| Amazon has an extensive track record of releasing seven inch tablets, but has only ever released two 8.9 inch models. The Amazon Kindle Fire HDX 8.9 is being billed as the definitive e-reader that excels at reading magazines, newspapers, eBooks and graphic novels. The entire Amazon ecosystem has a copious number of titles to keep you basically reading forever. Today, we look at the overall value of this new model and see whether or not you should upgrade from the first generation or pick one up for the first time. Hardware The Kindle Fire HDX 8.9 features a 8.9 inch touchscreen display with a resolution of 2560x1600p pixels with 339 ppi. The 7 inch HDX has a resolution of 1920×1200 at 323 PPI. Amazon is hyping up reduced glare, dynamic image contrast, and improved brightness for better viewing in any lighting conditions. Underneath the hood is a quad-core Snapdragon 800 processor that is running at 2.2 GHZ and 2 GB of RAM. There is also a dedicated on-board graphics with the Adreno 330 graphics engine. All of these things combined will be one seriously powerful unit that will be able to tap into the extensive Amazon App Store and be able to run any app or game that you can throw at it. It will also be useful for viewing videos and movies as part of Amazon Video. Amazon has the speakers at the top of the device now and audiobooks/movies will sound really good with Dolby Audio. One of the most interesting aspects of the 8.9 inch is the frame, it is comprised of a single-piece of machined magnesium with a blend of glass and nylon molded onto the uni-body to create openings for the antennas and maximize signal strength without sacrificing sturdiness. The result is the lightest large-screen tablet—at just 13.2 ounces, it is 34% lighter than the previous generation large-screen Fire HD tablet. Battery life is fairly respectable with 11 hours of general usage and a low-powered mode if you just read. If you just read Kindle books you can glean 17 hours, which makes it a fairly solid e-reader. It can also take pictures with the rear facing 8 MP camera and shoot videos too. Software Amazon has upgraded their Android OS to version 4.2.2 and has skinned it with a new version of their proprietary entitled Mojito. What has really changed with the older model vs the newer iteration? There is an upgraded carousal that has higher resolution book covers, app icons and short cuts to your apps, videos and music files. Underneath that by swiping down is a new tray of icons that look very much akin to the vanilla Android experience. You can initiate Quiet Time, which eliminates the distractions and app notifications when you are reading. Finally, there is Mayday, which allows you to talk via the 720 P camera and duel-microphones to talk to a dedicated Amazon rep. They can walk you through anything you need to do, which is good for first time tablet users. Aside from all of these new enhancements, most things remain the same. Some of the most noticeable software elements include Kindle Freetime. Parents can make a dedicated profile for their child and establish books, apps, videos and music they have access to. They can also establish specific parameters of usage and configure the amount of time they can read, use apps and surf the internet. There is also a Freetime subscription platform to download a ton of kid apps and use them as much as they want for around $9.99 a month. One of the things I really liked was the way Amazon now handles pictures. In the past you could load pictures on your device via the USB cable that came with your device and then load in your own galleries. Now, you can connect up to your Facebook account and every single picture you have on your profile will be automatically added. If you have a smartphone, such an iPhone, you can enter your telephone number and click on a confirmation text. You can then sync over every single photo on your phone and store them. All photos once on your device are then stored in the Amazon cloud, and if you have other Kindle Fire tablets, everything will automatically be synced. The Fire HDX has a few drawbacks that center around its content and ecosystem. If you live outside the US and UK, you will be unable to watch any movies. You can buy them and download them to your unit, but you will get a pop-up saying that it is not available in your geographical region. You will need to purchase a VPN and an American Credit Card to bypass this, and Shop e-Readers offers them for a fairly affordable rate. Another drawback is the Amazon App Store. They don't really offer many of their competitors apps, so if you want to download comics you have to do it from the Kindle bookstore. Otherwise you will have to either side-load in your own apps or download an alternative app store like Good e-Reader. e-Reading Experience The Kindle Fire HDX 8.9 is a tablet that is primarily built for e-reading. Whether you are reading a standard eBook, listening to an audiobook, checking out the latest issue of Rolling Stone magazine or keeping abreast of the latest news with the New York Times. The large screen display gives it an advantage of heavy graphic content than the seven inch version. Reading an eBook is fairly standard and Amazon has not broke any new ground in the way books show up or the type of options you have to augment the reading experience. You can change the font size quite easily or change the font entirely from a list of eight built in ones. The one new change i like the grey background that almost mirrors the standard background in a physical book. The Kindle Fire HD 3rd generation which also just came out as a bright white background, which hurts the eyes after long reading duration's. I actually found it easier to read on this model than any of the other Fire tablets. One feature I dig is the translation function which will automatically translate words in 12 different languages. You can hit the audio button and have a robot sounding voice translate a specific word or entire body of text that you have highlighted. One of the more popular aspects of dealing with Amazon is the synergy between Audible and Kindle. You can buy both the eBook and audiobook at once and have a slew of functionality that is available. You can listen to the audio edition while you are reading the book and the text is highlighted as the audio plays back. If you are reading the Kindle edition and turn the tablet off on the 3rd chapter, you can pick up where you left off on the audio edition on your phone while you are commuting. Not all eBooks and audiobooks work with Whispersync for Voice and Whispersync for Text, but the ones that do offer cool features. Newspapers for the most part are either dedicated apps or Kindle editions. The former don't have any design consistency and tend to all look completely different. You will have different options and a UI with the USA Today then you would with The Onion. The New York Times is a Kindle edition, which means you can have full control over your experience just like an eBook. Wrap Up The Kindle Fire HDX 8.9 is certainly one of the best large screen tablets on the market. This is a device you are primarily buying to participate in the Amazon ecosystem. I suggest purchasing a one year Prime membership and also a subscription to Kindle Freetime to give you lots of free audio/video content, free eBooks and apps and games for your kids. This tablet is really great, but only users in the US will be able to get the most out of it. International users will be able to buy apps, books, magazines, newspapers, graphic novels and most e-reading content. The video and television selection is non-existant if you say live in Canada. If you have the first generation 8.9, this is a solid upgrade if a faster processor and higher resolution mean a lot to you. If you tend to read just the standard eBook and watch the occasional movie, not so much. Rating: 8.5/10 Review of the Amazon Kindle HDX 8.9 is a post from: E-Reader News |
Saturday, November 30, 2013
Review of the Amazon Kindle HDX 8.9
Amazon Kindle HDX 7 vs Amazon Kindle HDX 8.9
| Amazon has two very high-definition tablets that fall into their new HDX product line. There is a seven inch version and one that is almost nine inches in size. They certainly have similar specs but how does the extra few inches influence the e-reading and multimedia experience? Today we put both models head to head to see what one comes out on-top. The Amazon Kindle Fire HDX 7 features a seven inch capacitive multi-touch screen with a resolution of 1920×1200 pixels. The resolution is a huge upgrade from the previous generation which only had 1280 x 800. HD videos on Netflix and HD comics from Comixology are the most noticeable improvements. Magazines actually don't see any improvements as the ones purchased from Amazon seem to be scaled down to be functional on their entire line of devices. In a direct comparison to the 3rd generation Kindle Fire, they looked exactly the same. Underneath the hood is a quad-core 2.2 GHZ processor and 2 GB of RAM. You have different models for storage and the entry level model has 16 GB of internal memory. When you take it out of the box for the first time there is only 8.8 GB of memory to play with and there is no expandable memory via SD. The Kindle Fire HDX 8.9 features a 8.9 inch touchscreen display with a resolution of 2560x1600p pixels with 339 ppi. The 7 inch HDX has a resolution of 1920×1200 at 323 PPI. Amazon is hyping up reduced glare, dynamic image contrast, and improved brightness for better viewing in any lighting conditions. Underneath the hood is a quad-core Snapdragon 800 processor that is running at 2.2 GHZ and 2 GB of RAM. There is also a dedicated on-board graphics with the Adreno 330 graphics engine. All of these things combined will be one seriously powerful unit that will be able to tap into the extensive Amazon App Store and be able to run any app or game that you can throw at it. It will also be useful for viewing videos and movies as part of Amazon Video. Amazon has the speakers at the top of the device now and audiobooks/movies will sound really good with Dolby Audio. Today we compare both models primarily as a vehicle to consume eBooks, magazines, newspapers and comic books. We also compare the audio/video experience with some HD content. Amazon Kindle HDX 7 vs Amazon Kindle HDX 8.9 is a post from: E-Reader News |
Understanding the (Marvel Comics) Universe
| Marvel Comics have been around for 70 years, and during that time their universe of characters has been steadily growing and evolving; in a recent talk, Marvel vp of web and application development Peter Olson sketched out the dimensions: over 8,000 named characters, written and illustrated by 5,000 creators, appearing in 30,000 comics, 32 movies, and over 30 television shows. The very richness of the Marvel universe, however, is also the greatest barrier to entry for many people: So many characters, constantly changing not only over time but also across different titles—Spider-Man used to be Peter Parker in the Amazing Spider-Man comics (and he still is in the newspaper comic strip) but now the former villain Otto Octavius has taken him over in Superior Spider-Man, while Miles Morales wears the webs in Ultimate Comics: Spider-Man. Captain America was Steve Rogers, then he died and his sidekick Bucky Barnes took over, except that in the movie Captain America was Steve Rogers again. Like they say on Facebook, it’s complicated. That’s a barrier for new readers. The movies based on Marvel characters are among the top grossers at the box office, but it’s pretty much impossible for someone who has just seen the Avengers movie to pick up an Avengers comic and start reading. That’s the problem that Olsen is working on: Creating a massive data map of all Marvel characters. Right now, Wikipedia is the confused reader’s best friend, and if the article is up to date, it will give a pretty good sense of who the character is and what changes it has been through. But that’s a one-dimensional view. The beauty of Olsen’s database is that it maps out the characters and their relationships to one another, the types of stories, even the styles of the creators. That will allow readers not only to learn who the characters are, across time and different storylines, but also to find more comics that they will like: “Instead of waiting for Amazon-style "users also bought" data suggestions, Marvel wants to track relationships within its vast library. Like the teen superhero angle of Runaways? Try Young Avengers. But wait, you just want to see more stories drawn in the style of original Runaways artist Adrian Alphona? The Marvel graph database will find an answer based not only on book similarities but nuanced metadata, like writer or artist style. Better still, it'll do what the venerable ComicBookDatabase cannot: confidently propose a list of essential story arcs for the new fan.” And it will recommend movies and other media as well as just comics. This type of graph database has many possible applications outside of comics, but the tangled universe of Marvel continuity is certainly a great place to start. Understanding the (Marvel Comics) Universe is a post from: E-Reader News |
More Exciting Book Opportunities for Reading Shoppers
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A movement started by author Sherman Alexie and supported by IndieBound.org may surprise any fans of books who venture into bookstores today. Don’t be surprised if James Patterson rings up your purchases, or Mary Anne Kempher points to a title you’re looking for. Hundreds of authors have signed up to lend their support, not in terms of publicity or book signings, but just by volunteering on what will hopefully prove to be a profitable day for these small business owners. For those shoppers who plan to spend today bundled up inside and taking advantage of perks like discounts and free shipping on different retail websites, don’t forget to take a look at the Wordplay Shakespeare site, as the publisher of side-by-side translations of some of Shakespeare’s best loved titles will be gifting copies of the enhanced ebook for Macbeth in a random drawing to new subscribers to the newsletter. The sign-ups can be found HERE.
More Exciting Book Opportunities for Reading Shoppers is a post from: E-Reader News |
