Amazon Announces New Kindle Fire Models

By Rob Boggan

Just moments ago Amazon took the wraps off their highly anticipated successor to the original Kindle Fire tablet. That’s not the only thing they revealed however, as spectators were treated to a surprise(OK maybe not really) announcement of a second, larger Kindle Fire. Let’s take a quick look at the first:

The new 7-inch Kindle Fire will pretty much rock the same body style as the original, with much of the improvements coming on the innards of the device. For starters, Amazon has plugged double the RAM into the new Fire to help along with the growing media demands of today’s tablet users. In addition to doubling the RAM, Amazon has also found a way to increase battery life on this unit by 40%. That’s again almost double the battery life of it’s predecessor.

The big dog at the announcement was obviously the 8.9 inch Kindle Fire HD. This is essentially the coming out party for big name Amazon products, and Amazon really held no punches with this model. For starters, the display has been updated to an 8.9 inch 1920×1200, 254 ppi monster. Graphics, books, games, web browsing will all look better thanks to the new HD display along with a special coating used to reduce glare. The Kindle Fire HD also has a work horse of a processor built in, as the new unit rocks a TI OMAP 4470 under the hood. Amazon claims that the OMAP 4470 is even faster and performs better than the Tegra 3 processor from NVIDIA. There’s also stereo speakers on this bad devil so the sound output will be much better than the original. In addition to those new features, Amazon has plugged two Wi-Fi antennas on the Fire HD to ensure the best possible connection.

Speaking of connection…..

There’s also a 4G LTE model that no one….. let me reiterate….. NO ONE, will be able to compete with. The 4G LTE model will grant users 250 MB of data per month, with 200 GB of cloud storage all for $50 a year. Yes, $50 a year. That smokes just about any current wireless package that’s available across ANY carrier.

Now for the prices:

New Kindle Fire 7 inch model:
$159; Pre Orders start today, Tablets ship September 14th

Kindle Fire HD:
7 inch: $199 16GB storage
8.9 inch: $299 16GB storage
8.9 inch w/ 4G LTE: $499 32GB storage

All three models available for pre order today, tablets start shipping November 20th.

What say you? You guys excited about these new Kindle models? Let us know what you like or dislike about the new models in the comments below!