With special features like X-Ray, Immersion Reading, and Whispersync geared toward enhancing the reading experience, Amazon's Kindle Fire HD looks like one of the few devices to successfully blend tablets and e-readers. As reviews for the new 8.9-inch model of the Kindle Fire HD roll out, those sleek new reading features, combined with almost unmatched sound, and screen quality pack an impressive value into its competitive $299 price tag.

Reading enhancing features

Whispersync automatically syncs not only your content, but also where you were in a particular book or movie, across devices. If you've downloaded a book that has an Audible audiobook, you can switch between reading and listening seamlessly. While reading a book, you can tap on a name, place or passage to get more detailed information about that item from Wikipedia and Shelfari, Amazon's own user-supported encyclopedia. "It's like having Cliffs Notes built into everything you read," said CNET.

When you're watching a movie that has X-Ray content, a little window appears at the upper left corner that shows the names of the actors currently on screen. Click on a name, and that person's IMDB profile fills the whole of the display.

Amazon says "thousands" of books and movies are X-Ray-enabled; though it couldn't give us a more accurate number, the company says it started with the most popular titles, and is working its way down.

Another cool reading feature, Immersion Reading, uses the audio and Kindle versions of a single book and combines them to create an experience currently not reproducible on any other tablet. "As the text is read by the original audiobook reader, each word is highlighted on the Kindle book version, allowing you to follow along bouncing-ball-style with the story," said CNET.

The new Kindle Fire HD 8.9-inch models start at $299, with the most expensive models selling for $500 or more.

Reviews

CNET

CNET thought the Kindle Hire HD's screen was virtually unparalleled, saying the only tablet that beats it is Apple's iPad. The site loved the device's superior sound quality, performance speed, and lauded its new innovative reading features.

"Colors pop from the display and have a really vibrant, high-contrast look. There is unfortunately some very visible backlight bleeding at the top when viewing dark screens. Amazon says it combined the touch sensor and LCD into a single layer of glass for the Fire HDs, which purportedly should decrease reflections, but I honestly didn't see a difference between it and other premium tablets in that regard."

"While watching movies, playing games, or listening to music, the Fire HD 8.9's speakers delivered clear, loud (if you need it to be) sound that's noticeably better than what I've heard from other tablets. While the speakers are on the back, thanks to the tablet's beveled bottom, they don't sit flush with the desktop and actually send out sound at an angle that reverberates off the desk, enhancing the quality. There is a lack of bass, however, and ideally I'd rather listen through earbuds or larger speakers. For tablet speakers, though, there are currently none better."

"The Kindle Fire HD 8.9 was made for Amazon's new Fire interface. Compared with the 7-inch version, navigation is snappier and the higher-resolution screen better displays menu options. Amazon's content offerings are vast, especially if you're a Prime member, and its 4G LTE speeds are incredibly fast. Starting at US$299, it's one of the best tablet values available. The Kindle Fire line is still the strongest media consumption tablet line going, and this latest version is the best one yet."

Laptop Mag

Laptop Mag loved how much value Amazon packed into the Kindle Fire HD, as well as its battery performance, and display quality, which it thought bested every tablet but Apple's iPad. The magazine also called Kindle Fire HD's speakers the best available on the tablet market.

"Everything from music to movies sounded excellent. Aided by Dolby Digital technology, we were pleasantly surprised not only by the volume, but the quality. While still slightly tinny, the Fire HD's speakers produced more bass than we've come to expect from tablets."

"On the LAPTOP Battery Test (Web surfing via Wi-Fi), the Fire HD 8.9 lasted an impressive 9 hours and 49 minutes. That's nearly three hours longer than the tablet average (7:01), and about 2 hours longer than the Nexus 10. The only tablets that are on a par with the Fire HD are the Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 10.1 (9:59) and the 3rd Generation Apple iPad (10:04)."

"While the 8.9-inch Fire HD is no longer a one-handed device, those who plan to use it for watching movies and reading magazines will find its full HD display and stereo speakers to be very satifying. The built-in parental controls, while limited, will broaden this device's appeal for families. Our biggest concern is the occasional freezes and crashes we experienced. This tablet was glitchier than the 7-inch model we tested."

"As with the 7-inch Fire HD and the Nexus 7, consumers will have to choose between Amazon's ecosystem, or Google's, which offers a greater selection of apps, a rear-facing camera, a more familiar interface and innovative features, such as Google Now and offline voice typing. However, the 16GB version of the 8.9-inch Fire HD costs $100 less than the Nexus 10 and offers better viewing angles. Ultimately, the Kindle Fire HD 8.9 is a good value, but it's a better choice for consuming than creating content."

PC Mag

PC Mag thinks Amazon's Kindle Fire may be the best value for the price in the tablet market, though it admits the tablet's performance can lag at times when playing games, and is generally almost two-times slower in web-browsing than the Apple iPad or Google Nexus 10.

"The Kindle Fire 8.9" packs a dual-core TI OMAP 4470 processor that delivers adequate, but not stellar performance. If this tablet wasn't so darn inexpensive I'd complain, but performance is acceptable given the price. As we've been seeing on these high-res tablets recently, game frame rates suffer as the dense screen strains the tablet's GPU: I got 33 frames per second on the simple Nenamark2 graphics benchmark and only 9.2 frames per second on the more complex Taiji benchmark, which means Need for Speed: Most Wanted isn't quite as smooth as it is on the iPad."

"Amazon's special Silk browser also continues to be a damp squib. Silk was supposed to accelerate browsing by pre-caching pages on Amazon's servers, but it continues to be slower than the browsers on Apple and Google tablets."

"General performance won't win any awards here, but it's perfectly good given the price. For battery life, on the other hand, the Fire beat out both the iPad 4 and the Nexus 10 in our test, which loops a video with the screen set to full brightness and Wi-Fi switched on. We got 7 hours, 14 minutes with the Kindle Fire HD 8.9, as compared with 5 hours, 36 minutes with the iPad and just over five hours with the Nexus 10."

"The Kindle Fire 8.9 is very inexpensive given its specs, and the question here isn't really if this is the best large tablet. The question is if the Kindle Fire 8.9 is worth the price. And there, the answer is absolutely yes. Ultimately that's where the Kindle Fire HD 8.9 triumphs. If you're counting your dollars, the Kindle Fire offers the most bang per buck so far."