Amazon Kindle Fire HD vs Google Nexus 7

Introduction:

Once believed to be impossible feat, we’re now in an era where decent tablets can be bought for as low as $200. As we look back on how it all unfolded, the chain of events first kicked off with the Amazon Kindle Fire last year, and most recently, Google came roaring onto the scene with its spectacular Nexus 7 tablet. Well folks, now that Amazon is back for round two with a newly improved tablet in the Kindle Fire HD, it’s sure a going to be an epic battle to the finish in the budget tablet market – so the question we’re left asking ourselves, is which one of these value filled tablets will win over your hard earned cash.

Design:

Visually speaking, we can agree that there isn’t one particular tablet that outshines the other in the design department – mainly because they both feature solid constructions, soft touch casings, and streamlined bodies. However, since the Nexus 7 is skinnier at 4.72-inches wide in portrait, versus the 5.4-inch waistline of the Kindle Fire HD, we find it significantly easier and more comfortable to grasp with one hand. Furthermore, Google’s pride and joy is also lighter at 11.99 oz, which makes a big difference compared to the slightly weightier 13.9 oz Kindle Fire HD.

Secretly, we’re not that upset to know that neither tablet boasts a rear camera. Regardless of that, we can still reap the benefits of video chatting with the two – as they both pack front-facing cameras.


We’ve complained enough about the flush appearance of the Kindle Fire HD’s dedicated power button and volume control in our review of it, so that’s why we prefer the distinctive buttons of the Nexus 7 instead. Still, both offer springy responses when pressed.

As we take a meticulous look around both devices, it’s undoubtedly obvious that they share many commonalities – like their 3.5mm head jacks, microUSB ports, and microphones. However, call it an advantage for the Kindle Fire HD, there’s something inside of us that screams for joy knowing it’s packing a useful microHDMI port, which gives us that superb mirrored experience on a high-def TV.




And lastly, the Nexus 7 packs a single speaker in its rear, while its rival seems to have an edge with its left and right speakers that are positioned towards the edges.



Display:

Cheap tablets don’t necessarily mean they’ll be packing equally cheap displays as well, especially when it’s being proven by these two affordable tablets. On the surface, it’s almost indiscernible to say which offers the superior display, seeing that they both packing 7” WXGA 1280 x 800 IPS LCD displays – with pixel density of 216 ppi. However, the warmer color production found with Kindle Fire HD display is more favorable in our eyes mainly for its richer tones and vibrancy. Regardless, they’re both able to maintain their clarity even in outdoor usage. Overall, we’re comforted to know that super affordable tablets can still shine with some sharp displays.

Interface and Functionality:

Let’s get one thing straight before we go into detail: these are Android-based tablets we’re dealing with. However, this is not the whole story. The Nexus 7 has the vanilla Android 4.1 Jelly Bean experience and features the core Google apps like the Play Store, Google Maps, YouTube, Gmail, etc. On the other hand, the Kindle Fire HD is based on Android 4.0, but lacks the Google apps, so no Google navigation and no access to the official Android app store – you have to rely on the Amazon App Store.

The Amazon tablet presents us with a heavily skinned UI of the Kindle Fire HD, which ties in deeply with many of Amazon’s services, but lacks the intense personalization aspects and comprehensive tertiary features of its rival. Additionally, the multi-tasking implementation, notifications system, and Google Now feature with the Nexus 7 cements our reason as to why it’s the preferred choice. And hey, it’s guaranteed to see the next version of Android.




Continuing to show why it’s the preferred tablet for productivity users, the Nexus 7 has a full arsenal of core organizer apps to help you keep on schedule – whereas with the Kindle Fire HD, we’re only given a small handful of basic apps. Looking further down the hole, there’s a huge disparity between the two experiences with their respective emailing apps, which goes to the Nexus 7 because of the refinements found with its Gmail app.




Since they’re both sporting 7-inch displays, we have little problems trying to write up a passage of text with their respective keyboards in portrait. And of course, it eases the burden since they boast spacious layouts and responsive actions.




Processor and Memory:

It’s a quad-core versus a dual-core with this processor faceoff, which some would suspect the former to be superior. Indeed it is on paper, but when it comes to the real world performance, both the 1.2GHz quad-core NVIDIA Tegra 3 processor of the Nexus 7 and 1.2GHz dual-core TI OMAP4460 CPU in the Kindle Fire, perform similarly to one another with all the same tasks. Yet, there are still some instances when we notice a few stutters with their performances, but for the most part, they exude peppy responses to satisfy our expectations.

Certainly there’s a lot of focus on cloud storage, however, there are still people who prefer the old fashion way of storing things locally. And with that, the Kindle Fire HD rises higher in stature over its competitor since it packs 16GB of memory – with the Nexus 7 sticking to a paltry 8GB of storage (the 16GB costs $250).

Internet and Connectivity:

Even though Amazon touts that its server-side enhancements help to provide faster page loads with the Kindle Fire HD’s Webkit-based Silk browser, we actually don’t notice it to be a drastic improvement. Rather, the Nexus 7’s Chrome browser manages to pull off nearly the same speedy page loads with complex sites. Still, we appreciate the performance of the two, as they exhibit responsive pinch gestures and kinetic scrolling. Beyond that, we appreciate the swipe left/right gestures in use with Chrome to quickly switch between tabs.




Hardly a shocker to us, they sport all the usual connectivity features we find common with our devices nowadays – these include aGPS, Bluetooth, and Wi-Fi. Absolutely an added perk for the Nexus 7, its NFC feature gives it a leg up over its dashing rival.


Camera:

Well, knowing that the Kindle Fire HD now packs along a front-facing camera, there isn’t much competition in this category for these two tablets – so yeah, it’s nice we’re still given the option of being able to video chat.

Multimedia:

Presentation-wise, it’s no kidding that there’s more visual allure found with the Nexus 7’s music player – whereas, the Kindle Fire HD’s music player is rather generic. Still, they offer the same set of functionality. Not to be outdone, however, the Kindle Fire HD screams in the audio quality department thanks to the more powerful tones produced by its stereo speakers.

Loading the same MPEG-4 1920 x 1080 resolution video on both tablets, they’re equipped in dishing up a pleasant video watching experience. Grabbing our attention as we watch the two simultaneously, the richer color vibrancy of the Kindle Fire HD’s display gives it a slight edge.

For the price and all, it’s sure nice of Amazon to throw in a microHDMI port on its Kindle Fire HD, which gives its some flexibility over its competition.

Connection and Battery:

Connecting them to the same wireless hotpot that’s centered in another room approximately 30 feet away, they’re able to maintain a solid connection with minimal signal strength fluctuation.

Thankfully, consumers won’t have to worry much about battery life with these content consuming tablets, since we’re able to get over one day of usage out of a full charge on both devices. Moreover, power users will also be fully pleased to know they put out close to a single day of usage.

Conclusion:

In all seriousness, we have to first applaud Amazon for bringing to market a worthy competitor to the budget level Android tablet market, which is a nice upgrade over the original Kindle Fire from last year. Even though it packs along some appreciable features that are absent on the Google Nexus 7, like its microHDMI port and double the storage capacity, it’s still not enough to offset the comprehensive features found with the full Jelly Bean experience of the Nexus 7.

As we’ve detailed previously, diehard Amazon users will shout with joy over the Kindle Fire HD’s close ties to Amazon’s various services, but it simply pales in comparison to the overwhelmingly deep features and superb functionality found with the Nexus 7. In the end, if you’re looking to shell out $200 for a tablet in the near future, our bet is to invest it into the soundly more adept Google Nexus 7 – especially when you know it’ll continue to reap all the benefits of being one of the flagship devices for the platform.

Kindle Fire HD vs Google Nexus 7: