Kindle Fire HD 8.9 Interface and Android
As part of the Kindle experience, Amazon has developed a custom user interface for its Kindle Fire tablets. The Kindle Fire HD 8.9 runs Android, but the Kindle interface is so different from the look of Google’s vanilla OS that you might not guess unless someone told you.
The home screen is a scrolling conveyor belt to digital content you’ve recently accessed, whether it’s an app, game, or book. The idea is that most of the time, you can access what you’re looking for with just a flick through.
The other content of the Kindle Fire HD 8.9 is organized as tabs across the top of the screen. This includes the web browser, your apps and games stash, and the Amazon Apps Store.
You don’t get access to the Google Play Android Apps Store with the Kindle Fire HD 8.9, nor do Google’s own apps – Amazon wants to go its own way with the Kindle Fire tablet series.
The custom Amazon Appstore doesn’t have quite as many apps or games as Google’s own store, but the Amazon name has ensured that it still has a healthy crop. There are now relatively few gaping holes in its lineup.
The Kindle Fire HD 8.9 offers most of the big games and apps you’d get with a Google Nexus 7, but if you’re used to Android in its pure form, day-to-day navigation takes a little getting used to.
Rather than sitting at the bottom like Android Jelly Bean, the Kindle Fire HD 8.9’s main navigation bar sits on the right edge of the screen and is designed for right-thumb use. Yes, the Kindle Fire HD 8.9 hates left-handers – we couldn’t find a way to switch the menu to the left either.
While mastering the Kindle Fire HD 8.9 software requires a bit of patience, it’s still reasonably accessible. The user interface also works better here than on the 7-inch version, giving the navigation tabs more room to spread out.
However, there is a serious problem. It’s just not fast. Compared to a tablet running Android 4.1 or 4.2 Jelly Bean, there are irritating little pauses between transitions that make moving around the UI tedious.
It’s not due to a lack of performance, because the reasonable TI OMAP dual-core 1.5 GHz CPU and 1 GHz RAM should be enough to make the tablet fly. It’s more due to a lack of optimization and that the software is said to be based on a previous Android version. The Android operating system only got really fancy with Android 4.1 Jelly Bean, which introduced a number of speed improvements as part of Google’s “Project Butter” optimization project. The Kindle Fire HD 8.9 does not benefit from this. It also performs horribly when not connected to the internet, as so much of the content displayed is streamed directly from the internet, rather than relating to what’s actually on the tablet itself.
However, jump into an app or game and the performance is much better. It has the grunt to play top 3D games like Real Racing 3. You just need a bit more patience to wait for the tablet to access the thing.
Kindle Fire HD 8.9 – Music and Video
Although you can install tons of apps and games with the Kindle Fire HD 8.9, Amazon really wants you to use the tablet to access Amazon’s own services. This is the Amazon bookstore, his music store, the video store and the newsstand.
These services combine some big brands. The book store is Kindle’s, the music store is the same MP3 treasure trove you’ll find on the Amazon website and the film hub is LoveFilm, which was acquired by Amazon in January 2011 for a hefty £200m.
Amazon won’t let you ignore these services too easily, as they all get irremovable shortcuts on the home screen. But they’re all pretty excellent, so we don’t mind that too much.
The Amazon Kindle Fire HD 8.9 can also play your own content. Each section of the tablet has cloud and device tabs. The latter lets you play your own music and videos, which you can drag and drop onto the tablet’s internal storage using a desktop computer.
However, the codec support is limited. So if you want to play files you downloaded from the internet, you probably need a third-party media player app. However, several free ones are available on the Amazon Appstore.
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