I tried using Amazon's new 7-inch tablet "Kindle Fire HD" (1/3 page)

On December 18, Amazon's new 7-inch tablet terminal "Kindle Fire HD" was released. The author made a reservation for Kindle Paperwhite on Amazon in advance, but I didn't make a reservation for it, so I went to an electronics retail store in Akihabara on the release date. It seems that a lot of them have arrived because it was before the bonus sales season, so I was able to purchase it immediately. Even Amazon seems to ship the same day at the time of writing this article.

The Kindle store is explained in detail in "Don't hesitate anymore, complete guide to ebook stores-Kindle store", so in this article, we will focus on the usability of Kindle Fire HD and call it "opening ceremony". I want to deliver the actual machine report.

The Kindle Fire HD is a 16GB Without Special Offers model sold for $ 214 in the US, but the same model is priced at 15,800 yen in Japan. When converted at the current exchange rate (83.9 yen per dollar), it is sold at a low price of about 2150 yen in Japan. Like the Kindle Paperwhite, it's a price that symbolizes Amazon's business model of selling devices at cost (or less) and making money from content.

Opening ceremony

It is characteristic that the front camera is placed in the center of the upper part and the speakers are placed on the left and right when the terminal is turned sideways. In terms of design concept, it is assumed that it will be used sideways. In contrast to the Nexus 7 and iPad mini, the front camera is placed in the center of the top and the speakers are placed in the left and right at the bottom when oriented vertically.

I compared the specs

Google's Nexus 7 and Apple's iPad mini, which went on sale at about the same time as the Kindle Fire HD, will definitely be comparable. The common point is that they are developing various services in-house, such as e-book stores, music distribution, app stores, and online storage. First, I compared the "Kurofune Three Brothers" from the United States in terms of terminal specifications.

The Kindle Fire HD is about the same size as the iPad mini, but 87 grams heavier. Compared to holding it in your hand, the Kindle Fire HD is quite heavy. The author has a small hand, so if you try to grab the terminal on your desk with one hand and lift it, you will be worried that your hand will slip and drop due to its size and weight.

In addition, the liquid crystal display size is 7 inches at 16:10, which is the same as Nexus 7. In other words, the Kindle Fire HD has a fairly wide bezel. When I measured it, the iPad mini was about 7 mm and the Nexus 7 was about 12 mm, while the Kindle Fire HD was about 21 mm. However, if you hold the terminal with your thumb up to the base instead of grasping it, this bezel width reduces the chance that your thumb touches the screen and makes an erroneous operation.

Neither terminal supports external storage devices such as microSD / SDHC. Instead, the Kindle Fire HD has an online storage called "Personal Document Service." It's a service similar to Apple's iCloud and Google's Google Drive. You can store personal files other than content purchased from Amazon in the cloud up to 5GB through your Send-to-Kindle email address.

Readers of eBook USER will also be wondering if existing ebook stores are available on their devices. I tried to make a list of the compatibility status of the application, focusing on the e-bookstores reviewed in "This is no longer a hesitation, complete guide to e-bookstores" (at the time of writing this article, except when using it via a browser).

Since the Amazon Appstore has just opened, there are still quite a few registered apps compared to the iTunes App Store and Google Play. It can be said that the response status of each e-bookstore is clearly manifested. However, since Amazon apps are basically compatible with Android apps, whether or not vendors registered on Google Play will also register (can) on the Amazon Appstore will be the key to future support. Vendor registration costs an annual fee, and the fact that the app is reviewed by humans may be a bottleneck.

In fact, eBook Japan, which has a "?" In the table above, released a release that was "approved by the Amazon Appstore" before the Kindle Fire HD was released. You can also see that it is registered in the Amazon Android app store. However, even if I search for the eBook Japan app in the released Kindle Fire HD app store, it does not appear. It seems that eBook Japan was also overwhelmed, and according to the follow-up report, there was a reply from Amazon that "even if it is approved by the Amazon Appstore, it will not always be displayed on Kindle Fire or Kindle Fire HD." It is unclear at the time of this writing why this is the case.

Initial setting

The author is verifying that the device was not purchased from Amazon, so you need to enter the Amazon account ID and password after setting up Wi-Fi. If you bought it from Amazon, you don't need to do this.

There are several types of lock screen images that change each time you press the power button to wake it up.To unlock, swipe the key icon from right to left

Kindle Paperwhite supports the WPS button, so of course Kindle Fire HD is also supported ... but WPS is not displayed on the setting screen. There is no description in the help. I checked with support, but the answer was, "It should be compatible with WPS." It may not be compatible with the router used by the author. After manually entering the password, I was able to connect smoothly.

Tap [Start Now] on the Facebook and Twitter settings screen to start the start guide. All the basic operations on the home screen are explained here and are kind.

By the way, if I left it for a while after the initial settings were completed and I reached the home screen, the upgrade started automatically. I was a little surprised that not only did the update file download automatically in the background, but there was no confirmation asking "Are you sure you want to upgrade?"