So last night before I went to bed, I did the usual: grabbed the HDX and a pair of earbuds. However when I laid in bed and pressed the power button, the dreaded, red no battery light icon blinked a couple of times and went black. Woops, forgot to charge, no big deal. I grabbed the USB wall adapter, and USB cable and plugged the Kindle HDX in, pressed the power button, same red no battery light. I waited for about 10 minutes of charging, then the Kindle turned itself on with 2% Battery. Why couldn't it simply turn on while plugged immediately? Perhaps the Kindle HDX consumes energy faster than speed the charger regenerates the battery. After dealing with that crap I decided that I will be writing on what it has been like to use a Kindle HDX 7 for the last few months (I got it around Christmas time).
Offtopic Ramble: I am writing this from my Chromebook since the Kindle HDX wouldn't turn on when I decided I needed to rant about the charging requirement before turning on. I do have a laptop Asus G72 sitting around but it is enormous and totals around 15lbs with the power brick. I refuse turn on my tower at night just to write a stupid post c:
First off, at $200--yay or nay?
Hard to say, for me however, this is a NAY.
Why is it good, or why did you get it?
First off it has a Snapdragon 800 quad-core processor. The inner nerd in me wanted one of the fastest mobile arm processors available on the market at the time, and this was the only tablet with one at this price range. Although as always--technology is not standstill and NVIDIA is already bringing a tegra processor that takes a beats this processor in multiple fronts. Nevertheless this is still a very snappy processor--get it? :) The tablet is very smooth. I have not experienced any lag or stutter what so ever on this tablet.
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| Epic Castle Benchmark from Unreal |
The table boasts 1920x1200 on a 7inch screen (for my HDX specifically; they also have an 8.9'' model) which is about 323 Pixels per Inch! That pixel density is greater than Ipad pixel densities (except for the retina Ipad Mini Retina at 326 ppi but starting at $400).
The display is pretty nice, it has a warmer color temperature than the Nexus 7 which was the alternative to this I was planning to get. I personally prefer warmer colors in movies than cooler temps. I also tend to prefer cooler color temperatures for video games and general computer displays. I'm not sure why I prefer warmer displays for films though..For cars on the other hand...I think halogen lighting should be illegal and replaced with xenon or LED lighting technology :D
Decent Battery life, Amazon claims 11 hours of video. I personally only watch videos or do basic web surfing on the Kindle HDX. The claim seems pretty accurate, I generally can watch for about 10 hours non-stop give or take before I need a recharge. I can leave the tablet idle and not lose much charge if I put the tablet on airplane mode when leaving it idle.
They also gave me 500 coins for their app store (equivalent to 5 dollars).
Another thing I learned that is quite awesome with the Kindle is that you occasional get exclusive Kindle owners only Amazon Special Deals. I had received an alert (although I was too late to act on it--deal ended before I saw it) for an offer for 256GB San Disk SSDs exclusive to Kindle owners at a cost of 49.99 EACH...I cry every time I think about how I missed the deal..
Whats not so great?
Bootloader is locked. I was hoping that within a month or two after getting the HDX someone would have cracked the Bootloader so I can load CyanogenMod or stock KitKat Android (sorry Amazon, I can't stand Fire OS).
I believe some people have loaded KitKat (or maybe it was JB?) on xdadevelopers however they achieved this through safestrap which I do not want to do.
Whats wrong with Fire OS? First off, all your apps for the HDX can only come from the Amazon App Store. Amazon maintains their own app store, independent of the Google Playstore. This is bad, most apps I use on my android phone are not available on the Amazon appstore. Not only that but the reduced number of apps don't even correlate to higher app quality. If you search in the app store for "YouTube", you will get a bunch of low rated knockoff YouTube apps.
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| "YouTube" Apps on the Amazon App Store |
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| I currently have YouTube and Chrome sideloaded |
In order to sideload an app on the Kindle HDX, I first installed ES File Explorer onto the tablet from the Amazon App Store. Then using my phone (Samsung Galaxy), I installed an app called "App Backup & Restore." Unfortunately for me, the app was a hit or miss at times--sometimes it would say it had backed up the app, but the APK file would not be on the phone anywhere. In addition to this, it could not detect my SD Card on my phone but that may have been a CyanogenMod bug. Nevertheless, this app is the highest rated Backup Utility for Android and works (at least to a certain extent) unlike the others I have tried. Basically the App allows you to "backup" apps on your phone. It saves the application installed on your phone as an APK file that can be used to install/re-install the program. In essence, you can backup apps on your Android phone or (whatever Android device you have that has access to the Google Playstore) and then copy the files created by the backup application to the Kindle HDX using the usb cable. Then you can use ES File Explorer to install these APK files. On the contrary, the the limitation of this method is that you need another Android device to acquire these APK files (unless you are willing to download from sketchy sources elsewhere on the internet).
Update
So theres actually a cool site that lets you grab apks directly from the google store if you give the link to app on the the google store website. The site is at the url: http://apps.evozi.com/apk-downloader/
You can then directly download apks from the google store without owning another android device.
Another thing though is sideloading YouTube no longer works on the KindleHDX. The latest YouTube application requires Google Play Store services (runs a check when attempting to run the app) and closes when you do not have it..
Another thing that annoyed me was that Fire OS also puts a symbol icon on the side of the tablet as a software solution to the home button. For full screen apps such as games, it is problematic as it will pause the game when the menu opens if you accidentally swipe your finger near it (which is sometimes unavoidable).
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| As you can see in this screenshot, there is little drag-able button on the right center |
The Buttons on the Back are also not very intuitive for me. Some reviews stated that you will get used to it, but in my case I often find myself still fumbling around the back for the buttons despite using the tablet for a couple of months.
On the fence
The 7 inch screen size is both a blessing and a curse for me. For watching for very long periods my eyes get tired from staring at such a tiny screen. However the trade off is convenience--The HDX7 is very easy to carry in contrast to larger tablets. Nevertheless sometimes I wish that I had purchased a larger tablet say 10'' such as the Acer Iconia, the Ipad or one of those Windows tablets.
At retail pricing $200-230 for the HDX is quite a good detail especially since that it has very decent hardware for the price. The Nexus 7 has similiar hardware but a slower processor, and lackluster audio. Amazon also has this system where Ads are placed on your lock screen unless you pay an extra $15. Personally the Ads don't bother me--I barely see Ads at all thanks to Ghostery and Adblock Plus on Chrome. On the other hand Fire OS does bother me quite a bit. Sometimes I wonder if the slower processor is worth it on the Nexus 7 as a trade off for having stock KitKat. Ultimately I purchased the tablet after quite a bit of research but in the end started having some second thoughts. As a result, I cannot strongly recommend the HDX.
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