Today Amazon unveiled an upgrade to its Kindle Fire tablet, dubbed the Kindle Fire HD.
The top of the line $599 model sports 64GB of storage, an 8.9″ HD screen and 4G LTE wireless, and is reported to be running a heavily modified version of the Android 4.0 operating system, also known as Ice Cream Sandwich. A 32GB version sells for $499.
WiFi only versions of the Kindle Fire HD are also available, for $369 (32GB) and $299 (16GB).
A smaller screen 7″ version of the WiFi HD with 16 GB of storage is also available for $199.
For those who prefer to have nothing else but books on their Kindles, Amazon has introduced the new Paperwhite e-readers. The Kindle Paperwhite comes with a patented built in light that provides even illumination of the 6″ screen across all lighting conditions. No more unwieldy clip on book lights! A 3G version sells for $199 and an ad-supported version sells for $179. A WiFi only version sells for $139, with an ad-supported version going for $119.
Lastly, the entry level Kindle now comes with improved fonts and a slight boost in page turn times and now sells for $89 without ads and $69 with ads.
That’s a lot of variants to choose from, and it will be interesting to see how the Kindle Fire HD fares against the juggernaut that is the iPad, not to mention the generally well-received Google Nexus 7 tablet. The rumors of an impending smaller-screened iPad may also give pause to those who’re looking to pick up a new tablet right now.
Click here to view details on the new and revamped Kindle family.
