Amazon Fire

Logo used since 2024
Kindle Fire (7", 1st gen, 2011) showingWikimedia Commons main page
Developer	Amazon Inc.
Manufacturer	Quanta Computer[1]
Type	Tablet computer Smart speaker (by turning on show mode)
Release date	November 15, 2011 (2011-11-15) (US) September 6, 2012 (2012-09-06) (Europe) December 18, 2012 (2012-12-18) (Japan)
Units sold	7 million (as of October 2012[update])[2]
Operating system	Fire OS
System on a chip	TIOMAP 4(1st and 2nd gen) MediaTekMT81xx(5th gen and newer)
CPU	Dual and Quad core (ARM)
Memory	512 MB RAM(1st gen) 1 GB RAM(2nd gen)[3] 2 GB RAM(12th gen)
Storage	8GB,[4] 16GB, or 32GB
Display	7 inch, 1024×600 resolution,capacitive multi-touch display[4]
Graphics	PowerVR andMali
Sound	3.5 mm stereo audio jack Top-mounted stereo speakers(1st and 2nd gen) Bottom-mounted mono speaker(5th gen and newer)
Camera	Front and Rear facing cameras
Connectivity	Micro-USB 2.0 (type B),[5]USB-C 2.0(12th gen) 3.5 mm stereo socket[5] Wi-Fi Bluetooth(5th gen and newer)
Online services	Amazon Prime, Amazon Cloud Storage, Amazon Music,Amazon Prime Video,Amazon Silk,Amazon Appstore,Amazon Alexa, Amazon Kindle Store
Dimensions	190 mm (7.5 in) H 120 mm (4.7 in) W 11.4 mm (0.45 in) D[6]
Weight	413 g (14.6 oz)[7]
Successor	Fire HD
Website	Amazon Fire

Amazon Kindle Fire tablet models
AndroidLCD devices
Kindle Fire 1st release, 1st gen Sep 28, 2011 Kindle Fire 2nd release, 2nd gen Sep 6, 2012 Kindle Fire HD 7 1st release, 2nd gen Sep 14, 2012 Kindle Fire HD 8.9 1st release, 2nd gen Nov 20, 2012 Kindle Fire HD 7 2nd release, 3rd gen Oct 2, 2013 Kindle Fire HDX 7 1st release, 3rd gen Oct 18, 2013 Kindle Fire HDX 8.9 1st release, 3rd gen Nov 7, 2013
All laterFire OSLCD devices do not use Kindle in their branding.
v t e

TheAmazon Fire, formerly called theKindle Fire, is a line oftablet computers developed byAmazon. Built withQuanta Computer, the Kindle Fire was first released in November 2011, featuring a color 7-inchmulti-touch display withIPS technology and running onFire OS, anAndroid-based operating system. The KindleFire HD followed in September 2012, and the KindleFire HDX in September 2013. In September 2014, when the fourth generation was introduced, the name "Kindle" was dropped. In later generations, the Fire tablet is also able to convert into aSmart speaker turning on the "Show Mode" options, which the primary interaction will be by voice command throughAlexa.

The Kindle Fire—which includes access to theAmazon Appstore, streaming movies and TV shows, and theKindle Store fore-books—was released to consumers in theUnited States on November 14, 2011, after being announced on September 28.^[8]

The original Kindle Fire retailed forUS$199 in 2011.^[9]Estimates of the device's initialbill of materials cost ranged from $150 to $202.^[10][11] Amazon's business strategy was stated in 2011 as making money through sales of digital content on theFire, rather than through sales of the device itself.^[12][13][14]

On September 6, 2012, the Kindle Fire was upgraded to the second generation, and its price was reduced toUS$159, RAM upgraded to 1 GB and processor clock speed upgraded to 1.2 GHz. On September 7, 2012, upgrades to the device were announced with consumer availability to those European countries with a localised version of Amazon's website (United Kingdom,^[15]France,Germany,Italy andSpain).^[16]

As of October 2012^[update], the Kindle Fire was the second best selling tablet afterApple'siPad, with about 7 million units sold according to estimates byForrester Research^[2] and as of 2013^[update] Amazon's tablets were the fourth best selling.^[17]

The Fire tablet line was not updated until 2015; Amazon only releasedFire HD andFire HDX tablets during that time. In 2015, Amazon made a full refresh of their tablet family where they brought the range down market as a series of budget focused devices, returning to the lower-spec Fire line and cancelling the HDX line.

In September 2015, Amazon announced the release of the Fire 7, priced atUS$49.99 for the 8GB version that displays advertisements on the lock screen. As of March 2016^[update] it was the lowest-priced Amazon tablet.^[18] In June 2016, its price was dropped briefly toUS$39.99.^[19] This fifth generation tablet introduced a micro SD card slot for extra storage.^[20]

A slightly improved Fire 7 was released in June 2017, keeping the US$49.99 price point.^[21]

An upgraded model of Fire 7 was announced in May 2019, with a scheduled release in June 2019 and keeping the US$49.99 price point.^[22]

In 2022, Amazon released a significantly updated model of the Fire 7. New features to the basic Fire line are USB-C, Fire OS 8, a 2 MP front camera, a larger 10-hour life capable battery, and a significantly faster SoC with twice the RAM and storage of the previous generation. Though the tablet still features budget hardware, Amazon increased the base price to $59.99.^[23]

The Kindle Fire hardware is manufactured byQuanta Computer (anOriginal Design Manufacturer), which also originally helped design theBlackBerry PlayBook, using it as a hardware template for the Kindle Fire.^[24]First-generation Kindle Fire devices employed a 1-GHzTexas Instruments OMAP 4430dual-core processor. The device has a 2-point multi-touch colourLCD screen with a diagonal length of 7 inches (180 mm) and a 600×1024-pixel resolution (160 dpi density). Connectivity is through802.11nWi-Fi andUSB 2.0 (Micro-B connector). The device includes 8 GB of internal storage—said to be enough for 80 applications, plus either 10 movies or 800 songs or 6,000 books.^[25][26] According to Amazon, the first-generation Kindle Fire's 4400 mAh battery sustains up to 8 hours of consecutive reading and up to 7.5 hours of video playback with wireless off;^[27] later generations all offered around 7–8 hours^[28]

Of the 8 GB internal storage available in the first-generation Kindle Fire, approximately 6.5 GB was available for content.^{[29][needs update]}

The first-generation Kindle Fire has a sensor on the upper left-hand corner of the screen. This was widely considered to be an ambient-light sensor, disabled since an early software upgrade.^[30]

Colour display technologies consume much more power than monochromeelectronic paper (E-ink) types; Fire offer a typical battery life of 8 hours of mixed usage, whilemonochrome Kindles offer 15 to 30 hours' use without WiFi—"battery lasts weeks on a single charge"—with a much lower-capacity battery.^[31]

The first generation of Kindle Fire devices run a customisedAndroid 2.3.3 Gingerbread OS.^[32] The second-generationKindle Fire HD runs a customised Android 4.0.3 Ice Cream Sandwich OS.^[33] Along with access toAmazon Appstore,^[5][34] the Fire includes a cloud-accelerated "split browser",Amazon Silk, usingAmazon EC2 for off-device cloud computation; including webpage layout and rendering, and Google'sSPDY protocol for faster webpage content transmission.^[35][36][37] The user's Amazon digital content is given free storage inAmazon Cloud's web-storage platform,^[5] 5 GB music storage inAmazon Cloud Drive, and a built-in email application allows webmail (Gmail,Yahoo!,Hotmail,AOL Mail, etc.) to be merged into one inbox.^[5] The subscription-basedAmazon Prime, which includes unlimited streaming of movies and TV shows, is available with a free 30-day trial period.^[5]

Content formats supported by the first-generation Kindle Fire wereKindle Format 8 (KF8), Kindle Mobi (.azw),TXT,PDF, unrestrictedMOBI, PRC natively,Audible (Audible Enhanced (AA, AAX)),DOC,DOCX,JPEG,GIF,PNG,BMP,PSD,EPUB non-DRMAAC,MP3,MIDI,OGG,WAV,MP4,VP8.^{[5][needs update][38]}

Because of Amazon's USBdriver implementation, the first-generation Kindle Fire suffered from slow USB transfer speeds. For example, transferring an 800MB video file may have taken more than three minutes in 2011.^{[39][needs update]}

It is possible to convert a Kindle Fire to a tablet running standard Android, with some loss of Amazon-related functionality, and lacking features such asBluetooth, microphone, camera, andmemory expansion.^[40]

In May 2022, Amazon announced the company were updating the foundation of the Fire Operating System. Amazon's next Fire 7 Tablet will come with the company's Fire OS called Fire OS 8, while Fire OS 7 has run on Android 9 since 2018, Fire OS 8 will be based on Android 11, described in the press as "a pretty significant upgrade to the foundational software currently powering Amazon tablets." With this development the company aims to introduce new user features such as a system-wide dark mode.^[41]

Analysts had projected the device to be a strong competitor to Apple'siPad,^[9][42] and that other Android device makers would suffer lost sales.^[43][44]

In a 2012 review published byProject Gutenberg, the Kindle Fire was called a "huge step back in freedom from theKindle 3"; the reviewer noted that Amazon introduced a "deliberate limitation" into the Fire that did not exist in the previous version: it is no longer possible to download freee-books from websites such as Project Gutenberg,Internet Archive, andGoogle Books and have them stored permanently in the same places where books from Amazon are kept.^{[45][needs update]}

Customers began receiving Kindle Fires on November 15, 2011; in December 2012, customers had purchased over a million Kindle devices per week.^[46]International Data Corporation (IDC) estimated that the Kindle Fire sold about 4.7 million units during the fourth quarter of 2011.^[47]

The Amazon Kindle Fire helped the company beat their 2012 first quarter estimates and boosted the company's stock in extended trading.^[48] As of May 2013, about 7 million units had been sold according to estimates.^[2] Statistics for FY2014 or Q1&2 2015 are not yet available.^{[needs update]}

There have been many generations of Fire tablets spread across three different feature design lines: Fire,Fire HD, andFire HDX.^[49]

Beyond the tablet devices, Fire is also used for arange of media devices and for one generation ofsmart phone.

Overview on generations and models for all Fire (includingFire HD) tablet devices:^[49]

Note: Items inbold are currently available.

Detailed specifications for Fire tablets:

Kindle Fire models (2011 - 2013)

Amazon Fire models (2014 and newer)

• 
  The Kindle Fire in horizontal position displaying web page
• 
  TheiPad (left) compared with the Kindle Fire (right)
• 
  The Kindle Fire (left) compared with theiPod Touch (right)
• 
  The Kindle Fire (left) compared with theiPad Mini (center) and theNexus 7 (2012 version) (right)

Timeline of Amazon Fire tablet models v t e
Disclaimer: The discontinuation dates may not be precise.

• Fire HD, the "mid-market" version of the Kindle Fire, running Android in early models andFire OS since the 4th generation.
• Fire HDX, the "high-end" version of the Kindle Fire, running Fire OS in all models.
• Comparison of:
  • Tablet computers
  • E-book readers

Wikimedia Commons has media related toAmazon Kindle Fire.

• Fire Tablets – home page on Amazon site
• Amazon Fire - Device and Feature Specifications
• Kindle Fire Review atThe Wall Street Journal

• Amazon (company) hardware
• Android (operating system) devices
• Tablet computers introduced in 2011
• Touchscreen portable media players

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• Use mdy dates from June 2021
• Articles containing potentially dated statements from October 2012
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