HD Kindle Fire HD 8.9" - when can we see it?

[sherbearjt08]

Does anyone know or have you heard of any stores that will be getting one in so we can see it in person before ordering? I am torn between the two sizes (i currently have an original Fire that I am giving to my husband).

[Nate the great]

Mine is not shipping until late November.

[robertc88]

It will probably be in demo mode in stores. Is that enough to help for a decision?

Best Buy has preorder availability now but no release date as of yet. I don't think they put out the 7" until the day or night before it was released, at least not at my local store anyway from what I remember.

[robertc88]

Nothing in my area yet but again even if they have it, my store waits till release date usually for demo display.

Cannot wait it see it. Another upgrade? Maybe!

[BenG]

They had them at the local Best buy this morning.

[Zimmy]

Strange.
This was a mind blowing device at its h/w and price point when announced.

It has supposedly been released for three days and not a single, "I got one!" post to be found.

I wonder what the longevity of this device will be.

[WillysJeepMan]

Originally Posted by Zimmy

Strange.
This was a mind blowing device at its h/w and price point when announced.

It has supposedly been released for three days and not a single, "I got one!" post to be found.

I wonder what the longevity of this device will be.

I believe the reality of how gimped the KFHD is has finally sunk in and even at that price point, it isn't very appealing.

Having said that, should the hacking community discover a way to flash custom firmware on any of the KFHD devices THEN we'll see some traction.

[Jessica Lares]

A lot of people's orders don't start shipping until late this week or next week. Mine was estimated Nov. 27 before I cancelled it and I ordered right then and there during the announcement.

And yes, the bootloader is proving to be a huge issue. The original KF is about to get 4.2, and the HD models are nowhere close.

[jswinden]

I've got the Kindle Fire HD 7" and text rendering is better on it than on my iPad3. The iPad3 might have slightly crisper text, though that is difficult to see for certain, but overall, text rendered on the Fire HD 7" is darker and more readable thus causing less eye strain. Well for my eyes it is. So my Kindle Fire HD 7" makes an excellent LCD eBook reader.

Unfortunately, that is where my praise ends for the Fire HD. The interface is truly beyond sucky, and having to find workarounds for apps that require root access is a royal PITA. I'm not a big fan of Android to begin with, but Amazon's tweaked, limited version of Android is especially sucky. I think a lot of first time Kindle Fire HD 7" and 8.9" owners will soon learn this after receiving their units. For people who are perfectly happy to live totally within the Amazon Cloud, then these tablets are pretty darn good. For those wishing to live beyond the Amazon Cloud I think there will be disappointment.

I knew the limitations well before I bought my Fire HD and I bought it for one thing only, reading books. In my case, it is well worth the price for that function alone.

[Shack70]

I was in the local Best Buy today and asked about the demo unit. I was told Amazon has not released the demo units yet. They were willing to open one and help me set it up in the store if I purchased it first for a fee. I thought this was funny and played along. I asked how they would help set up a tablet. They can help you log into your Amazon account on the device or show you how to create a new one. So they were willing to charge me extra to enter my information into the Kindle HD. Thanks Best Buy! You just lost a sale. Ill order it from from Amazon and I don't care how long it takes to show up even if you have a million of them in your store. No wonder they are close to going out of business.

[jswinden]

Chances are they would have mucked up the set up! The BB sales staff are not very bright.