As far as 7 inch tablets go, these two gadgets have been at each other’s throats for some time now. Kindle Fire HD may not be a leading device on its own, but coupled with Amazon Prime service and reputation and the strategic publicity has won Fire HD major selling points. However, Nexus 7 is a great 7 inch tablet in its own right, with seemingly better components and identical price tag.
Design
Both the tablets are of 7 inches, but Nexus 7 is 55 grams lighter which makes it easier to hold for a long time, but Fire HD is .15 mm thinner. Being heavier and thinner, Fire HD is more difficult to grip and you’ll have to constantly worry about it slipping off. On top of that, Nexus 7 has a more appealing design over all, with a dimpled back cover and it doesn’t wobble on flat surfaces unlike Fire HD. The rubber coating on the back of Fire HD doesn’t make sense; it neither facilitates grip, nor looks better.
Display
After the decisive win in the design department, Nexus 7 falls back because of its unimpressive display. The images on screen are decent but where is the vibrancy of the colors, the bold brightness and contrasts? The pictures just don’t stand out. On the other hand, Kindle Fire HD has a much better display despite having same size and resolution as nexus 7. The Amazon device has three glass panes fused into two and integrated a polarizing filter which, according to Amazon, gives more clarity to pictures.
Hardware
Processors are always an important aspect for tablets. Nexus 7 has a Tegra 3 T30L processor clocked at 1.3 GHz. It is very powerful and has too many cores for applications to actually use. Fire HD runs on a dual core TI OMAP 4460 at 1.2 GHz. It is a close call because Fire HD can probably defeat Tegra 3 in efficiency of small tasks, but with a lot of graphics processing, the presence of more cores will take the NVIDIA processor further.
Software & Performance
As for software, Kindle fire HD wins because of the free services and a more integrated experience. The OS is pretty basic, thus more easily organized. Nexus 7, with the latest Android OS, is one of the top tablets of the year. But for functionality, some find its OS a bit too crowded and overloaded.
Other Features
There are few other features too which are to be compared among both the devices. First is the battery life, Fire HD has a 4400mAh battery, and the Nexus 7 has a 4325mAh battery. The difference between both of them is too small, but the winner in case of battery life is Fire HD since Fire HD has a slightly larger battery which lasts longer.
Secondly, we shall compare both the devices on the terms of Wireless Connectivity. Kindle Fire HD comes with dual antennas and works over the 2.4GHz band, 5GHz band, and over MIMO. On the contrast, Nexus 7 is a little more conventional in case of Wireless Connectivity with a standard 2.4GHz a/b/g/n Wi-Fi transceiver, which sounds boring. So, Kindle Fire HD wins the race once again since it supports 5GHz band and MIMO and has dual antennas.
Third, in terms of storage, Fire HD has two models – 16 and 32 GB models while Nexus 7 also comes with two models which have 8 and 16 GB models. So we don’t need mathematicians to deduce which wins that round.
Price
Prices for both the gadgets are pretty identical, so the price comes down to features. Fire HD comes with a better display, better storage options and better Wi-Fi and on the contrary, Nexus 7 has a better processor for games.
In the nutshell, the winner in terms of price is Kindle Fire HD since considering the features both the devices offer; Fire HD turns out to be a better deal, but it also costs $80/$40 annually for Prime. But Prime users do not what exactly they’re paying and still it remains a good deal.
Verdict
It is not easy to decide which tablet is better than the other. Nexus 7 has a more open interface; you can throw in any app you want from the app market and it will run ahead. With Kindle Fire HD, you need to subscribe to Amazon Prime services. Again, for videos, Wi-Fi and battery life, Fire HD is better. So, taking all into account, it’s wise to let the verdict be pronounced by individual users based on their purposes.
