17/09/2012

Is there a PadFone 2 on the way?

   The Asus PadFone... The phone/tablet mash up that I and numerous other said we'd get because it's such a good idea. The original PadFone was no slouch though; it had the dual-core Snapdragon S4 chipset running the show and everything was good if a little mid-range.

    Of the rumours are to be believed then the PadFone 2 should kick things up a notch with the inclusion of a quad-core Snapdragon S4 Pro. An AnTuTu benchmark result shows a device that’s generally on the level of Samsung's Exynos 4 Quad figures! 

   At the moment we know very little about the whole device apart from the odd bit of speculation. It's been thrown around that we might be seeing 2Gb's of RAM and better resolution screens, but we'll probably have to wait until the start of next year before anything concrete comes out!

   It would be great to see a hugely powerful and genuinely impress device come out of the PadFone project and just like last time I would love to own one!

In other news:

• Cloud storage company Box has announced they are rolling out Box Accelerator. This is a service which has been launched today and it promises 10x faster upload speeds than before. They're able to do this thanks to new network infrastructure that spreads upload hubs across the globe. This has been so efficient in testing that an independent review marks the service as comfortably faster than; Dropbox, Microsoft’s SkyDrive, and Google Drive.

• If you're a Tesco mobile customer then we've got good news for you if you like everything with an 'i' in front of it's name. Tesco has released an 'register your interest page' for the iPhone 5! If you want to show your interest head over here and you might have one in your hands relatively soon!

• Just in case anyone doubted the appeal of Apple's new iPhone 5 then you should see some of these stats! In the first 24 hours of pre-orders the company sold over 2m units. For those of you talented with numbers you'll instantly know that that's more than 23 units a second or 1,389 a minute, that's why the delivery time slipped after a while ladies and gentlemen! That also reinforces AT&T's statement which said it was their most successful iPhone launch ever!

• Amazon has quietly outed a maps API to compete with Google's solution. The API was sneeked out during the companies Kindle Fire HD release and it's looking like a year of Google Maps challengers. Now you've got Bing maps, iOS maps, Amazon apps, but there's still a place in our heart for Ordance Survey maps!

• Smartphones and tablets have officially overtaken PCs as major consumer of DRAM chips.

• Microsoft have confirmed the price range for their Surface tablets; they will be anywhere from $300-$700 depending on whether you opt for a RT version or full Windows experience!

And finally, is the a new upcoming smartphone from HP running... Android?!?! This is relatively easy to fake by the way, but after last weeks announcement HP is getting back in the game it could be a very well placed teaser! As you can see there's ICS at the moment and a nice little lovely 1366 x 720 pixel resolution display with 1.5GHz on each of its Snapdragon CPU cores. So what do you think? Real or fake?

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14/09/2012

Is HP getting back into the smartphone game?!

   So what happens when you drop a couple of billion dollars on a fledgling smartphone operating system, make a couple of phones and a tablet with it and then fire sale the lot? Well if your name's HP you might realise you made a little mistake! 

   For HP, a company that specialises in computers, they need to make sure they utilise their brand recognition in other markets. HP's CEO Meg Whitman realises this and today she's said that HP is planning to release a new smartphone as an entry level device in emerging markets. She told Fox Business news that “We have to ultimately offer a smartphone because in many countries of the world, that is your first computing device”. She made sure not to specify when the phone would be available and she made sure she said this one wouldn’t be a rush-job.

“We are working on this. In the end, I would love to be able to provide all the way from the most fabulous workstations … to desktops, to laptops, to our tablets and convertibles, all the way to the smartphone. But we did take a detour into smartphone, and we’ve gotta get it right this time. So my mantra to the team is “better right, than faster than we should be there” so we’re working to make sure that, when we do this, it will be the right thing for HP and we will be successful.

My view is we have to ultimately offer a smartphone because in many countries of the world, that is your first computing device. There will be countries around the world where people may never own a tablet or a PC or a desktop, they will do everything on a smartphone, we are a computing company we have to take advantage of that form-factor” Meg Whitman, CEO, HP

   The main conundrum here is what OS the phone will run; will the company make the most of their Open WebOS platform, that they've been busy open-sourcing, or will the fall back on Microsoft and run Windows Phone? On a personal level I hope it's the former!

In other news:

• Wii U up for preorder in the UK from Amazon. It'll set you back £249 at Amazon for the Basic model, which houses 8GB of storage, and £299 for the Premium model, which increases that to 32GB and throws in few little sweeteners too! Head over to Amazon to guarantee yours!

• And Yes the Wii U will be getting Black Ops 2!!!

• Apple will ship you a Lightning adaptor with your new iPhone 5 purchase and if the rumours are to be believed then you'll also get the ability to be a USB host with the new port!

• While we're on the subject of the iPhone 5, if you haven't pre-ordered already then you won't be getting your delivery for at least another 2 weeks. In fact the initial batch sold out within an hour, sorry guys, this is the case worldwide by the way!

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13/09/2012

Google threatened to cut Acer off the Android list!

Via CoolSmartPhone.

    Now we should take this one with a pinch of salt as it's straight from one of Google's Chinese arch enemies! The story goes that after a phone collaboration between the Acer and Alibaba was shelved at the very last minute!

   The pair has been planning to launch the 'CloudMobile A800' smartphone together, but Reuter's has said the event itself was strangely written off after Acer was told that “Google would terminate Android product cooperation” if the phone was revealed.

   Unsurprisingly Acer has been schtum on the matter, but Alibaba has been harder to silence, they came out and announced that “Our partner received notification from Google that if the new product launch with Aliyun went ahead, Google would terminate Android product cooperation and related technical authorization with Acer.” The company went on to say that Google’s decision was “clearly unfair to consumers” and it's pretty hard to disagree.

   At the moment we have no idea what the next move will be and we don't expect to hear anything out of Google or Acer soon! Perhaps it was Aliyun's plan to run Android apps which tipped the balance?!?! 

   But, we'll leave you with Alibaba's take on the whole situation; “We believe that by introducing the Aliyun OS we are giving consumers and hardware makers more options which is the foundation of a healthy and strong market. We think that it should be left to the market to decide.”

Via Slashgear.

In other news:

• LG has teased a press event for the unveiling of a quad-core Qualcomm based phone. We expect this to be the LG Optimus G and we will give you all the details when the event happens!

• Wii U pricing! If you're based in the US it'll be $299.99 for the Basic version, while the Deluxe will be $349.99. For European's pricing will be released on November 30 by individual retailers.

• The iPhone 5 will be available on Cricket, in the USA, as a prepaid phone!

• iPhone 5 won’t work with some accessories even with Lightning adapter!

And finally, Motorola and Intel have an event coming up together and on the eve of the release Intel have said that they have optimised Android 4.1 Jelly Bean Medfield powered phones!!!

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Everything from Apple's iPhone 5 event!

It's official guys here we have the iPhone 5!

Design:
The phone is a slight redesign and to directly quote the Apple guys the, "iPhone 5. It is made entirely of glass and aluminum. It's designed and built to an exacting level of standard unlike anything we, or anyone in our industry, have made before."

   Improvements to the aesthetic include slimming the whole thing down to 7.6mm thick, which is 18% thinner than before, it's 112 grams which is 20% lighter than the 4S!! The company assures us that this won't affect one handed use; "For the first time ever we've increased the size of the display. By making the screen taller, but not wider, you can still comfortably use it with one hand."


Screen:
This time we have another Retina display, at 326 ppi, but the new resolution is1136 x 640 resolution, because the screen is slightly larger at 4 inches. The whole thing is the same width but a bit taller with a new 16:9 aspect ratio.

The enlarged screen has allowed Apple to cram in five rows of icons, on top of the four shortcuts on the bottom.
All the first-party apps have been optimized to show a bit more stuff. In Calendar we see a full five-day workweek, now.

What about the old apps? They run letterboxed.

So, pixel-perfect rendering. There are black borders on either side so the display is centered.

44% better color saturation, full sRGB rendering here.

Connectivity and Carriers:

And yes we have LTE(!!!) as well as GPRS, EDGE, EV-DO, HSPA, HSPA+, DC-HSDPA. HSPA+ is 21Mbps, DC-HSDPA is 42Mbps, and LTE is a max of 100.

Interestingly there seems to be a limited supply of Carriers: 

In the US: Sprint, AT&T and Verizion. All will support LTE.

Canada: Rogers, Telus, Bell, Fido, Virgin.

In the UK it'll be on O2, Three and Everything Everywhere! It's likely Vodafone and the other networks will have it too but we haven't heard officially yet! The rest of the continent has a convenient little map, right.

New internals:

New chip, the A6! 2X faster CPU and 2x graphics compared to the A5 -- is this compared to the A5 or A5X?

22% smaller, too, and more energy-efficient.

Battery

There's no word on specific battery capacity but it's rated for standby 225hrs, 8 hours lte, 40 hours music and 10 hours wi-fi.

Camera:

It's an 8-megapixel 'iSight' camera, capable of producing shots up to 3,264 x 2,448p resolutions, The sensor is backside-illuminated, with a five-element lens and f/2.4 aperture. Same as the iPhone 4S but thinner.5-element lens and f/2.4 aperture. Same as the iPhone 4S but thinner. dynamic low light mode. It evaluates nearby pixels to give up to 2 f-stops greater low-light performance. 40% faster than the 4S. Finally they have an official panorama mode!It's a 28 megapixel resulting image!

It's 1080p still but with better video stabilization, and there's facial recognition. You can grab photos, too, still.The front-facing camera is now 720p, backside illuminated. Facetime over cellular but they didn't specify which or any networks which would do it!

Audio:

The audio system - there are three microphones. Front, bottom, and back for better voice recognition and noise cancellation.

Connector:

Many things can be done wirelessly...Bluetooth for audio, WiFi for AirPlay or syncing to iTunes, "and best of all with iCloud we can download all our content wirelessly."

"So now we have Thunderbolt and Lightning."

Got old docks? "We're creating a bunch of accessories to help you with that."

No word on adaptor pricing, but big name brands such as Bose are already working on new speakers!

iOS6: 

"Can you recommend a good movie in theaters?"

iPhone 4S, iPhone 4, 3GS, new iPad, iPad 2 and iPod touch all are getting iOS 6 and it'll be available, before the new iPhone, on September 19th!

• Here we've got the Integrated maps we saw at WWDC!
• "We've also built a search engine in so you can look at local points of interest." There are 100 million.
• Passbook for all of your tickets and bank details and everything else! Safari enhancements so that it's more of a desktop experience.

• Siri updates: Ask about a sports result; "how did Man Utd do last weekend?" it'll give you the score.You can also now post statuses to Facebook or Twitter via Siri!

Colour options!

The phone will be available in two colours; black and white again folks! The white version has a raw aluminum back. The black one has the black anodized backing.

Pricing and pre-orders:

And pricing, it's the same as the 4S currently is so for those of you in the US that's $199 for 16GB. $299 for 32GB, $399 for 64GB. Which means that the iPhone 4 is now free on contract and the 4S is now $99. Something which Apple says presents the 'best option' in every price bracket.

Pre-orders start on Friday the 14th. Shipping on September 21st in the US, Canada, UK, Germany, France, Australia, Japan, Hong Kong and Singapore.20 more countries next month."This will be our fastest phone roll-out ever."

What we're left wanting!!!

NFC or Bluetooth NFC.

Micro-USB compatibility.

Wireless charging. 

Bigger screen (subjective of course).

New iPod's!!!

New iPod Nano (7th Gen.)

• Apple said that with the new Nano they "wanted to give it a really large display. We want to have really easy to use controls. We want to make it thin and light... and of course we'd want to give it the latest technologies like Lightning."
• 2.5-inch display in the nano that's multitouch. It's super tiny but has a wider screen than before. Looks to have a tiny Home button. It's 5.4mm, 38% thinner than the last Nano!
• There's an FM tuner with DVR functionality -- pausing and rewinding.
• Ohh and there's Bluetooth too!

New iPod Touch

• Just 6.1mm thick, 88 grams in weight and a slightly redesigned, more squared back.
• 4" display.
• A5 processor for better gaming!
• Five megapixel iSight camera. Backside illuminated, f/2.4, five element lens and that same sapphire crystal lens cover. 1080p video with image stabilization and the ability to use iMovie right away!
• 720p front camera for FaceTime.
• Up to 40 hours of music playback in the touch, 8 hours of video. Slightly increased over the 4th gen Touch.
• Siri capabilities!
• But no 4G!

Other announcements from the event:

• There are reportedly 700,000 apps in the App Store now!
• The iPad is responsible for 91% of tablet web traffic.
• 60% of tablets sales were from the iPad!
• 27% US Market share in PC sector.
• iTunes has had a serious facelift! Essentially they've tried to make everything easier to use! And there's a little pop-up mini player for iTunes! But, "The new iTunes will be available in late October" so not until iOS 6 has landed.

And finally, there's new earbuds!

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11/09/2012

Everything Everywhere's 4G future.

   Yesterday evening we speculated what would be coming from today's Everything Everywhere event. Turns out we weren't too far off the mark; we were slightly wrong about the speed of the roll out (they'll have 98% coverage by 2014 and 40% coverage by this Christmas) and we didn't hear anything about a 4G iPhone, but then again that'd steal Apple's thunder.

   But, what we did learn today is that EE, which is Everything Everywhere's new name (and will be appearing on your Orange/T-Mobile handset very soon), will have a pretty stellar line up of mifi's and phones to take the brunt of your high speed internet abuse!

   From the picture below you may be able to pick out, from left to right, a little Huawei mifi, the Huawei Ascend P1 LTE, the HTC One XL, the Samsung Galaxy S3 LTE, Nokia Lumia 920 and the 820 too! (both of which are EE exclusives) and a nice little dongle too!

   At the moment we don't know whether or not we'll be seeing an iPhone 5, but tomorrow will reveal all!

   Aside from that EE has promised to light up 40% of the country before Christmas with Belfast, Birmingham, Bristol, Cardiff, Derby, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Hull, Leeds, Liverpool, London, Manchester, Nottingham, Newcastle, Sheffield and Southampton being the first spots to get the fast mobile internet!

   On a slightly unrelated note, the company also said they will start offering fibre optic broadband to customers, but we don't have any information on when this will be happening! Ohhh and so you now EE is cleverly calling their new network 4GEE... See what they did there!!! Yeah, I wasn't impressed either!

In other news:

• Analysts are predicted Apple will be able to ship 10 million of their new iPhone's to willing buyers before the end of September! Remember the announcement is tomorrow!!!

• If you're a GiffGaff customer then you may well want to read this! The company is having to reconsider it's £10 giftbag because they can't offer unlimited data for that price any more. So today is the start of a consultation period which ends on the 20th of September and there are 3 possible outcomes, so before you see them make sure you head over to their site to voice your opinion! Your choices are;

• Increase the price of the current £10 Goodybag to £13

• Keep the £10 Goodybag but limit data to 750mb

• Offer a £10 Goodybag with 750mb or a £13 Goodybag with unlimited data

• Apparently GoDaddy was taken offline by Anonymous last night!

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10/09/2012

Samsung's Galaxy Note II camera was downgraded by Sony.

   Samsung reportedly planned to include a 13MP shooter in their Galaxy Note 2, but apparently their plans to include a sensor that good were scuppered by Sony's inability to produce enough sensors!

   The story goes that Sony chose to offer the camera sensors to LG and their upcoming Optimus G instead, because they couldn't produce enough to satisfy Samsung's almost insatiable needs.

In other news:

• Nokia has pledged to 'investigate' their work after they were caught faking the promo shots from their Lumia 920. Perhaps next time Nokia it'd be less hassle if you just use the phone to take a picture!
• Apparently Apple will have a tough time disproving HTC's claims that Apple infringe on their 4G LTE patents according to a top American Judge!
• Nokia's new Lumia 920 PureView will only record video audio in Mono!!!
• And will Apple's new iPhone 5 support numerous types of 4G around the world?! That's the rumour.

And finally Everything Everywhere has a press conference tomorrow regarding their 4G LTE plans! See what the other blogs around and about have speculated that we'll see! All the info is here!

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So what if EE's announcement included this?

   

There was a huge amount of discontent from everyone, except Orange and T-Mobile, the other week when OFCOM officially gave the pair permission to roll out LTE on their existing spare spectrum. A move which gave the duo a monopoly on LTE services for the best part of a year.

   If these rumours are correct then the threats of legal action are going to be very real and there will be very heated debates after the press conference tomorrow!

   The rumours run that tomorrow Everything Everywhere will officially open up their 4G LTE service to consumers. There will be a rollout from tomorrow until Christmas, by which time 98% of the population will have access to these services! 98% in 3months, now that is impressive! It's worth considering that this will be a phased turn on, much like the recent digital switch over so you won't necessarily have the service from day 1!

   On top of this the upcoming iPhone will have LTE, it's pretty much a banker. So if we have EE with the only LTE network in the country then we can put two and two together and we have an EE exclusive on an LTE iPhone in the UK!!!!

   Ohh, you remember the Nokia Lumia 920 and 820, well they will come with LTE too and there's been a lot of rumours of that EE is looking to get exclusives on these too. It seems most people are expecting to see this too!

   And finally, the word is that Everything Everywhere will officially be shortened to EE. Short and effective. But, we'll have to see what tomorrow holds for official confirmation of all of this!




Via DigitalSpy, The Daily Telegraph, The Independent.

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HTC, Motorola and the future!

   Before I start it's worth offering up a little disclaimer. I live in the UK, our choice of phones is decidedly different from you guys over the pond in the USA. For starters we didn't get any of the Motorola Droid series, after the Droid 2 (read: Milestone 2), we only got the Razr Maxx available in big chain stores in the last 2 weeks and we get pretty much every HTC phone going!

   So what's the point of this discussion? Well both companies are doing average-poor in their financial statements and there are clear reasons, in my mind, why each of them is struggling and bare in mind that these are just my opinions and for the record I have a Galaxy S3 and Sony Tablet S, so there's no vested interest!

   Firstly, lets start with Motorola because they're easier to tackle! Firstly, the company in the last few years has failed to compete with the Samsung's and Apple's of this world and to an extent they are struggling at the moment. At the moment if you head over to their UK page you will find 14 phones for sale; the competitive of which is the Motorola Razr/Razr Maxx and yes both of these phones are nice, but given the choice would you buy one of them over a Galaxy S3? Probably not, you'd rather stump up the extra £5 a month!

   Motorola almost totally missed the boat because when the Razr was announced in November 2011 Google was days away from showcasing the Galaxy Nexus, with it's 720p HD screen, which simply trumps the Razr's! The phone was almost outdated from the moment it launched.

   Hopefully the freshly announced Razr M and it's 'bezel-less display' will help, although the Intel processor might well put off a few people. The Razr HD and Razr HD Maxx are once again good but they're very much the 4S to the iPhone 4, if you get that little analogy.

Thankfully the Razr got ICS, but only after Jelly Bean was announced!

   My criticism doesn't stop there; Motorola also have an issue with updates; that issue is that they're terrible with them! If you're lucky you'll see one update on your phone. That simply isn't competitive any more; Samsung and HTC crank out updates for the vast majority of their phones quickly and they often get them through two versions of Android! Even Sony have learnt the wonders of software updates lately and they've been widely praised for their work, so hopefully Motorola will see the light!

   Quite simply that's where Motorola's problem is; they're not challenging high-end phones and that's where Samsung and Apple are making their money. Hopefully Google have got Moto's teams working behind the scenes to create something amazing for the event on September the 5th because they'll have to compete with the Galaxy S3, the new iPhone, new Lumia devices, the stunning Samsung Ativ S and HTC's competent, if not mind blowing, One X and S. That's the competition and devices will have to wow consumers to turn their heads.

   Motorola would also do well to actually offer their phones in Europe! We can help you guys shift some phones, but not if they're not on sale here! It might be a strategic move on Motorola's part to tackle the US and China, but it's slightly frustrating for us keyboard lovers!

The Sensation just looked dated.

   HTC is a different beast entirely; people have said that things started going pear-shaped last year when they released too many Sensation devices. HTC had the Sensation, the Sensation XE and the Sensation XL, so I'm not entirely convinced that was the reason. Instead, I'd say that the Sensation series (with the exception of the XE) looked clunky and unfashionable. Yes, they were made of metal and felt good but they didn't look as good as an iPhone 4S or a Galaxy S2 did they?

   That's the problem for HTC their aesthetic. The One Series was a good start, it looked relatively fresh and unique and HTC brought their A-game with the specs, even if they put a diddy little battery in the One X!

   I think HTC knows that's the trouble too, but the company has a toss up between a complete departure from their current design language and the risk that runs of alienating their current device owners when they come to upgrade. HTC has also started focusing on battery sizes; they've been asking their Elevate users whether battery life is that important to them and whether perceived battery life is actually the reality, after all a little battery doesn't necessarily mean it won't last all day!

   HTC aren't the company that concern me, they'll be fine they're trying to change and reassert themselves, but they need to get back to creating iconic devices; the Desire and the Legend were fantastic. Everyone instantly recognised them because they were so distinct and they caught people's eyes and that's what they need to get back to and maybe ditch sense too! It looks like a dodgy scarf in the Sensation above!!! Again in HTC's defence they've tried to refresh Sense in the One series and they've toned down the colour scheme and made it less intrusive!

   So HTC and Motorola both are still competitive manufacturers and both have a place in Android's future. I'm confident both of them can offer compelling and competitive devices, sometimes though I just wish Google could make all Android phones and this is why...

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07/09/2012

HTC One X+ pops up on Twitter!

   Given the proximity of HTC's press conference it's not surprising that we're starting to see some leaks! This one comes from Twitter where a source claims to know details of the much rumoured HTC One X+!

     The purported new phone will have dimensions of 134.36 x 69.9 x 9.3mm and is relatively light at 129g. This time as well there's suggestions that we'll be seeing NVIDIA‘s enhanced Tegra 3+ AP37 1.6GHz quad-core processor, that has the 1.7GHz single-core processor for the less taxing tasks! Just for good measure there's also 1 GB of RAM and 32GB's ROM.

   The main complaints with the original One X was the diddy little 1800mAH battery and if the leak has got this one right then the same battery is in this version too. That will likely be the main reason for bloggers to complain again! So if you're a textaholic or like playing your Angry Birds or Temple Run then sorry but we're ready for a short battery life again.

   Finally, the software looks to be coming in the form of Android 4.1 Jelly Bean masked by HTC’s Sense 4.5. 

   If the source is to be believed then the specs look relatively solid and it'll be another solid phone, but we expect that battery will be putting people off again!

In other news:

• It's been reported that there will be more than just an iPhone reveal on September the 12th! It seems like we'll be getting some iPod refreshes too!

• There has been a lot of rumours of an Amazon phone recently but Amazon CEO, John Bezos, has today confirmed that there's no current plans to announce one but there are more devices coming next year, but at the moment it'd be "premature" to talk about them and there won't be one "any time soon". An enigmatic answer and it's looking like Amazon has their sights set on a phone after all!

• Keep your eyes peeled for the next iPhone to be available on September 21st! That's the rumour of the day!

• UK carrier Everything Everywhere (Orange/T-Mobile) has announced a press conference on September 11th, the day before the next iPhone is launched to talk about their plans for their future! An LTE iPhone in the UK?!?! We can hope!

• Slashgear has today reported that Apple and Samsung's recent courtroom battles has seen the Cupertino company reign in their reliance on the South Korean giants. Slashgear said they've seen reports from Reuters and Bloomberg that say 

"Samsung's memory and displays will be absent from the first batch of Apple's new iPhone, insiders claim, after pricing and legal disagreements saw the Cupertino firm slash orders from its long-time rival. Patent fight tensions and arguments over costs have led to a stalemate of sorts... though Apple is also believed to be working to reduce its reliance on any one individual company. However, Apple hasn't been able to entirely oust Samsung from its iPhone 5 supply chain: the processor powering the new smartphone will apparently still be produced by the South Korean firm."

•  Kindle Fire and Kindle Fire HD will hit UK and Europe on October 25!

And finally, is this HTC's upcoming Windows Phone 8 device that's been codenamed the Accord? If so it'll be called the HTC 8X, which is a pretty cool name and a pretty slick looking phone!

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Amazon's new Kindle Fire line-up!

   This September the tech world has come out in force and today Amazon has to match the announcements from Motorola and Nokia yesterday!

   As you can see in the picture above there are a few new variants of the new Kindles. The Kindle Fire HD 8.9 is a particular stand out in this bunch because there's a fantastic 1920 x 1200 display which equates to 254 ppi!


   Conveniently CNET has already posted all of the details for all the tablets and the info is all below!!!
 

"We're happy to see a richer, sharper screen on the Kindle Fire HD. The smaller, 7-inch Kindle Fire HD has a 1,280x800-pixel screen resolution, and the two 8.9-inch versions have a 1,920x1,200-pixel HD resolution (254ppi).

The displays features the Advanced True Wide polarizing filter and a fused (laminated) touch sensor that Amazon says will reduce glare by 25 percent while maintaining rich color and contrast from the gamut of viewing angles. We love testing out claims like this. Apple's iPad Retina Display will be hard to beat, but the Kindle Fire HD won't necessarily have to offer that same precision to be a success, though with the higher price point for the larger screens, it'll be trickier.

Amazon has also enhanced the original Kindle Fire's interface, adding faster navigation, smoother animations, and more customization options.

In addition to the screen size, the 8.9-inch models of the Kindle Fire HD family will run on an Texas Instruments OMAP 4470 processor(the 7-inch features an OMAP 4460) that Amazon claims is much faster than Nvidia's Tegra 3 quad-core chipset. There will certainly be a moment of truth when we test that out in our labs here.

There's a brand-new front-facing HD camera, and Dolby Digital Plus that will pump music on two speakers. As much as we love Dolby, we're skeptical that the name brand will make a discernible difference on such tiny speakers.

The smallest of the three Kindle Fire HDs has a rated 11 hours of battery life.

   On top of all of this the original Kindle Fire is now available for those of us in the UK and will be £129, whereas the new Kindle Fire HD will set you back £159.

   All of these are great additions to Amazon's line-up and it's great to see that the company is pushing into new markets!

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