For the past two months, Google has owned the inexpensive tablet market with its Nexus 7, a 7-inch slate that only costs $199 for 8 GB internal storage and $249 for 16 GB. It has unofficially unseated the first Amazon Kindle Fire as the best-selling tablet in its price range. However, Amazon had recently announced follow-ups to the original Kindle Fire – several of them, in fact, including the 7-inch Kindle Fire HD. This tablet is now thought of as one that could help Amazon recapture the throne, with the same affordable price point but better specifications overall.
The most affordable Kindle Fire HD will still cost $199, but it will now come with 16 GB storage; that would make the device $50 cheaper than a Nexus 7 offering the same amount of internal memory. The 32 GB version of the Fire HD will cost $249. Immediately, one can see evidence that the Kindle Fire HD could possibly offer consumers bigger bang for their buck. The high-definition screen is also something new and exciting for Amazon and its Kindle Fire tablets – the 7-inch Fire HD will be released on Friday this week, while an 8.9-inch version to compete with the 9.7-inch Apple iPad will hit stores on November 20.
Other areas where the Kindle Fire HD has shown improvement include its faster processor, new front-facing camera for video calls (the first Kindle Fire didn’t include any front or rear camera) and updated Amazon-influenced Android operating system. The Kindle Fire HD’s OS is based on Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, Google’s second most recent platform. But that brings us to where the Nexus 7 excels – it ships with Android 4.1 Jelly Bean, which is Google’s newest OS, and comes with a more powerful processor, an Nvidia Tegra 3 quad-core.
In conclusion, the Kindle Fire HD does have enough in it to challenge the Nexus 7 for budget tablet market share leadership, but the Nexus 7 has its share of strong points that may allow it to preserve the lead.
