Amazon Releases Updated Kindle Fire HD Line

Amazon on Wednesday announced three new Kindle Fire tablets: a 8.9- and 7-inch Kindle Fire HDX and a lower-end Kindle Fire HD. The tablets feature faster hardware, better screens, improved software and a subtle new look.

"We have always wanted to build hardware that disappears and gets out of the way," said CEO Jeff Bezos, who showed off the new products at Amazon's Seattle headquarters. "When you're reading a book you don't think about the glue and the stitching."

Making hardware that customers can successfully ignore requires a manufacturer pay a lot of attention to hardware. The Amazon team has spent the last year improving its Kindle line inside and out.

Faster guts by the numbers

The result is a Kindle Fire HDX that's a beefed-up, sped-up, slimmed-down upgrade to last year's Kindle Fire HD. The third generation of Kindle Fire, the HDX comes in two sizes: 8.9 inches for $329 and 7 inches for $229 (tag on another $100 if you want a 4G connection through Verizon or AT&T.)

High-quality screens are key for devices that are built to deliver content like movies and books. The new screens are much higher resolution than the previous Fires. The 8.9-inch tablet crams in 339 pixels per square inch with a 2560-by-1600 resolution screen; the 7-incher is 1920-by-1200 with 323 pixels per square inch. Rounding out the screen improvements, the colors are more accurate and the screen automatically adjusts the contrast depending on how much ambient light there is.

The tablet is also faster, elaborate visuals like the kind in video games are smoother and speedier and there shouldn't be any lag when navigating through menus, using apps or enjoying books or movies. The internal hardware making that possible includes a new 2.2 GHz, quad-core processor, 2GB of RAM and an improved graphics engine.

For some reason, people continue to take photos with their tablets. Amazon has added an 8-megapixel camera to the back of the larger tablet and included a fat selection of editing and photo tools, like HDR and burst mode.

The third new Kindle Fire is the Kindle Fire HD, and its killer feature is a $139 price tag and slightly speedier specs than last year's model.