The New Amazon Kindle Fire HD or Google Nexus 7?
It seems that small, tablet PCs are all the rage these days and with Apple’s iPad leading the way, countless other manufacturers are trying to get their share of the market by bringing in their own versions. We’ve even mentioned on this very blog, the Indian tablet that you can buy for less than £50 so it’s a worldwide thing that will only get bigger.
The latest tablet to mark its arrival on the scene is the Kindle Fire HD, which has some impressive specs for the price you pay and is pegged as a strong competitor for the Google Nexus 7 that was also released recently. But seeing as they’re in a similar price range and offer similar functionality, which one should you plump for and spend your hard-earned cash on?
Well let’s look at the Fire HD from Amazon first off and see what the cheaper £159 16GB model will get you:
Whereas the Google Nexus 7 gets you these fairly similar specs for £199:
Both companies are offering credit too to spend in their respective stores (Amazon provide $10 whereas Google offer £15) so that you can download the latest apps and items to your tablet to get you going.
Things may get pricier for Fire HD users however, if they wish to “Opt out” of Amazon’s advertising system (where Amazon would place targeted advertisements every time the device was locked) due to the $15 charge to do so, something that you wouldn’t have to consider on it’s Google counterpart. It’s worth noting too, that it’s unknown how long opting out will last; whether it’s a one-off fee or an annual subscription. It will also turn up at your door with a simple USB cable to charge your device with, as opposed to a mains powered adapter. Fret not though, because if you want to receive a fast-charging device to go with your new Fire HD tablet, then you can order the Kindle PowerFast charging device for an additional £17.99 that will charge your tablet up to full power in under 4 hours.
With these 2 extras considered, the price of the Kindle Fire HD gets very close to Google’s Nexus 7 RRP and with an additional 2 faster CPU cores and support directly from the company that developed the OS, it would seem like a no brainer. Going with a Nexus device means that you’re going to be getting Android OS updates as soon as possible, without phone networks and mobile phone manufacturers adding their own apps and customisations to it (and the lengthy delays involved with them doing so!)
The Nexus 7 also comes in 2.6 ounces lighter which will be extremely welcomed by your hands when it comes to extended periods of use. In addition to that, it’s TEGRA3 chip means that it excels when it comes to gaming, something that many tablet owners are now getting into (with Minecraft now being available!) to keep themselves occupied on the move. Finally, if you’re feeling that little more adventurous, you can even attempt overclocking the CPU to get some extra performance out of the little beast. There are reports of 2GHz being hit, which is a massive 700MHz faster than the stock (already 100MHz faster per core in a straight clock speed comparison with the Fire HD) which benchmarks at nearly twice the speed of a HTC One.
The tablet market is ever growing and ever changing, but these cheaper, powerful alternatives to the iPad are definitely bringing them to the masses. Just what people will be able to cram into a few millimetres of space in the future is going to be an amazing thing to look out for, and rest assured that we will continue to keep you up to date on what’s going on in the slimbodied PC world!