Amazon Kindle Fire HDX Review

Amazon's Kindle Fire line has always been about putting gobs of great content at your fingertips, and now you can add tech help to that list. For the first time on any tablet, the Kindle Fire HDX provides guidance from a live adviser with the tap of a button. This 7-inch Android slate has a lot more going for it, including a sleeker new design, superfast Snapdragon 800 processor and superior full-HD display. After spending some quality time with the HDX, it's easy to see why Amazon has done enough to make this one of the very best 7-inch tablets.

The shape of the Kindle Fire HDX definitely is more interesting than your average black rectangular tablet. Unlike the Kindle Fire HD -- which has soft, rounded corners -- every edge of the HDX is angled, offering an aerodynamic aesthetic look.

The only adornment on the front is the HD camera, which supports 720p recording. The thin edges are home to the microUSB port on the left and the headphone port on the right. Along the slanted, soft-touch back sides, in landscape mode, you'll find an indented power button on the left, and volume buttons on the right, that are easy to find by touch alone. The top edge houses Dolby speakers on each side.

At 7.3 x 5 x 0.35 inches, the HDX is shorter than the competition, including the Nexus 7 (7.9 x 4.5 x 0.34 inches), the Hisense Sero 7 Pro (7.9 x 5 x 0.4 inches) and the ASUS Memo Pad HD 7 (7.7 x 4.7 x 0.4 inches). Weighing just 10.7 ounces, the HDX is lighter than the 12.7-ounce Hisense and 11-ounce ASUS. But Amazon's tablet is a tad heavier than the 10.34-ounce Nexus 7.

Like the Nexus 7, the HDX lacks a microSD card slot, something both the Sero 7 Pro and Memo Pad HD 7 offer. However, Amazon does make 16GB, 32GB and 64GB versions of the HDX. In our 16GB review unit, 10.71GB was available for use.

Display

Amazon packs the Kindle Fire HDX with a 1920 x 1200-pixel, 7-inch display with a density of 323 pixels per inch. That matches the Nexus 7's screen, but blows away the Memo Pad HD 7's and Sero 8 Pro's 1280 x 800p panels.

When we watched a trailer for "Thor," viewing angles on the Fire HDX were excellent. Colors popped, as the hammer-wielding god's cape flapped and Loki's wicked smile shined with pure malice. In side-by-side viewing, Amazon's tablet beat Google's and Hisense's in clarity, color and contrast.

The Nexus 7 offers the brightest screen among its competition, with a lux rating of 531. But the 480 lux on the Fire HDX is still significantly brighter than the category average of 368 lux, as well as the Memo Pad HD 7 (358) and Sero 7 Pro (369).

Audio

Dual speakers, combined with Dolby Digital Plus technology, made for some impressive audio on the HDX. Due to the speakers' placement along the top slanted edge, the audio was actually amplified when we put the tablet on a table. We picked up some bass from Daft Punk's "Get Lucky," and the cowbells in One Direction's "What Makes You Beautiful" rang out crisp and clear, even at full volume. Plus, Loki's voice in the trailer for "Thor" gave us goose bumps.

On our LAPTOP Audio Test, the Fire HDX speakers pumped out audio at a loud 77 decibels. That's lower than the 83-db category average, but we had no problem filling a small room with quality sound. The Nexus 7, by comparison, offered up just 73 decibels.

Interface

While Android powers the Kindle Fire HDX, Amazon has fully skinned the tablet with its own overlay, called Fire 3.0 "Mojito." The outward appearance looks very similar to last year's Kindle Fire HD, but Amazon has gone hog wild with features.

Familiar to previous Fire owners is the carousel view of recently opened content or apps that sits at the top of the screen, just above a more traditional grid view. But this year, Amazon has added the Quick Switch feature from within apps; with a side swipe, you can reveal a tray of open apps without going back to the home screen. The carousel view still seems a bit My First Tablet to us.

The top bar of the screen shows some basic info, such as wireless setting and battery status. Below that is a row that separates your content by type -- games, apps, books, music, videos, newsstand, audiobooks, Web, photos and docs. Naturally, you can access the Amazon store from this bar. It's an obvious and clear system of navigation that we found helpful.

Pulling down from the top reveals some quick access settings, such as brightness, auto-rotate, wireless and settings. Under settings, you can open another window to tweak everything from sounds and security to parental controls. For dedicated readers, there's a Quiet Time switch that allows you to prevent notifications from interrupting your reading time.

Screen Reader, Explore by Touch and Screen Magnifier are new accessibility features for the visually impaired. Screen Reader features Ivona's natural language text-to-speech voice. Explore by Touch describes items when you tap the screen. Screen Magnifier allows you to zoom in quickly.

Amazon isn't stopping with these enhancements. A Fire OS 3.1 update is planned for mid-November, and will add Cloud Collections, Goodreads and some enterprise-level enhancements. Cloud Collections allows you to group similar content and then store it on Amazon's server instead of your tablet's memory. Goodreads is a social network for bookworms that will allow members to see what their friends are reading, share highlights and rate books.

Among other enterprise enhancements (such as VPN support and IT-department management tools), later this year, Fire HDX owners will be able to print to a wireless printer. The newer version of the Fire OS will come via a free over-the-air update.

Second Screen and Mirroring

Another part of the upcoming OS 3.1 update is Second Screen, which will enable users to share their tablet's content with select Samsung TVs, as well as the PlayStation 3 and PS4. If you don't own one of these devices, you can stream whatever is on your HDX's screen right now directly to Miracast-capable devices, such as the Netgear Push2TV Wireless Display adapter ($59).