Amazon is giving its most powerful tablet a spec bump. The new Amazon Kindle Fire HDX 8.9 still has a 2560 x 1600 pixel display, but Amazon has replaced the Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 CPU from last year’s model with a faster Snapdragon 805 chip.
The company says the new model offers up to 70 percent faster graphics performance than its predecessor.
Amazon’s new Kindle Fire HDX is priced just like the old one, with prices starting at $379 for a WiFi-only model with 16GB of storage.
The new Kindle Fire HDX 8.9 also features 802.11ac MIMO dual-band WiFi for up to 4 times faster wireless data transfers, and it’s the first tablet to feature Dolby Atmost sound. Amazon says the tablet’s speakers are twice as loud as those in the iPad Air.
Amazon offers models with up to 64GB of storage, and there’s an option for a model with 4G LTE.
The tablet features an 8MP rear camera and front-facing HD camera. The Kindle Fire HDX 8.9 measures 9.1″ x 6.2″ x 0.3″ and weighs about 13.2 ounces. It gets up to 12 hours of battery life.
Amazon continues to offer a 7 inch Kindle Fire HDX tablet as well. But it hasn’t updated last year’s model, which has a 1920 x 1200 pixel display, 802.11n WiFi, a Snapdragon 800 CPU, 11 hours of run time, and no rear camera.