HomeTablets

Amazon Releases Kindle Fire HD in the UK


By Ryan Harding | 28 October 2012

Amazon’s Kindle Fire was a revelation when it was first released late last year, but it didn’t make its way outside the United States, likely denting its still-substantial success in the marketplace. The online retailer now seeks to rectify this by releasing the tablet’s 2012 refresh as well as its successor, the Kindle Fire HD, in the United Kingdom.

Alongside the Kindle Fire and Kindle Fire HD, Amazon released its latest Kindle Paperwhite e-book reader on October 25, following a two-week pre-order period.

The Kindle Fire HD will compete with the already-available Google Nexus 7 and the upcoming Apple iPad Mini for the hearts and wallets of shoppers this holiday season. Of these, the Nexus 7 is probably the most direct competition, since they are available at the same £159 and £200 price points. However, the Amazon slate does have the storage advantage over Google’s Asus-manufactured device, since it offers double the internal space of the Nexus 7 at 16GB and 32GB for the same price.


Both the Kindle Fire HD and Nexus 7 are also priced far below Apple’s iPad Mini, which starts at £269 for the 16GB version. Despite this, the freshly-announced Apple device is the only one with a cellular connectivity option that comes at a further price premium.

Meanwhile, the slightly refreshed Kindle Fire with 8GB of storage costs £129. Buyers can expect to pay £109 for the Wi-Fi only version of the Kindle Paperwhite, but adding 3G connectivity will bump up the cost to £169.

comments powered by Disqus