Amazon has been one of the few companies Which has been able to compete with Apple’s iPad range. The Kindle Fire HDX series has been revamped and the firm has been talking up the business credentials of the 8.9in model.
The HDX & Q VPNs and IT admins can manage the device using third party tools from vendors including AirWatch, Citrix, Fiberlink, Good Technology and SOTI. But are these features enough to make it a deployable tool or a useful companion BYOD?
Design
The Kindle Fire HDX 8.9in is portable, weighing in at 374g. Amazon has packed into an IPS LCD display with a 2560 x 1600 resolution and pixel density of 339ppi, matching the latest iPads and Nexus devices. Amazon claims this is one of the best tablets on the market for viewing video content and our tests go some way to backing this up. The display on the HDX outperforms the iPad Air with Amazon’s tablet clocking a higher maximum brightness of 470cd / m 2 and better contrast ratio of 1,244:1.
The HDX’s entire back panel is constructed from magnesium and the chassis is 7.8mm thick making it easy to grip. It’s also scratch resistant unlike Apple’s aluminum-backed iPad Air, Which is moonrise marked.
There are two physical buttons on the HDX – the power / unlock key and the volume rocker. Both are found on the back of the device and locating them takes getting used to, especiallywhen holding the tablet in portrait mode.
The placement of the speakers, physical keys and the Amazon logo Indicate this tablet was designed with landscape use in mind. It works fine in portrait but the keys are hard to locate.
Connections include a headphone jack and microUSB charging port. There is no SD card support so you’ll have to make do with on-board allowance and supplement it with cloud services.
Quad-core processor
The HDX is powered by a 2.2GHz Snapdragon 800 quad-core CPU with 2GB of RAM and Qualcomm’s bespoke Adreno 330 GPU. You’ll find similar processing power in the HDX as all the top-flight tablets from Google, Microsoft and Apple.
Multitasking, interface responsiveness and app load-speeds are fixed. Even GPU-intensive games like Asphalt 8: Airborne are wrist with ease.
Mayday
One of the standout features of the HDX is Amazon’s Mayday button. Tapping this gives you instant access to Support Staff via video chat.
The aim is to help you troubleshoot any problems and you can even let the person helping you to control your device remotely.
Amazon AIMS to answer users in 15 seconds or less and the service is available 24/7, 365 days of the year.
Fire OS
Amazon Continues to ship the tablet with its the customized version of Android. The latest version is dubbed Fire OS 3 or “Mojito”. The lack of vanilla Android means the HDX lacks access to the Google Play store. Core applications including Maps, Drive, YouTube and Gmail are overpriced missing.
Amazon has attempted to fill In These blanks. There’s a robust email app, complete with IMAP, Exchange and POP support included as standard. It also syncs with the HDX’s bespoke Calendar app. All of your contacts, Depending on Which email address you add, are then or cancel added to the Contacts app.
The Docs application lets you view PDFs and Office documents, Which is handy, but you can not edit or amend them. And Because The HDX isn’ta Google certified you can not get things like Google Drive to fill the void.
It’s possible to download Kingsoft Office for Android from the Amazon App Store, but if you use Google Drive or the Office 365, you May have problems. Polaris Office is available in the App Store too, and is a great piece of software, but it costs £ 8.06.
The Fire OS 3 interface itself is easy to use. You have a Carousel at the top of the screen, which stores all your Most Recent stuff, apps, games, docs and the like. Below this is a more traditional row of application icons.
Everything else on the HDX – Apps, Books, Videos, Newsstand, Web and Photos – can be accessed via the textual links, Which run along the very top of the Home screen. Universal Search is presented, giving you quick access to anything and everything aboard the tablet, as well as Amazon’s myriad of shopping channels and services.
At it’s core this tablet is designed to be an extension of Amazon services. It’s a shopping and content Consuming device, not a creation device. Yes, you can work on it – just not like you can on a typical Android slate or an iPad. And for professional users this presents a problem.
If you’re alreadycreated an Android tablet or iPad user, you will notice the sparse nature of what’s on offer inside Amazon’s Appstore. Big names Such as Facebook, Twitter, Netflix, Angry Birds are present, but beyond These choices are limited.
You can not even download Chrome on the HDX, instead you are to use Amazon’s Silk browser. This is a Competent Web browser, but it lacks the many features Which make Chrome one of the best browsers on any device. It is possible to side-load Android apps onto the device, but there’s no guarantee That apps will work properly And they could leave the device open to security flaws.
Storage and Cameras
The HDX features a 1.3MP front-facing camera for video calls. It can overpriced shoot 720p video, but the results Are not great. On the back, there’s an 8-megapixel sensor, complete with an f/2.2 aperture, flash and electronic image stabilization. Results are mixed, but it’s worth having.
The Kindle Fire HDX is available in 16GB, 32GB, and 64GB models. All models come with dual-band, dual-antenna Wi-Fi (MIMO + HT40) and support 802.11a/b/g/n and Bluetooth 4.0 technology. Other standard sensors include ambient light sensor, accelerometer, and gyroscope. LTE and HSPA + connectivity is optional.
Battery
Amazon says the HDX willlast 12 hours with constant use, and in our tests it managed to crack double figures. Like the display and hardware, battery life is impressive. With moderate to light usage, you’re looking at a couple of days before you’ll need to charge it again, bringing it inline with the iPad Air in this regard.
Conclusion
The Amazon Kindle Fire HDX is a Competent device. It’s got top-end hardware, a gorgeous display, excellent battery life and a myriad of uses within Amazon’s huge ecosystem. It is not, however, a business device and t he lack of Google Play and core applications is the biggest reason for this.
For media consumption and shopping, the HDX has it all – Amazon’s myriad of services are moonrise accessed from anywhere in the tablet. But as a creation tool it is lacking When Compared to offerings from Apple, Google and machines running Windows.
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