Amazon's rainforest

The HDX 8.9 runs Amazon’s new Fire OS 3.0, and it’s a noticeable improvement over Amazon’s earlier software attempts. But it still feels like it’s just a portal to Amazon’s content and retail stores, rather than a fully fledged mobile operating system.

Fire OS 3.0 is based on Android 4.2, but you wouldn’t know it: Amazon’s signature carousel of recent apps, books, documents, games, videos, and whatever else takes the place of any home-screen widgets. The top bar offers quick access to the company’s stores. The launcher has been graciously improved with a grid of your installed apps, accessible by swiping up on the carousel, but the entire experience feels very basic compared to standard Android or even iOS.

Amazon’s Silk browser has been updated and improved, and still uses Amazon’s servers to compress webpages for faster browsing. It’s also still heavier and clunkier than Safari or Chrome, and it hangs for no reason at times. The browser feels like an afterthought on the HDX, and given how much time people casually browse the web on their tablets, that’s a bit of a problem.

Productivity features on the HDX are lacking compared to other tablets

Productivity’s become a focus for large tablet manufacturers; the need to get things done on the go has been aggressively pushed by Microsoft and its Surface. The HDX now includes the ability to access documents on the go, and has greatly improved email and calendar apps. But the productivity features feel like lip service: you have to sync your documents over USB or through Amazon’s Cloud Sync app; any editing requires the purchase of a separate app; and there are no first-party keyboard accessories available. And if you use Google Drive or Office 365, you’ll find the HDX fairly useless for any document or spreadsheet work on the go.

And then there are the apps. Or lack thereof, to be more specific. As we noted in our HDX 7 review, the Amazon Appstore pales in comparison to the Google Play Store and doesn’t hold a candle to the wealth of iOS tablet apps. Many newer apps and games are still not available in Amazon’s store, and the ones that are frequently aren't optimized for the HDX 8.9’s larger display. For its part, Amazon says that the app selection has increased 187 percent over last year, but the company admits it still has a long ways to go. Fortunately, Netflix has been updated to work on the HDX tablets since our HDX 7 review, and it works quite well. But that’s one of many Amazon still needs.

But third parties aren’t the point. The HDX 8.9 is designed to, and excels at, displaying and playing Amazon’s massive content ecosystem. Prime Video, which is now downloadable for offline viewing, looks great on the new display, though I did notice some dropped frames in a 1080p episode of Sherlock. Amazon’s cool X-Ray shows you more about the stuff you’re watching or listening to, and it kept me from pulling out my smartphone to look up something in IMDB. If you want to take advantage of the new offline feature (and you do) I strongly recommend investing in the 32GB or 64GB versions of the HDX. The 16GB model I tested comes with a paltry 10.9GB of space for apps, videos, pictures, documents, and anything else you put on your tablet. That single episode of Sherlock weighed in at over 6GB on its own, so if you plan to watch hi-def content, you’re going to need more space.

Amazon put the same 2.2GHz quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 chip and 2GB of RAM in the HDX 8.9 as the HDX 7. It’s incredibly fast (Amazon says it's three times more powerful than last year’s model, and I believe it), but the 8.9’s higher pixel density definitely takes its toll. It’s not a huge problem — the main Fire OS interface is still super responsive — but in addition to the dropped frames in video, I noticed some low frame-rates in high-intensity games such as Asphalt 8. For the most part, the HDX 8.9 is snappy and fast, however.

Remarkably, the HDX 8.9 kept its cool even when I watched video for a long time or got in on some really intense racing sessions. The tablet never got warm, which can’t be said for the iPad, and its light weight enabled some really long gaming sessions. Amazon claims you can use the HDX 8.9 continuously for 12 hours for average activities and up to 18 hours if you’re just reading. I found it to live up to those claims — getting two days or more of frequent use out of the HDX was no problem. You’ll probably run out of storage space before you run out of battery on those intercontinental flights.

The HDX 8.9 has the same Mayday help function as the HDX 7, and it’s just as impressive here. When I couldn’t figure out how to access my existing New Yorker subscription on the HDX, a very helpful Todd was there in seconds to inform me that it’s not transferable to the Kindle and that I’d need to purchase a separate subscription. It may not have been the answer I was looking for, but it saved me from fruitlessly Googling around for an answer. It’s still not clear how well the Mayday service will scale — the HDX 7 has been in consumer’s hands for a few weeks, but neither version is likely to see many sales until the holidays — but it’s indeed one of the best features of the Kindle Fire HDX.