A (165)

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Reviews


Amazon Fire HD


The most affordable Kindle Fire yet looks to compete


against the mighty Nexus brand


Brash but
beautiful
The Fire HD 6 comes in
a range of bright neon
colours. The citrus
yellow version we
tested was a welcome
break from normally
dull, monochrome
tablet design

Pixel not
perfect
Most won’t expect a
lot from a tablet’s
camera, but with
standards slowly
increasing, the grainy
and basic rear-facing
camera on the Fire
HD 6 is very poor

In the cloud
With only 8GB or 16GB
of internal storage
available, Amazon has
equipped the Fire HD 6
with plenty of cloud
storage options

W


hat is the perfect size for a tablet?
Some would say 7 inches, while others
would fi nd 10 inches is best for them.
Amazon’s latest budget tablet, the Fire HD 6 has
a diagonal screen measurement of just 6 inches,
which is only fractionally larger than most
phablets. Although the diminutive dimensions will
please some users, the Fire HD 6 is surprisingly
chunky and still not quite small enough for
one-handed use. The largely plastic exterior does
feel well made and robust, but adds some
considerable weight to the frame of the device.
Look around the device and you’ll only fi nd a few
ports available to users. At the top of the tablet lies
both the 3.5mm audio jack and micro-USB
connection, but there are noticeable omissions of
a microSD and micro-HDMI port here. The sole
speaker on the Fire HD 6 sits at the bottom of the
tablet and offers great clarity for songs – when
you’re not covering it up with your fi ngers, that is –
and miniscule cameras on the front and back are
the other noticeable additions.
Amazon’s latest version of forked Android, Fire
OS 4 Sangria, is in full force on the Fire HD 6, and is
a noticeable improvement over previous versions.
The smaller frame of the tablet helps keep Sangria
running nicely throughout, although we would have
liked to see a beefi er processor than the dual-core
offering used here. However, for the £79 price tag
Amazon has set for the Fire HD 6, it’s a fairly
standard cutback to make. If you’re an avid user of
all things Amazon, then you’ll fi nd the Fire HD 6 a
pleasure to use. Every form of media is covered
here and while the Amazon Appstore’s offering is
still light years behind that of the Google Play store,
most of the essential apps are present. If you’ve
not previously invested heavily in Amazon’s
ecosystem before, however, then the Fire HD 6 is
going to be a device that frustrates. The lack of any
real third-party support is disappointing, but
something that Amazon is keen to fi x.
For a media-oriented device, the display of the
Fire HD 6 is fairly impressive. There’s no noticeable
pixelation while consuming media and although
some may worry that the smaller size won’t lend
itself well to reading and watching movies, we
found no such issues during our time with it.
The review unit we tested came with 8GB of
storage and with no expandable memory option;
you’ll be relying heavily on the cloud. Fortunately,
every Fire HD 6 owner will have a large amount of

Media consumption
Whether it’s movies or books, there’s plenty to
for... choose from in the Amazon store
Free download pdf