Amazon Kindle Fire HD 8.9 hands-on photos

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At that event in September, Bezos spent an incredible amount of time talking about Amazon's hardware prowess. I was surprised – this is a content company and a retailer, not an electronics manufacturer, and its previous devices hadn't been overwhelmingly impressive.

Both Kindle Fire HD models are a significant step up from what Amazon has made before, well-built devices that don't have any of the blocky feel of the original Fire. The two devices are virtually identical, too — if you cut the bezel off the 8.9-inch model you'd have a device almost exactly the size of the 7-inch Fire HD. Speaking of the bezel, it's exactly the same size as the 7-inch, but it doesn't look as big because the device itself is larger. It's a pretty inconspicuous device, without a lot of visual flair, but I actually like it; the matte black device has a similar soft-touch feel to the Nexus 7, which I like much more than the cold metallic feel of the iPad.

The larger model is thinner than the smaller Fire HD, and even slightly slimmer than the most recent iPad – though its .35-inch frame is still thicker than the iPad mini. It only weighs 1.25 pounds, again slightly more svelte than the iPad but considerably larger than the iPad mini — it's a pretty perfect medium between the two most common tablet sizes. It's really comfortable to hold, though it's a little too heavy for one-handed use just by virtue of its length; no matter which side you hold it on, it tends to tip toward the other end.

The tablet is sturdy and handsome, but it has some flaws. The power button, for instance, is absolutely impossible for your finger to find. It's hidden on the right side, next to the volume buttons and headphone jack, and it's hard to find even if you're looking for it. The black plastic strip on the back also wraps slightly around the edges, looking like another button – it's all very confusing. At least the Micro HDMI and Micro USB ports are together on the bottom, where they should be.

Amazon hasn't yet matched the industrial design Apple's shown with its tablets, and I think Google's Nexus tablets are slightly better as well. But the company's come a long way, and in only a year has left its PlayBook-like roots far behind.

The iPad's Retina display used to be a trump card, a head-and-shoulders lead over the competition that no one could argue. Well, that's not the case anymore. The Nexus 10 and Nook HD have fantastic displays that rival the iPad's, and the Kindle Fire HD 8.9 deserves to mentioned in the same breath as all three. The 1920 x 1200 panel has a pixel density of 254ppi, which is lower than both the iPad and Nexus 10, but it's near-impossible to tell the difference in sharpness. Text is crisp and clear even at very small sizes, and I almost never saw individual pixels or jagged edges on icons.

Resolution's not the whole story, though. Where the 8.9 really shines is in its color reproduction, viewing angles, and brightness. While whites have the slightest tinge of yellow — not so much to be a problem, but it's not perfect — blacks are incredibly deep, and every other color shines exactly as it should. The deep blacks create great contrast, so even the darkest scenes in The Dark Knight are watchable. Amazon touts the anti-glare lamination of the display, which I can't say I noticed — this screen is still awfully reflective — but there's still no question this is one of the best displays out there, especially for watching video.

The Fire HD 8.9's dual speakers blast sound out the back of the device, and are among the best tablet speakers I've used. Keep in mind, that's incredibly faint praise, but at least the Dolby-driven audio is audible in a room with a fan on — that's more than I can say for most slates. Dolby Digital seems to do most of the work here: with the setting enabled sound immediately becomes louder and richer, and comes through in better stereo. Keep it turned on, and you'll be very happy with the sound coming from the Kindle Fire HD 8.9.

In this realm, little has changed from the Kindle Fire HD 7 — check out that review for the full rundown of how Amazon's new tablets work.

From a specs standpoint, the two sizes of Kindle Fire HD differ slightly. The 8.9 is powered by a dual-core 1.5GHz OMAP 4470 processor, the most recent chip from TI — it's a better chip than the Fire HD 7's, clocked a little faster. In general, the chip does well, and everything from high-def movies to intensive games like Dead Space look and work great even on such a high-resolution display. There's no real step up in power from the smaller model, though — the extra horsepower seems to be nullified by the fact that the 8.9 has more pixels to push around.

It's odd, though: the tablet does the difficult, intensive things really well, but stumbles on some of its most basic functions. The keyboard feels slow, always a half-beat behind your fingers; buttons will sometimes animate before they do anything, so you're left with a glowing button and nothing else; and there's just small bits of lag all over the system as you open and close apps, scroll through menus, and even turn pages in books. It's far from the smooth, zippy experience on some of the Kindle Fire HD's best competitors.

The juxtaposition of power and sluggishness make me think the Kindle Fire HD 8.9's problems must be software-related. I'm not surprised, either, because Amazon hasn't done a great job with its Android 4.0-based operating system anyway. The UI is at various points too confusing, too simple, and too mutable. The Home button is in different places depending on how you're holding the device — and sometimes it's not present at all until you tap on the screen or swipe in from the side. There's no multitasking to speak of, only a Favorites bar that pops up when you press the star icon; Android's standard behavior, slightly glowing dots that let you know where the navigation buttons are even when you're in an app, is a much better system.