Amazon Releases New and Refreshed Kindle Fire Tablets, Announces Fire OS 4

Amazon has been busy on the mobile front, following the disappointing launch of the Fire Phone. The Fire Phone has been an absolute dud on the market, with AT&T (the exclusive carrier for the Fire Phone) already dropping the price of the entry-level model to 99 cents on contract.   With that said, Amazon has always had better luck with its tablets and e-readers, which is why the company is proud to announce two refreshed tablets and four all-new tablets under the “Kindle Fire” product family. - 
We’ll first start off with the refreshed Kindle Fire HDX 8.9. The previous generation model was announced around this time last year and came with a quad-core Snapdragon 800 processor paired with 2GB of RAM. This year’s model bumps the processor spec to a quad-core Snapdragon 805 running at a heady 2.5GHz. Amazon says that Snapdragon 805 brings with its 70 percent faster graphics performance while still providing around 12 hours of battery life.

In addition, onboard Wi-Fi has been upgraded from 802.11n to the speedier 802.11ac standard, Dolby Atmos surround sound technology has been added, and a new “Dynamic Light Control” mode has been added that aims to tweak white balance settings to “[Make] the pages of a book more closely resemble a real piece of paper in different lighting conditions.”

All other features including the dual cameras and 8.9” 2,560 x 1,600 display remain the same. The new Fire HDX will be priced at $379 and will ship in October; it is also currently up for pre-order on Amazon’s website. Also available will be a $59.99 Bluetooth keyboard accessory which Amazon class is the "thinnest and lightest full-featured keyboard with a trackpad."

The Kindle Fire HDX 7 will continue on with unchanged hardware, but its price has been cut by $30 to $199.

Now, moving on the all-new tablets, Amazon has introduced a brand new Kindle Fire HD line. Available in 6” and 7” screen sizes, all other hardware specs between the two tablets remain exactly the same. That means that you’ll receive a 720p display, 1.5GHz quad-core processor, front- and rear-facing cameras, and Dolby Digital Plus Audio.

 ^{Kindle Fire HD 7}

Both tablets will be available in black, white, cobalt, magenta, and citron (a yellowish-green color). The 6” model is priced at $99, while the 7” model is priced at $139.

Amazon is also making a “Kids Edition” of both new Kindle Fire HD models. Amazon says that the tablets were built from the ground up with children in mind, and come wrapped in a rubber case to help absorb the inevitable drops from accident-prone tikes. The Kids Edition tablets also come with a two-year “worry-free” guarantee to replace a broken or damage tablet. Also included is a year’s subscription to Amazon FreeTime.

 ^{Kindle Fire HD Kids Edition}

The Kindle Fire HD Kids Edition is priced at $149 and $189 respectively for the 6” and 7” models.

It should be noted that all of the newly announced tablets will come with Fire OS 4 (codename Sangria). Fire OS 4 is based on Android 4.4 KitKat and provides a further refined UI to provide quick access to media content and individual user profiles so that each family member “can have their own individual email, Facebook and Twitter accounts, settings such as display brightness, bookmarks, spot in a movie, and game levels.”

Amazon says that Fire OS 4 will be available to al third-generation Kindle Fire tablets via an over-the-air update, while the aforementioned Fire Phone will get the update early in 2015.