Amazon Fire HD 7 features new design, same low price
Tablets
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Amazon's latest seven inch tablet sports a new design for the same low price as last years model.
Is it still a solid cheap tablet to buy?
I'm Xiomara Blanco for CNET and I'll be taking a closer look at the Amazon Fire HD 7. The seven inch tablet looks different than last year's and not in a good way.
The angular design is reminiscent of the Fire HDX [UNKNOWN].
But the Fire HD 7 has a plastic back that gives it a hollow feel despite it's average girth.
To make up for the flimsy feeling Amazon offers the tablet in a variety of fun colors though our review unit was a simple classy white.
The top edge houses the power button and micro USB port while the volume rocker is located on the left edge.
The back of the tablet is home to the rear camera as well as the dual dolby audio powered speakers.
There's no expandable storage option but like with every Fire tablet you get unlimited cloud storage for all of your Amazon content.
The Fire HD 7 runs on Amazon's recently released Fire Sangria operating system which also isn't too different from last year's version.
New features include the ability to set up individual user profiles and a suitable family library, which at the time of review has yet to roll out.
Amazon didn't splurge on too many upgrades for the Fire HT7.
But its new quad core processor is purportedly twice as fast as last year's model with improved graphics performance.
The 1280 by 800 pixel resolution also stays the same.
However, it's a standard spec for a tablet in its price range, and the humble IPS display looks sharp with life-like colors.
Performance is smooth and steady for basic tasks like checking email, reading, and surfing the web.
The tablet slows down when downloading large files and launching large apps or games.
But the wait times are nothing atypical for a tablet with midrange specs.
The rear two-megapixel camera has a manual focus, Panorama and HDR option but photo quality at full resolution isn't very sharp and colors appear dull.
The front facing VGA camera similarly struggles with producing clear and colorful photos.
But it has face detection and works fine for video conferencing.
Despite the downgrade in design the Fire HD 7 is still a good seven inch slate.
It's feature filled software is it's saving grace and starting at a low $140 only the Dell Venue 7 comes close to beating it.
However if you can.
Upgrading to the 16 gigabyte model is worth the extra cash.
For more information on the tablet check out the full review on cnet.
Again I'm [UNKNOWN] Blanco and this has been the first look at the Amazon Fire HD 7.
