Amazon and Samsung are not arch rivals. In fact, they get along quite well on common grounds and even collaborate with each other. However, when it comes to budget tablet market, they have become strong competitors. Amazon started with the Amazon store and expanded their services in to different sectors like cloud storage, premium movie database and books. They understood the difficulty in reading an ebook on a smartphone or a tablet better than anyone and had their own line of ebook readers which was known as the Kindle line. They made reading an ebook feel like the real experience with good visual effects and crisp clear texts. Initially it came with a black and white screen and subsequently supported browsing through the internet, as well. Thereafter Amazon came up with this bright idea of coming up with a Kindle that has a color screen and do something more than the other Kindles can. This was the birth of the 7 inch tablet known as Amazon Kindle Fire. They offered it at such a low price that Kindle Fire was a bargain for the price.
Amazon Kindle Fire became a hit in a short time because Amazon has put so much thought in to engineering the product. They haven’t jeopardized the appealing aspects of the tablet for the low cost and eliminated less important features in order to keep the cost low. For instance, the display panel was really good in Kindle Fire and so was the processor and performance for a budget tablet. The tablet came with a heavily stripped version of Android that was ideally optimized to perform well in Kindle Fire. On the contrary, other vendors weren’t so successful in the budget tablet market, and they partook the Amazon’s approach and came up with some quality budget tablets that were successful. So we are going to talk about one such budget tablet that became successful; Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 7.0. We will compare it against the new Amazon Kindle Fire HD which offers even a better bargain compared to its predecessor. Our initial impressions are penned at first and then we move on to a concise comparison between the two slates.
Amazon Kindle Fire HD Review
Amazon lists that Kindle Fire HD has the most advanced 7 inch display ever. It features a resolution of 1280 x 800 pixels in a high definition LCD display that seems to be vibrant. The display panel is IPS, hence offers vivid colors, and with Amazon’s new polarized filter overlay on top of the display panel, you are bound to have wider viewing angles, as well. Amazon has laminated the touch sensor and LCD panel together with a single layer of glass reduces the effective screen glare. Kindle Fire HD comes with exclusive custom Dolby audio in dual-driver stereo speakers with auto optimization software for crisp balanced audio.
Amazon Kindle Fire HD is powered by 1.2GHz dual core processor on top of TI OMAP 4460 chipset with PowerVR SGX GPU. This sleek slate has 1GB of RAM to support the processor. Amazon claims that this setup is much faster than Nvidia Tegra 3 mounted devices although we need to do some benchmarking tests in order to verify that. Amazon also boasts of featuring the fastest Wi-Fi device which they claim is 41% faster than new iPad. Kindle Fire HD is renowned as the first tablet featuring dual Wi-Fi antennas with Multiple In / Multiple Out (MIMO) technology enabling enhanced bandwidth capabilities. With the dual band support, your Kindle Fire HD can automatically switch between the less congested band of 2.4GHz and 5GHz. The 7 inch edition doesn’t seem to feature GSM connectivity, which may be problematic if you’re in an area where Wi-Fi networks aren’t frequent to come by. However, with new devices like Novatel Mi-Wi, this can be easily compensated.
Amazon Kindle Fire HD will feature Amazon ‘X-Ray’ feature which used to be available in ebooks. This would enable you to tap the screen while a movie is playing and get the complete list of actors in the scene and you can further explore those using IMDB records right in your screen. This is a pretty cool and solid feature to implement inside a movie. Amazon has also enhanced the ebook and audio book capabilities by introducing immersive reading, which enables you to read a book and hear the narration of it at the same time. This is available for almost 15000 ebook audiobook couple according to Amazon website. This merged together with Amazon Whispersync for Voice would do wonders if you are a book lover. For instance, if you were reading and went to the kitchen to prepare the dinner, you’ll have to ditch the book for a while, but with Whispersync, your Kindle Fire HD would narrate the book for you while you’re making your dinner and you can come right back to the book after dinner enjoying the flow of story the whole time. Similar experiences are offered by Whispersync for Movies, Books and Games. Amazon has included a front facing HD camera that enables you to keep in touch using custom skype application and Kindle Fire HD offers a deep Facebook integration, as well. The web experience is said to be ultra-fast with the improved Amazon Silk browser that comes with the assurance of 30% reduction in page load times.
The storage starts from 16GB for Amazon Kindle Fire HD, but you can live with the internal storage since Amazon offers free unlimited cloud storage for all your Amazon content. Kindle FreeTime applications offer the parents with a chance to give a personalized experience for their children. It can limit children from using different applications for different durations and supports multiple profiles for multiple kids. We are positive that this is going to be a favorable feature for all the parents out there. Amazon guarantees 11 hours of battery life for Kindle Fire HD which is really great. This version of tablet is offered at $199 which is a great bargain for this killer slate.
Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 7.0 Review
This sleek slate seems to be the second generation of the 7.0 inch tablet range which has created a unique market for itself with the introduction of Galaxy Tab 7.0. It has 7.0 inch PLS LCD capacitive touchscreen featuring a resolution of 1024 x 600 pixels at a pixel density of 170ppi. The slate comes in either Black or White and has a pleasing touch. It is powered by 1GHz dual core processor and 1GB of RAM and runs on Android OS v4.0 ICS. The processor seems somewhat mediocre; nonetheless, it would serve well for this slate. It has three variants with 8GB, 16GB and 32GB of internal storage with the option to expand using a microSD card up to 64GB.
Galaxy Tab 2 stays connected with HSDPA reaching a maximum speed of 21Mbps. The Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n ensures the constant connectivity, and it can also act as a Wi-Fi hotspot enabling you to share your fast internet connection generously. The built-in DLNA functions as a wireless streaming bridge that enables you to stream rich media content to your Smart TV. Samsung has been miser with the camera they include for tablets, and Galaxy Tab 2 is no exception. It has 3.15MP camera with Geo Tagging and fortunately it can capture 1080p HD videos @ 30 frames per second. The front facing camera is VGA quality, but that suffices for the purpose of video conferencing. Unlike Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus, Tab 2 comes with attractive TouchWiz UX UI and additional components from the ICS operating system. Samsung also boasts smooth web browsing and full compatibility with HTML 5 and flash rich contents. Another addition in Galaxy Tab 2 7.0 is the support for GLONASS as well as GPS. In layman’s terms, GLONASS; GLObal Navigation Satellite System; is another navigation system with worldwide coverage, and it is the only current alternative for USA’s GPS. With the 4000mAh standard battery, we are expecting Galaxy Tab 2 to work well for 7-8 hours.
A Brief Comparison Between Amazon Kindle Fire HD and Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 7.0
• Amazon Kindle Fire HD is powered by 1.2GHz dual core processor on top of TI OMAP 4460 chipset with PowerVR SGX GPU while Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 7.0 is powered by 1GHz dual core processor and 1GB of RAM.
• Amazon Kindle Fire HD has 7 inch HD LCD capacitive touchscreen display featuring a resolution of 1280 x 800 pixels while Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 7.0 has 7.0 inch PLS LCD capacitive touchscreen featuring a resolution of 1024 x 600 pixels at a pixel density at 170ppi.
• Amazon Kindle Fire HD features a HD camera in the front for video conferencing while Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 7.0 has 3.15MP camera on the back and VGA camera on the front for video conferencing.
• Amazon Kindle Fire HD features a battery life of 11 hours while Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 7.0 features a battery life of 8 hours.
• Amazon Kindle Fire HD is wider, thinner yet heftier (193 x 137.2mm / 10.1mm / 394g) than Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 7.0 (193.7 x 122.4mm / 10.5mm / 344g).
Conclusion
It’s rather clear on what offers the best performance between these two tablets given that Amazon Kindle Fire HD features a better processor and a better display panel with added perks. It is worthwhile to note that it’s not only the 200MHz overclocked processor that does the trick. Amazon claims that the TI OMAP 4460 chipset they are using outperforms the Tegra 3 chipset. We have no proof of this so far, but we can safely assume that it will outperform the Galaxy Tab’s old chipset given it’s a new chipset at circulation. The display panel also features 720p HD resolution and anti-glare technology, which is an added perk. Amazon Kindle Fire HD also features a strong Wi-Fi connection with dual band and MIMO technology that would hold on to a Wi-Fi connection as long as possible. This means you can go farther away than usual from your access point and still enjoy the strong W-Fi connection.
The only noticeable difference would be that in some models, Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 7.0 features 3G HSDPA connectivity which will come in handy if you find it hard to locate Wi-Fi hotspots. Then again, this can be compensated by using a Mi-Fi device so considering this as a key differentiation might not hold. What trips the balance towards the Amazon Kindle Fire HD is the amazing price it is offered; Kindle Fire HD is $199 compared to the $249 at which Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 7.0 is offered.