Goes like the blazes: Amazon Fire HDX 8.9 late 2014 edition

The Dolby system

If you use your HDX as an ebook reader, then the new Fire HDX 8.9 features something called Dynamic Light Control, which, and I quote, “changes the white point of the display, matching its colour and warmth to the ambient light of your surroundings in order to make the display more closely resemble a piece of paper”. This actually works and makes reading books on a tablet, rather than a proper e-reader, less of a strain.

We are Amazon. Buy our stuff

Also new is Dolby’s Atmos sound-processing gubbins, a surround sound refinement. There are an increasing number of films taking advantage of the technology and Amazon pointed me towards Taken 2 in the Prime library. Donning a pair of decent headphones, the directional travel of sound effects certainly stood out more clearly when using the new HDX, rather than the previous model, so it’s not just a gimmick. Terrible film though, Liam Neeson really needs to have words with his agent.

Atmos has little effect on what you hear through the HDX’s stereo speakers but since the speakers are really very good that’s neither here nor there. The new HDX also adds Bluetooth 4 to the Kindle Fire’s arsenal. Incidentally my review machine came with the rather funky magnetic origami case-cum-stand. It’s a bloody clever bit of design but at £50 (and that for the plastic one, the leather is £65) it surely ain’t cheap.

The elephant in the room is that all these improvements only go so far to compensate for the fact that the Amazon App Store is still short on content compared to the Google Play Store and that you have to forgo Google’s own apps.

If you've a Fire TV you can cast your screen over to your telly

The seamless access to all your Amazon goodies – and it really is seamless, credit where it is due – goes some way to ameliorating this, but whether it goes far enough is a question only the prospective purchaser can answer. Me? I prefer maximum Google over maximum Amazon.

Personal preferences aside, the HDX can perform a useful trick if partnered with Amazon's Fire TV. Assuming your Fire TV box is up and running, any Prime videos you are streaming on the HDX give you the option to cast to your telly and use the tablet as a second screen for extra X-Ray content. That’s the IMDb and Amazon -sourced character, scene and cast background information service that's a God-send to anyone who has those "Oh you know, he was in that thing with what's-her-name" moments.

This is a trick Google’s Chromecast can’t replicate even if Chromecast is better at casting third-party tablet and phone apps, though as Fire TV is designed to be much more a stand-alone product than Google’s streaming stick that isn’t really an issue. Being Android-based, Fire OS supports Miracast, so casting whatever else you are watching on the HDX to a compatible TV is very straightforward.

Spot the difference: new Fire HDX 8.9 on the left and the old one the right. Or is it the other way around?

The Reg Verdict

Good things about the new HDX 8.9: great screen, excellent battery life, quick-as-blazes processor and superb graphics. The speakers are very good too. Bad things: no Google apps, no Google Play Store, no storage expansion and Fire OS, even in its latest iteration, looks a wee bit dated compared with stock Android even if it is piss-easy to use. Impressive the hardware aside, as with the Fire Phone the more in bed you are with Amazon as a content provider the more you’ll get on with, and out of, the new Fire HDX 8.9. ®