Amazon Kindle Fire HDX review

Amazon’s Kindle Fire tablets spearheaded the current boom in low-cost Android tablets, but there’s one thing you could never accuse them of – they’ve never felt cheap. The latest model – the Kindle Fire HDX – delivers a swathe of upgrades and carries on the good work.

It’s a beautifully constructed bit of kit: twist it and it barely creaks – the matte-black soft-touch plastics at the rear feel robust and feel grippy.

In a departure from the Kindle Fire HD’s design (and the design of most other compact tablets), the edges are all angles, lending the rear of the tablet a rather Cubist look, but the HDX never feels anything but comfortable in the hand.

This Wi-Fi version weighs a mere 303g, too – around the same weight as its chief rival the Nexus 7, and much lighter than the older Fire HD, which tips the scales at 394g.

Around the edges of the tablet is a minimal selection of ports: there’s a 3.5mm headset jack and a micro-USB port for charging and data transfer – and that’s your lot.

This is no different from before, but what is different is the positioning of the power and volume buttons, and we don’t like it – not one bit.

They’re set into the angled borders on the rear panel, rather than the edges of the tablet, and we found locating them a frustrating fumble.

Still, once the tablet is fired up, you’ll probably forget all about that, and wonder at the sheer speed of the HDX. Under the hood is a 2.2GHz quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 processor, coupled with 2GB of RAM and Adreno 330 graphics, and it’s a huge improvement on the 1.2GHz dual-core CPU of its predecessor.

Where Amazon’s proprietary, Amazon-based OS would occasionally catch and stutter on that tablet, it really flies on the HDX.

The scrolling carousel of recent items on the home page slides across the screen, responding instantaneously. Scrolling and panning in the Silk web browser is sublimely smooth. Typing on the improved Swype-style keyboard exhibits no lag, and it plays games like a dream, not to mention Full HD video.

In benchmarks, the Kindle HDX even manages to outstrip the Nexus 7, with significantly faster scores in every test we run. Notably, its frame rate of 22fps in the GFXBench 2.7 T-Rex HD test is 47% faster.

Just like the Google Nexus 7, the Kindle HDX’s display is a 7in, Full HD IPS unit, and it runs it close in terms of quality. We measured top brightness at 431cd/m2, to the Nexus’ 489cd/m2, and a contrast ratio of 895:1, although the HDX uses dynamic contrast, reducing brightness for dark screen content and boosting it when there’s lighter content on display, giving the appearance of a punchier display.

Another area where the HDX impresses is battery life. In our low-resolution looping video test, with the display calibrated to a brightness of 120cd/m2, the Fire HDX lasted 11hrs 30mins, which is only 18 minutes short of the time achieved by the Nexus 7. The HDX also drops into a low-power state when you’re reading a book and delivers even longer battery life. Amazon claims up to 17 hours.

All round, the redesign is a real success, and we’d happily recommend the HDX alongside the Nexus 7, even with those aggravating buttons, if it weren’t for a few major problems. First, there’s no rear-facing camera, just the front-facing 1.3-megapixel one. Second, there’s no NFC, the non-4G version has no GPS, and like the Nexus 7, no microSD slot. Third, and by far the HDX’s biggest problem, is Amazon’s insistence on running its own, proprietary Android-based user interface.

There’s nothing wrong with it from a usability point of view. In fact, in some respects Amazon’s approach makes the HDX simpler to use than the Nexus 7. When you buy an HDX, it comes ready-linked to your Amazon account, and it’s simplicity itself to access the content you’ve already bought through Amazon, whether ebook titles, music files or film rentals via Lovefilm.

Amazon has made this version even more easy to use, with the addition of the Mayday button. Accessible via the pull-down menu, this delivers live 24/7 video-chat tech support, where the tech support agent can take control of your tablet’s display, and show you how the various features of the HDX works. It works well, too, although it does rely on your tech support agent knowing his or her stuff.

Other new features include screen mirroring support via Miracast so you can play movies wirelessly to your TV (we wouldn’t advise you do this with games as it can be pretty laggy). There’s also Second Screen, which uses an app to stream video content from the HDX, via the internet, to compatible devices. This frees you up to carry on using the HDX to browse the web, or whatever else you fancy, although currently support is limited to some Samsung TVs, the Sony PlayStation 3 and the PlayStation 4.

The problem with Amazon’s approach is that it restricts you to Amazon’s services. You can’t use Google Play to buy apps, music and movies, you can’t install alternative keyboards, and you don’t get to use the superb collection of core Google apps, such as Maps, Google+, the Gallery and photo-editing tools, Hangouts and Google Now. Neither can you share apps bought on a smartphone with the Kindle HDX – if you want the same apps on both you have to pay twice.

The Kindle HDX is a brilliant piece of hardware, of that there is no doubt. It’s slick, quick and very easy to use. However, for us, it falls just short of greatness. We’d rather have the open approach and broader selection of features on the Nexus 7 than the faster performance of the HDX, especially since the price is exactly the same.

Detail
Warranty	1yr collect and return
Physical
Dimensions	185 x 9.4 x 128mm (WDH)
Weight	303g
Display
Primary keyboard	On-screen
Screen size	7.0in
Resolution screen horizontal	1,200
Resolution screen vertical	1,920
Display type	IPS
Panel technology	IPS
Core specifications
CPU frequency, MHz	2.2GHz
Integrated memory	16/32/64GB
RAM capacity	2.00GB
Camera
Camera megapixel rating	1.3mp
Focus type	Autofocus
Built-in flash?	no
Built-in flash type	N/A
Front-facing camera?	yes
Video capture?	yes
Other
Integrated GPS	yes
Accessories supplied	USB charger
Upstream USB ports	0
HDMI output?	no
Software
Mobile operating system	Kindle Fire OS