer offering Kindle devices.

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As promised, Amazon has launched the 7-inch Kindle Fire HD tablet, allowing consumers to purchase the 16 GB model immediately. For those who want the 32 GB model, Amazon is gladly accepting pre-orders for $249 now, and will ship the tablet on October 25, conveniently one day before Microsoft unloads Windows 8 and the first wave of related devices on consumers.

As previously reported, the Kindle Fire HD sports a 7-inch HD LCD screen with a default resolution of 1280 x 800. Powereing the device is a masked Android 4.0 "Ice Cream Sandwich" and a dual-core 1.2 GHz OMAP4460 SoC from Texas Instruments. Also thrown into the mix is 10-point multi-touch capabilities, a battery offering 11 hours of continuous use, 1 GB of RAM, dual-band Wi-Fi connectivity (meaning 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz), and more.

For $40 less, customers can purchase the revamped original Kindle Fire for $159.99 USD. Not much has changed with this gadget unfortunately, as it still sports the same 7-inch screen with a 1024 x 600 resolution, 8 GB of internal storage, and single-band Wi-Fi connectivity. There are also no volume buttons, and there's no SD card slot for expanding the storage, but Amazon has doubled the memory and threw in a better battery for improved performance, so that's a plus.

For consumers who think bigger is better, Amazon's Kindle Fire HD 8.9 will be avialable on November 20, costing $299 for the 16 GB version and $369 for the 32 GB version. Still not enough? Try the Kindle Fire HD 8.9 4G LTE models launching on the same day, costing $499 for the 32 GB version and a hefty $599 for vthe 64 GB version. All four will come packed with a dual-core OMAP4470 SoC clocked at 1.5 GHz, a 1920 x 1200 resolution, dual-band Wi-Fi connectivity and more.

"We're taking on the most popular price point for a tablet, $499, but doubling the storage and incredibly, adding ultra-fast 4G LTE wireless," said Jeff Bezos, Amazon.com Founder and CEO. "Kindle Fire HD is not only the most-advanced hardware, it's also a service. When combined with our enormous content ecosystem, unmatched cross-platform interoperability and standard-setting customer service, we hope people will agree that Kindle Fire HD is the best high-end tablet anywhere, at any price."

To get your new Kindle Fire HD, head here.

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Talk about the Kindle Fire HD (2) is heating up now that the supposed big reveal is next week. Earlier this week, supposed screens surfaced showing a nearly-identical form factor save for a front-facing camera. Now Reuters is reporting that Amazon has chosen Nokia to provide a mapping service for the Kindle Fire successor, indicating that the device will sport GPS functionality.

According to the report, anonymous sources claim that Amazon has added location abilities to the new Kindle Fire, but it's currently unknown if the tablet will indeed feature a GPS chip, or use Wi-Fi-based location. It will likely be the former hardware-based option given that Google has included GPS receiver chips in the just-released 7-inch Nexus 7.

After acquiring Navteq back in 2007, Nokia became one of the world's largest mapping companies. An alliance with Amazon would mean the online retailer will be able to develop a native client for the Kindle Fire and other GPS-enabled devices such as the rumored Amazon smartphone. It will also put Amazon in a better position to compete with Google on a features level, as the original Kindle Fire did not have a native mapping client.

Back in July, Amazon purchased 3D mapping startup developer UpNext. Reports claimed that as part of the acquisition deal, the 4-man team would head to Seattle and take the reigns of Amazon's core mapping efforts. Previously UpNext offered apps for the iPad, iPhone and Android devices, covering 50 cities nationwide but offering enhanced 3D details for 23 cities.

Next week Amazon is rumored to be refreshing its entire Kindle line, launching the 7-inch Kindle Fire HD (2), the 10-inch Kindle Fire XL, the revised 7-inch Kindle Fire with a reduced price, a new Kindle Touch with color and a backlit display, and an updated non-touch Kindle with a backlit display and color graphics. Amazon is also slated to reveal discounted version supported by advertisements.

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We've been hearing rumors about Amazon's plans for a Kindle Fire 2 since just after the first version was launched. Now that we're coming up on the one year anniversary of its announcement, many are expecting Amazon to refresh its entire Kindle line. The fact that several models of Kindle are sold out online is only adding fuel to that fire and today The Verge has exclusive pictures of the new Kindle Amazon is unveiling next week.

The Verge has details on what will likely be Amazon's new Kindle Touch. This generation will see the button below the display omitted and the color of the device itself changed to a very dark, almost black, gray. As far as shape and form factor are concerned, things appear to have remained largely the same. However, the biggest change looks to be the addition of an integrated backlight. Also mentioned are a high resolution, higher contrast and eight weeks of battery life when the backlight is used.

Amazon's big event is scheduled for September 6 in Santa Monica, California. The Kindle Touch sold out online earlier this week, while the Kindle Fire was yesterday revealed to be sold out nationwide. The 9-month-old tablet was first introduced 48 weeks ago, and quickly became the #1 Android tablet by the end of 2011. Rumors for the new Kindle Fire include a slimmer form-factor as well as a larger display. The current Fire boasts a 7-inch screen. 

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Amazon last week announced plans to host a press event on September 5. Considering the tech world has been talking about a Kindle Fire 2 since the launch of the original Kindle Fire, the general assumption was that the event was going to be a Kindle Fire 2 unveiling. However, today it emerged that the Kindle Touch is out of stock online, which has sparked talked that Amazon is going to announce a new version of that next week.

Engadget points to Amazon U.S., where both the Wi-Fi and 3G versions of the device are sold out. They're still available as used products, but if you want a new one, you'll have to hit up brick and mortar stores and hope you get lucky.

It's not impossible that Amazon would announce both a Kindle Fire 2 and a new Kindle Touch. After all, when the company unveiled the original Kindle Fire, the company also launched the Kindle Touch, and the regular Kindle. Could next week be another bumper event with multiple new Kindles?

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It feels like we've been talking about the possibility of a new Kindle Fire for an age. We've been hearing rumors about Amazon's plans for a Kindle Fire 2 since just after the first version was launched. Today brings something else to stoke the fire (sorry!) as Amazon has just sent out invitations for a little get together it's having in Santa Monica, California two weeks from today.

Though the invitations don't mention anything about the Kindle specifically, a new ereader is the number one suspected announcement for this event. It's been nearly a year since Amazon introduced us to the Kindle Fire. The company unveiled the device (after months of rumors regarding an Amazon tablet) on September 28 of last year, along with three more regular Kindles.

Rumors for the new Kindle Fire include a slimmer form-factor as well as a larger display. The current Fire boasts a 7-inch screen. Stay tuned for the latest on September 6!

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