Kindle Fire HD

Amazon's Kindle presentation on Thursday featured a lot of big talking points, but one thing the company was understandably silent on was the "Special Offers" that will show on its new Kindle Fire HD line of tablets (along with the refresh of the original Kindle Fire). Subsidizing devices by showing ads isn't anything new for the company, but once it became clear that these new Kindle Fires would be showing ads, people began wondering if Amazon would allow users to opt out of the special offers program by paying a fee, as it has done with its devices in the past. At first, Amazon said that an opt out option wouldn't be available, and it's pretty easy to imagine where things went next.

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Friday is here once again, marking the beginning of the weekend. We need it too - we were traveling all around the country from press event to press event this week. Today, no such event took place, but that doesn't mean there was a lack of noteworthy news. There were tons of iPhone 5 rumors and news today, starting with the rumor that we might see one or two iPod lines get updated at Apple's upcoming press event. Speaking of that press event, Apple has started to prepare the Yerba Buena Center for its September 12 conference, and today we were told that the pricing structure of one of the iPhone 5's models might be similar to that of the iPhone 4S.

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There's still a lot we don't know about the Kindle Fire HD, but we've been finding out more piece by piece since the tablet was revealed yesterday. One detail that has surfaced today is that the Kindle Fire HD will be swapping default search engines. Amazon has updated the Silk browser, and with it comes the swap - Ubergizmo reports that Bing is now the default search engine for Silk, and by extension, the Kindle Fire family.

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It's been an exciting couple of days for Amazon. Yesterday, the company announced a slew of new devices, ranging from the Kindle Paperwhite to the Kindle Fire HD (in all of its various forms), along with refreshes of the original Kindle and Kindle Fire. Today, Amazon has released a new update for its Silk browser in anticipation of the launch of the Kindle Fire HD, and it adds quite a few improvements over the Silk that most people are familiar with.

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Though he's not yet confirmed that there will be any sort of smartphone-sized device appearing soon, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos has let it be known that more devices are, indeed, coming eventually. Speaking with Ina Fried and Tricia Duryee of All Things D, Bezos spoke about how their next move wont necessarily be to enter the smartphone universe, but that they're certainly not going to stop with the Kindle Fire HD. Though "not any time soon", more devices will be released by Amazon "next year" that Bezos said would be "premature" for him to talk about.

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Amazon will only offer advertising-supported Kindle Fire tablets, injecting "special offers" into the standby screen of its Android slates, and giving no option to pay more to remove the promotions. The "special offers" concept was launched for e-paper Kindles some time back, subsidizing the upfront cost of the ereader in return for showing adverts on the homescreen (though not during actual ebook display); now, that same concept has been included in the new range of Kindle Fire and Kindle Fire HD tablets.

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Amazon has confirmed pricing and availability for the Kindle Fire and Kindle Fire HD in the UK and across Europe, the first time its Android tablets will be launched outside of the US. The new slates, revealed yesterday, will hit the UK on October 25, with the 7-inch Kindle Fire priced at £129 for the single 8GB model, while the more advanced Kindle Fire HD will be from £159.

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So, Amazon revealed a number of new Kindle Fire HD tablets today. The company gave away a lot of details about the new line in the process, but one specification that was mysteriously absent from Amazon's long list was the operating system these tablets are running. Ahead of Amazon's press conference today, rumors claimed that these tablets would be running a modified version of the Android OS under the hood, and it turns out that's just what they're doing.

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Welcome to Thursday everyone. Today Amazon held its highly anticipated Kindle Fire event, marking our third press event in two days. Amazon didn't disappoint either, announcing a handful of new Kindle Fire tablets and the new Kindle Paperwhite. It was a very exciting event, and you can get a nice little recap of all of the news in our full Amazon Kindle event wrap-up. Be sure to check that out for all of our announcement and hands-on posts from the day.

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This week the folks at Amazon introduced a set of new Kindle tablets including a refresh of the Kindle Fire, two new Kindle Fire HD tablets, and a reader called Paperwhite. This last entry in the list of new items might be the most overlooked to the biggest news seekers, but it's set to overtake a still massive ereader market with technology that's set to dash standard E-Ink's brains out - and it's relatively inexpensive, too! The original Kindle Fire was refreshed with a lower price, and both the Kindle Fire HD 7 and 8.9 were introduced with pre-orders starting today.

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Though we wont be able to have a peek at AT&T's 4G LTE version of the tablet until later this year, Amazon has allowed us a quick touchy-feely experience with the 8.9-inch version of the Kindle Fire HD before its software is finalized. What we're seeing here is the slightly larger version of the Kindle Fire HD 7, that being essentially the same size as the standard Kindle Fire which also got a refresh this week. The Kindle Fire HD 8.9 is the company's new flagship device, we would say, with an 8.9-inch display made to compete directly with Apple's iPad.

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The Kindle Fire HD 7, Kindle Fire HD 8.9, and Kindle Fire HD 8.9 4G LTE are all available for purchase on Amazon now, with their prices being, in order, $199, $299, and $499. The lesser two of the three devices have 16GB of internal storage while the 4G LTE 8.9-inch tablet has 32GB of internal storage - otherwise it's essentially the same as the wi-fi only model 8.9. These devices work with an updated user interface over the original Kindle Fire and include several software upgrades and features that set them aside from the rest of the ereader and media player mobile universe.

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