Asus Eee Pad Transformer Prime Tablet Review and Specifications

Asus Eee Pad Transformer Prime Tablet - Overview


Asus Eee Pad Transformer Prime Tablet Review and Specifications. Of the original Asus Transformer, we said it was the “best Android tablet out there”. And this was confirmed when it won the number one spot for best tablet and gadget of the year in our 2011 Awards. The game-changing Asus Eee Pad Transformer combined a great standalone tablet with a keyboard dock that not only let you type properly but also doubled the device’s battery life and gave you such connectivity gems as full-size USB ports and a regular SD card slot, essentially turning the tablet into a mini laptop that had a better screen and lasted longer on the go than any netbook.

But now its reign is about to be ended, by none other than Asus’ own Transformer Prime, AKA the TF201. This sequel to the Transformer is lighter, slimmer, more stylish, metal-clad, comes with an even better screen and, perhaps most significantly, with a quad-core CPU and 12-core GPU combo courtesy of Nvidia’s Tegra 3, making it the most versatile and powerful tablet on the market.
Asus Eee Pad Transformer Prime
Asus Eee Pad Transformer Prime Tablet Review and Specifications. Even without its keyboard dock, the new Asus Eee Pad Transformer Prime is a stunning device. In the inevitable iPad 2 comparison, it holds up very well indeed, as you’ll see if you have a read of our Transformer Prime VS iPad 2: Battle of the Tablet Titans article. Just to sum up, the new Asus Eee Pad Transformer Prime is both thinner and lighter, its metal chassis feels almost as sturdy and it looks just as good as Apple’s effort. It also offers better connectivity, more powerful specifications, superior cameras and, most strikingly, a sharper screen which literally outshines all competitors thanks to its 600nits brightness. Asus Eee Pad Transformer Prime

As the Asus Transformer Prime is also the first quad-core tablet in the world, it’s potentially more powerful than nearly any rival – barring Windows tabs like the Samsung Series 7 Slate, which costs more than double at £999. We’ll explore the full performance in a bit, but suffice to say that there’s more untapped potential here than most developers will know what to do with – oh, and HD video of all varieties will finally play back smoothly, a feat hitherto unmatched in tablet land.
Asus Eee Pad Transformer Prime
Asus Eee Pad Transformer Prime Tablet Review and Specifications. With Asus having committed to updating the Transformer Prime’s Android 3.2 (Honeycomb) to Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwhich AKA ICS) very soon, the current lack of a 3G model is our only real gripe with the latest Asus Eee Pad Transformer - on paper. Mind you, it’s likely there’ll be a 3G version coming out further down the line, and with the keyboard dock attached it’s easy enough to plug in a dongle or tether your phone, but for now it is still a potential issue. With all that out of the way, let’s find out if the Asus Eee Pad Transformer Prime is as good as it appears to be

Asus Transformer Pad 300 Tablet Reviews and Specifications

Asus Transformer Pad 300 Tablet

Asus Transformer Pad 300 Tablet Reviews and Specifications. We awarded the original Asus Eee Pad Transformer Prime a perfect 10/10 score, for while it was not without its issues, it was as close to perfect as a tablet had yet come. In fact, the only negative was its slightly high asking price of £500, which was excellent value for what you were getting but not particularly affordable. As you may imagine then, we were pretty excited when we first heard Asus would be releasing a cheaper convertible tablet with the same great Tegra 3 quad-core internals and same game-changing keyboard dock with extra battery. That tablet is called the Transformer Pad 300, model name TF300, and it lives up to our high expectations in so many ways. However, at the same price as Apple’s new iPad 3, can it overturn Apple's finest?
Asus Transformer Pad 300 12
For those new to Asus’ ever expanding Transformer family, the original Transformer, Prime and Tab 300 all share a common core concept: a ‘convertible’ Android tablet with (sometimes optional) keyboard dock that essentially turns it into a highly portable laptop, akin to a high-end netbook. Given that the Transformer range are pretty darn good tablets without the dock, the fact that this accessory not only gives you a hardware keyboard but also expands the connectivity and nearly doubles the battery life is the cherry on the already scrumptious cake.

Asus Transformer Pad 300 - Differences to the Transformer Prime

So how does Asus manage to shave £100 off the Prime’s price, and what exactly are the differences? Most noticeably, the Prime’s gorgeous aluminium chassis has been replaced with a plastic one, with both thickness and weight increasing slightly in the process.
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Asus Transformer Pad 300 Tablet Reviews and Specifications. However, the textured plastic is not prone to unsightly fingerprints, provides a far better grip, and negates the Prime’s Wi-Fi and GPS issues. Overall then, this ‘downside’ could actually be considered an advantage. It will be available in a range of colours too, including navy blue, white and red. Initially blue will be your only choice, with red and white to follow.

The second, less ambiguous change is that the Prime’s eye-searingly bright 10.1in Super IPS Plus display has been replaced with a more regular IPS panel of the same size and 1,280 x 800 resolution but a much lower brightness, which puts it on a footing with most other premium Android tablets in this regard.
Asus Transformer Pad 300 5
Last and least of the 'big' ones, memory capacity is limited to 32GB (at least for the UK) rather than the Prime’s optional 64GB – but unlike on the iPad and several other Android tablets, memory is expandable with not just one but two SD card slots, so this really shouldn’t concern most users. The rear camera has lost its LED flash too, but again we can’t see this being a huge complaint.

Asus Transformer Pad 300 Tablet Reviews and Specifications. The only other supposed downside to the Transformer Pad 300/TF300 is that its Tegra 3 processor has a slightly slower standard clock speed of 1.2GHz compared to the Transformer Prime’s 1.3GHz – but honestly, you won’t notice the difference at all in real-world use.      

Acer Iconia W700 Tablet Reviews and Specifications

What is the Acer Iconia W700 Tablet?

Acer Iconia W700 Tablet Reviews and Specifications. The Acer Iconia W700 is not a rival for the iPad 4 or Google Nexus 7. Instead, this meaty 11.6-inch Windows 8 tablet wants to be your tablet, laptop and possibly even desktop replacement in one. To this aim, it comes with a desktop cradle and Bluetooth keyboard that makes it an alternative to the Microsoft Surface Pro. Combined with an 1.4GHz Intel Core i3 processor, 64GB SSD storage and 4GB of RAM it sounds promising on paper, but can it deliver on such lofty ambitions?


Acer Iconia W700

Acer Iconia W700 Tablet Reviews - Design & Build Quality

Acer Iconia W700 Tablet Reviews and Specifications. There's no avoiding it: as a tablet the Acer Iconia W700 design feels big and a tad clumsy. At 11.1mm thick it's actually a shade slimmer than the Microsoft Surface Pro, but at 950g it's 40g heavier and its 11.6-inch screen - an inch larger than the Surface - makes it feel excessively large and uncomfortable in the hand.

As a case in point, while typing on the on-screen keyboard in landscape is fine, in portrait the W700 is just too heavy for comfort. Given its focus this much is to be expected, but anyone hoping for an iPad-like experience with Windows 8 features will be disappointed.

So it's large for a tablet, but the build quality is top-notch. The Acer Iconia W700's aluminium unibody shell is reassuringly robust - it safely survived a couple of considerable accidental bashes during our time with it, which bodes well for heavy users. It looks and feels like a quality product.

It's a shame, in one respect, that this sleek exterior is cluttered by all manner of physical controls and connection ports. But the full-size USB port is useful for quickly sharing and viewing documents, and it has most of the controls and connections you need, including a headphone jack. The only slightly puzzling omission is a memory card slot, something that's present on the Surface Pro.

There's no option for built-in 3G/4G, either, though the USB port could conceivably be used with a dongle in an emergency.

Acer Iconia W700 Tablet Reviews - Accessories

The Acer Iconia W700 build quality is very good, but we can't say the same of the accessories. The Bluetooth keyboard that partners the Acer Iconia W700 tablet is easy on the eye, but it feels cheap and nasty. It does nothing to reassure you it'll survive a few months of heavy use.

But it's a masterpiece of engineering compared to the desktop dock. It's a cheap, plastic mess. It doesn't complement the W700's sleek exterior at all, and while it's meant for desk use it's worth bearing in mind the two combined are only marginally more portable than a laptop.

While the Acer Iconia W700's price is tempting, it's easy to see where Acer has saved money here. 

Acer Iconia W700

Acer Iconia W700 Tablet Reviews - Screen

Acer Iconia W700 Tablet Reviews and Specifications. Where Acer has saved money on the accessories it's spent it on the screen, as the Acer Iconia W700 screen is fantastic. It stops short of 'retina' quality, but its Full HD, 1,920 x 1,080 resolution makes the likes of the iPad mini look like a blurry mess. It's considerably better than any you'll find on a similar price laptop, such as the Samsung Series 5 NP540U3C touchscreen ultrabook, too.

Whether you're viewing HD videos, photos or simply browsing the web, its strong, vibrant colours and deep blacks lift it above the likes the Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet 2. It's very responsive and accurate to touch, too, with all scrolls between menus and homescreens coming without any fuss, fanfare or unwanted stuttering.

And while the Acer Iconia W700's screen makes it bulky, it also makes web pages or viewing Word documents a joy. Text is sharp and detailed, while in portrait mode you can see and read far more in a single go.
It's comfortably the Acer Iconia W700's best feature.

Source : TrusredReviews

Asus VivoTab Smart Tablet Reviews and Specifications

What is Asus VivoTab Smart Tablet Reviews?

Asus VivoTab Smart Tablet Reviews and Specifications. Windows 8 tablets face a raft of problems. Few tablet buyers know the difference between “full Windows 8” and Windows RT, the platform is recognised as a tablet platform much less than Android or iOS and many Windows tablets are expensive.

The Asus VivoTab Smart tries to side-step these issues. It’s a 10.1-inch full Windows 8 tablet that costs just £400, the same price as the cheapest full-size iPad with Retina Display.

Asus VivoTab Smart Tablet Reviews – Design and Specs

Asus VivoTab Smart Tablet Reviews and Specifications. The Asus VivoTab Smart can offer full Windows 8 at a pretty low price because it uses a lower-power Intel Atom CPU and unassuming design. Higher-end Windows 8 tablets use Intel Core-series processors, from the same family as those seen in expensive laptops. They’re in a different league to the Intel Atom chip seen here.
 Asus VivoTab Smart 2
Its bodywork is functional and sensible too - there are few design embellishments. The Asus Vivotab Smart is as slim and light as Android tablets of the same size, at 570g and 9.7mm thick, and its rear is soft-touch finish plastic.

This type of plastic feels great in-hand, but doesn’t leave the same impression of luxury as the anodised aluminium of an iPad. It’s also prone to damage.
Asus VivoTab Smart 3
Scratches strip away the black/brown finish to reveal the white plastic underneath, and the styling is limited to the off-black colour of the rear and Asus logo on the back. The Asus VivoTab Smart is not out to become a tablet whose bodywork sticks in your mind for years to come.

As a 10.1-inch 16:9 aspect tablet – making it 26cm long – this tablet is also a little too large to be truly portable. It’s best thought-of as a device to use at home or while sitting down on the bus/train, rather than when standing up on public transport with one arm clutching a rail. For that you’re better off with an iPad mini or Google Nexus 7. There is no super-portable Windows tablet, yet.
Asus VivoTab Smart 5
Unassuming design is met by mid-level specs. Its CPU is a 1.8GHz Intel Atom Z2760 dual-core chip, it has 2GB of RAM and 64GB of internal storage. In an Android tablet those memory figures would sound impressive, but they are less so here.

The Asus VivoTab Smart runs an OS that will often have 8GB of RAM at its disposal, and after Windows 8 and Asus’s own apps have taken their share of the internal storage, you’re left with just a shade over 30GB of the initial 64GB.

Asus VivoTab Smart Tablet Reviews – Connectivity

What helps to mitigate the memory-chomping of Windows 8 is the microSD card slot on the left edge of the Asus VivoTab Smart. It uses a cover that blasts out like a rocket when prodded with a fingernail, though, so be sure to act with care unless you want to lose it.

Next to the memory card slot sits a microHDMI video output. Also on this edge is the microUSB slot, used to charge the battery.Asus VivoTab Smart 12
Asus VivoTab Smart 8

This spread of connections sounds just about perfect for a tablet, but it’s less well-equipped than you might assume. As Windows 8 is a “computer” OS rather than a tablet one, its internal storage doesn’t simply show up as a drive when the Asus VivoTab Smart is attached to a computer. You’ll need to move files to a microSD memory card to get them over to the tablet.

A full-size USB socket or SD card slot comes in extremely handy with a Windows 8 tablet, and you get neither here. A USB port is not only handy for storage either – it would also let you plug in a mouse or keyboard. Asus also produces a neat Bluetooth keyboard cover for the tablet that attaches magnetically, but this is an optional extra.

Wireless connectivity fares better. The Asus VivoTab smart has the tablet standards Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, as well as GPS and NFC.


Asus VivoTab Smart Tablet Reviews – Screen

The Asus VivoTab Smart uses a typical tablet-style display. It features an IPS screen, which lets you turn the screen any which way you please without the image distorting or disappearing – as it would on most laptops. Asus VivoTab Smart 13

The screen is 10.1 inches across and has a resolution of 1,366 x 768 pixels. This results in pixel density of 155ppi, well below the resolution of rival tablets like the iPad with Retina Display and Google Nexus 10. As a result, text is slightly pixellated.

This is true of all Windows 8 tablets at this price – only more expensive tabs such as the Surface Pro offer full HD resolution screens at present – but if you’ve used a high pixel density screen, you will notice it.
Asus VivoTab Smart 15
Asus VivoTab Smart Tablet Reviews and Specifications. Image quality is decent, with just a slight yellow colour cast to whites and acceptable loss of brightness when angled. Top brightness could be higher, though.

Like so many other aspects of the Asus VivoTab Smart, the screen isn’t high-end, but it pays enough attention to the basics to get by. It is coated with an oleophobic (fingerprint-resistant) coating, uses toughened glass and, thanks to the IPS panel, offers enough viewing angle flexibility for the ways in which a tablet is used. 

Acer Aspire P3 Tablet Reviews and Specifications

Acer Aspire P3 Tablet Reviews - Introduction

Acer Aspire P3 Tablet Reviews and Specifications. How many devices do we really need? A tablet, a laptop, a phone and a desktop PC? Gadgets like the Acer Aspire P3 want to reduce the amount of tech clutter in our lives. It’s a 11.6-inch Ultrabook-style laptop running Windows 8, and its screen part pops out to become a tablet.
The best bit is that the Acer Aspire P3 starts at £599 – which sounds cheap for an Ultrabook.
Acer Aspire P3 9

Acer Aspire P3 Tablet Reviews – Design

Acer Aspire P3 Tablet Reviews and Specifications. The hybrid tablet-laptop is one of the hottest tech trends of the moment, and the Acer Aspire P3 weds this style of device to 2011’s favourite technology buzzword – the Ultrabook. Acer claims that this device offers the best bits of a tablet and Ultrabook, but costs a good deal less than most of the Ultrabooks of old. Acer Aspire P3 4
It’s a shade under 20mm thick and 1.39kg total, giving it Ultrabook-like dimensions. However, a key component of the success of any convertible is how its keyboard docks. And the Acer Aspire P3 doesn’t quite make an entirely convincing laptop replacement.Acer Aspire P3 2
Its keyboard cover is just that – it doesn’t have a laptop-like hinge, but a less secure system that uses a faux-leather-topped semi-rigid fabric flap, while the tablet part slots into a groove in the keyboard base. It’s a Bluetooth keyboard case, essentially.
 Acer Aspire P3 1Acer Aspire P3 3
Acer’s referring to it as an Ultrabook shows quite how far the term has become confused since 2011. Its bodywork is very similar to the chunky Acer Iconia W700, reducing some of the excitement potential of something that claims to be brand new – as the first convertible Ultrabook.
The screen part pops out of the keyboard base entirely too, further removing the Aspire P3 from what we think of as an Ultrabook laptop. Acer Aspire P3 9
Its keyboard base uses a traditional chiclet key style, and sacrifices a numerical pad in order to offer full-size keys for comfy typing. The key action is roughly comparable to one of Acer’s slimmest laptops – shallow but reasonably crisp.  
As the keyboard talks to the tablet part over Bluetooth, you’ll find the Aspire P3’s connections on the tablet. There’s a full-size USB port and HDMI video output. There’s no memory card slot here.Acer Aspire P3 10Acer Aspire P3 11
However, as this is a “proper” PC, internal storage is decent. The Acer Aspire P3 has either a 60GB or 120GB hard drive, and there’s either 2GB or 4GB of RAM on-board - low-end specs for a laptop, however.
It uses Intel Core i3 and i5 processors, which are central to the device’s claim to the Ultrabook term. If you don’t use Intel Core i3/i5/i7 chips, you can’t call yourself an Ultrabook. The 5,280mAh battery will last for seven hours according to Acer.
 Acer Aspire P3 8

Acer Aspire P3 Tablet Reviews – Screen


Acer Aspire P3 Tablet Reviews and Specifications. Large for a tablet, small for a laptop, the Acer Aspire P3 has an 11.6-inch IPS touchscreen display. It’s not a full HD display, though, but 1,366 x 768 pixels.Acer Aspire P3
When used as a tablet in particular, the relatively low pixel density of the screen becomes clear. The pixellation of text is pretty obvious and it makes images look artificial.Acer Aspire P3 5
However, the display is otherwise good with respectable colour reproduction and the usual strong viewing angles you get with an IPS panel.

  


Acer Aspire P3 Tablet Reviews - Impressions


Acer Aspire P3 Tablet Reviews and Specifications. Although it may technically be able to call itself an Ultrabook, calling the Acer Aspire P3 such a thing feels like a misrepresentation of sorts. It’s best thought-of as a convertible Windows 8 tablet. Ladling superlatives upon it may not do it any favours in the long run for what is essentially just a more powerful than average Windows tablet. 

Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet 2 Tablet Reviews and Specifications

Whats is Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet 2?

Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet 2 Tablet Reviews and Specifications. The original Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet was a good attempt at making a tablet that stood out from the myriad 10.1-inch Android offerings. However, it lacked refinement and was chunky; both forgivable were it not for the price. 
Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet 2 13
Lenovo has made some drastic changes to the ThinkPad Tablet 2. It runs Windows 8, and has moved from Tegra 2 to Intel Atom 1.8Ghz dual-core processor. It backs that up with 2GB of RAM and 64GB SSD storage, but does that warrant the £130 price increase from its predecessor?

Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet 2 Tablet Reviews - Design and Build

Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet 2 Tablet Reviews and Specifications. It’s obvious a lot of thought has gone into making the Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet 2 slim, light and sleek. At just 600g it is 52g lighter than an iPad 4, more than 400g lighter than the Microsoft Surface but is a touch heavier than what is arguably its closest Android competitor, the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1.

Good quality soft touch plastic covers the rear, with discreet speaker slots at the bottom and a well-integrated camera and flash flanked by etched Lenovo and ThinkPad logos at the top. The ThinkPad mark makes it feel like a work tablet, harking back to the IBM ThinkPad laptops, and this is further supported by all-black body that makes it look all business. The one exception to the monotone colour scheme is a splash of red on the top left of the ThinkPad 2, which signifies the top of the elegantly integrated stylus.

The Lenovo Thinkpad 2’s lightness and grippy back means it can be held in one-hand with reasonable comfort. Softened edges (the left hand edge that houses the stylus is totally rounded) help too, though the soft-touch plastic attracts unsightly greasy finger marks.

On the top edge are a covered microSD and SIM (if you go for the 3G enabled version), and a headphone jack; on the left, a full size USB (a thoughtful inclusion) and a micro USB slot, which is used for charging the Lenovo ThinkPad 2’s durable battery.

The Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet 2 feels robust – as typifies all things with the ThinkPad band. It has a bit of give and flex in all the right places, though there are a few areas where the seams feel as if they could fit together a more snuggly. It’s a plain but stylish tablet but, all in all, Lenovo has done a good job designing the ThinkPad 2.
Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet 2 1

Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet 2 Tablet Reviews – Screen and speakers

If you’ve mainly used laptops then you’ll be more than satisfied with the ThinkPad’s screen, but 1,366 x 768 is still the norm on Windows 8 tablets and it’s a far cry from high resolution ‘retina’ screens of the Apple iPad 4 or Google Nexus 10.

That said the Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet 2 manages well even without a super-high resolution. Colours are bright without being oversaturated and 720p HD video looks excellent – the Intel Atom processor is fine at streaming HD video. Lenovo has opted for an IPS screen, too, which means the viewing angles, are great.

The touch screen is brilliantly responsive and five-point touch support means all the gestures that Windows 8 supports work impressively; the zoom in and out of the homepage is particularly fun.

Your hands won’t cover the speakers when you’re holding the Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet 2 – something that many other tablets suffer from. They’re perfectly adequate for a tablet, without being outstanding, as they’re loud enough to watch a movie with company without straining your ears, and they create a pleasing stereo effect.
Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet 2 13

Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet 2 Tablet Reviews – Connectivity

The Lenovo ThinkPad 2 comes with all you’d expect from Windows 8 tablets in terms of connectivity. There’s a welcome mini-HDMI out as well as a micro-SD card slot, which is essential if you consider there’s only 14GB of the 64GB spare after Windows 8 and the pre-installed software are accounted for. A micro-USB slot on the side of the tablet is used for charging only.

If you opt for the 3G version you can find the full size SIM card slot next to the micro-SD and obligatory headphone jack. We couldn’t test the Bluetooth keyboard connector dock as Lenovo had no available keyboards to test. We’ll update this review as soon as we get our hands on it, but we did find that even using a third party keyboard made the ThinkPad 2 a much better working tool.

It’s great to have a full size USB port, but it’s a bittersweet addition. Not only is it USB 2, not the faster USB 3 standard, it’s not powerful enough for an external hard drive to work, or any other USB-powered accessory, like a USB Pico projector.

It’s not great future proofing for a tablet that costs upwards of £500, especially one aimed at the business market. Yes, using a USB-powered hard drive or projector would sap power more quickly, but we’d like users to have the options to drain their battery faster for additional functionality if they want to. On the plus side USB flash drives/sticks work absolutely fine and appear in the ‘My computer’ section just as you’d expect on a laptop or desktop computer running Windows. 
Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet 2 3

Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet 2 Tablet Reviews – Specs and Performance

Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet 2 Tablet Reviews and Specifications. The Lenovo has an Intel dual-core Atom Z2760 processor running at 1.8GHz supported by an Intel Integrated HD SGX545 graphics chip, 2GB of RAM and a 64GB SSD. In practice this means that the ThinkPad Tablet 2 boots very quickly, 14 seconds in fact. However we’ve often lamented the performance of Atom Z2760 processor and unfortunately the ThinkPad Tablet 2 can’t eek out any extra performance from the chipset.

But the Atom Z2760 is an adequate performer at best. If you only use the ThinkPad Tablet 2 for light tasks, such as internet browsing, apps and basic programs, you won’t have many problems. But waiting for apps and programs to open is frustrating.

It copes well with full HD video, but don’t even think about anything but the most basic 3D gaming, multi-tasking or heavy duty applications, such as image or video editors. The Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet 2 grinds to a halt running these.

Kindle Fire HD 8.9 Tablet Reviews and Specifications

Kindle Fire HD 8.9 Tablet Reviews - Introduction

Kindle Fire HD 8.9 Tablet Reviews and Specifications. Amazon has become a pioneer of low-cost tablets with the company's Kindle Fire range standing alongside the Google Nexus 7 in re-defining what we can expect from a cheap tablet – just so long as you live in the USA, that is.

Here in the UK we haven’t done quite so well with Amazon’s tablets. They’ve taken an age to reach our shores, however the Kindle Fire HD 8.9 is now finally available from Amazon UK, for the more-than-reasonable sum of £230. The same issues that niggled us about the 7-inch Kindle Fire HD still apply, but this is the best Kindle Fire tablet yet.

Kindle Fire HD 8.9 Tablet Reviews - Design

Kindle Fire HD 8.9 Tablet Reviews and Specifications. Like the 7-inch Kindle Fire HD before it, one of the first things to strike you about the Kindle Fire HD 8.9 is quite how heavy it is. At 567g it’s around 80 per cent heavier than an iPad mini. Although its screen is significantly smaller than a 10-inch tablet’s, it’s roughly the same weight as one of those larger tabs.

In the 7-inch Kindle Fire HD, we found this quite a turn-off, but it’s less of an annoyance here because the Kindle Fire HD 8.9 shines as a lounge-bound tablet rather than one to take around with you. And the weight is offset by sturdy build.


The rear of the Kindle Fire HD 8.9 is finished in soft-touch plastic for a finger-friendly feel, and the body feels dense and strong, rather than just heavy. If you’re after something that’s more portable than a standard 10.1-inch tablet you’re in the wrong place, though. The chunky screen bezel ensures that this isn’t a particularly small tablet.

It’s also practical rather than pretty. Amazon hasn’t tried to hide the seam that circles the tablet’s edge, bordering the rear and side of the Kindle Fire HD 8.9. In addition, the on-body buttons are graceless while the glossy strip of plastic on the rear that holds the speaker grilles is quirky rather than elegant.



However, this approach to styling works better here than it did in the 7-inch Kindle Fire HD.

Just like the Google Nexus 7, one of the few real hardware disappointments about the Kindle Fire HD 8.9 is that it does not offer expandable memory. Amazon offers a 16GB edition for £229 or a 32GB version for £259. Make the decision carefully, because aside from internal memory, you’re reliant on cloud storage.

The lack of expandable memory loses the Kindle Fire HD 8.9 a few flexibility points, but it wins some back with its use of a standard microUSB charging socket, rather than a proprietary one. Next to this you'll also find a microHDMI video output. This mirrors what’s on-screen on a TV, making it simple to turn the Kindle into a media centre for your living room. You don’t get an HDMI cable in the box, though.



The Kindle Fire HD 8.9 is entirely geared towards landscape use, so both of these ports sit on the bottom edge of the tablet, which keeps the edges that your hands rest on clear of sockets. Its software does auto-rotate when the device is flipped around, though.

Kindle Fire HD 8.9 Tablet Reviews - Connectivity

Although the Kindle Fire HD 8.9 offers the video output missing on most tablets, its wireless connectivity is basic. You get Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, but miss out on their more nuanced applications, and all other forms of wireless connectivity. There’s no 3G, no GPS, no NFC and no Wi-Fi Direct. The most glaring of these omissions is GPS – you can’t use the Kindle Fire HD 8.9 as a navigation tool, as you can with a Google Nexus 7.


The other missing connectivity types are annoying, but are the sorts of things that many people would simply never use. NFC is a short-distance wireless communication standard that is best-known as a way to pay for small items on the high street, like cups of coffee. Would you really want to pull out a 9-inch tablet at the Starbucks cash register? We sure wouldn’t.

Kindle Fire HD 8.9 Tablet Reviews - Screen

These connections are left out for several reasons. The biggest of these is cost, but also because the Kindle Fire HD 8.9 isn’t really designed for advanced tablet users in the first place. Amazon has picked its battles carefully, and wireless connectivity is one it has decided to bow out of.



Kindle Fire HD 8.9 Tablet Reviews and Specifications. Screen quality is not something the Kindle Fire HD 8.9 scrimps on however. In fact, the tablet's touch-sensitive display is excellent for the price. It uses an 8.9-inch IPS screen of 1080p resolution. Larger and more expensive tablets continue to use lower-quality, less pixel-packed screens, and this is the Fire HD 8.9’s strongest element. With a pixel density of 254ppi, the Kindle Fire HD 8.9's display is around as sharp as the iPad with Retina display, which boasts 263ppi.

Colour saturation, contrast and black level are all impressive too. The Kindle Fire HD 8.9’s interface actually uses a slightly greyish background that serves as an admission that its black levels aren’t quite perfect. However, this screen is seriously impressive and most importantly – given that its a Kindle device – is able to render pin-sharp text for eBook reading. With a lower-resolution tablet, text can look pixelated, making it far more tiring to read for long periods. There’s just one sore spot, which is that the maximum screen brightness isn’t that dazzling.