TOKYO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--(NASDAQ:AMZN)—Today, Amazon.co.jp is excited to announce that the all-new Kindle Fire and Kindle Fire HD are coming to Japan, giving Japanese customers access to Amazon’s vast selection of over 22 million books, manga, apps, games and songs, plus web browsing, email and more. Kindle Fire for ¥12,800 and Kindle Fire HD for ¥15,800 are available for pre-order today and will begin shipping December 19. Kindle Fire HD is already the #1 best-selling item in the world for Amazon.
Kindle Fire HD is the latest generation of the world’s best-selling 7” tablet. Features include:
- Stunning customized HD display with in-plane switching, Advanced True Wide polarizing filter and customized laminated touch sensor for 25% less glare with rich color and deep contrast from any viewing angle.
- Fastest Wi-Fi of any tablet—dual antenna, dual-band, and MIMO—40% faster downloads, compared to the next fastest tablet.
- High-performance processor and graphics engine for snappy and smooth performance.
- Exceptional battery life—over 11 hours.
- Front-facing HD camera with customized Skype application for video calling from anywhere in the world.
- Dual stereo speakers with Dolby Digital Plus audio—the standard in high-end audio—available for the first time on a tablet.
- 16 GB or 32 GB of local storage, enough to accommodate the larger file sizes of HD content.
- Amazon’s vast content ecosystem—over 22 million books, manga, apps, games and songs.
- Best cross-platform interoperability, with Amazon apps available on the largest number of devices and platforms so customers can access content anytime, anywhere.
- Amazon.co.jp’s top-rated, world-class customer service. Whenever customers shop on Amazon.co.jp, buy a Kindle, or buy Kindle content, they know that they are also getting Amazon’s world-class customer service. Customers have been shopping on Amazon.co.jp for 12 years, and they continue to do so because of the unparalleled, end-to-end customer experience.
Amazon.co.jp is also introducing an all-new upgraded version of the best-selling standard definition Kindle Fire with a faster processor, twice the memory and longer battery life than the original Kindle Fire—all for an even lower breakthrough price—only ¥12,800. Meet the all-new Kindle Fire family at www.amazon.co.jp/kindlefirehd.
“Kindle Fire HD is already the #1 best-selling item in the world for Amazon, and we’re thrilled to make it available for the first time in Japan. It features a stunning customized HD display, the fastest Wi-Fi, exclusive Dolby audio, powerful processor and graphics engine, 16 or 32 GB of storage and 11 hours of battery life,” said Jeff Bezos, Amazon.com Founder and CEO. “Not only does Kindle Fire HD feature the most advanced hardware, it’s also a service. When combined with our unmatched content ecosystem, unmatched cross-platform interoperability, and standard-setting customer service, we hope people will agree that Kindle Fire HD is the best 7” tablet available anywhere, at any price.”
World-Class Hardware
Stunning Customized HD Display
The Kindle Fire HD features a stunning HD display with 1280x800 resolution that delivers deep, detailed contrast and rich, natural color. Kindle Fire HD starts with excellent resolution, but that is only the beginning—Amazon also added customized features that reduce glare and improve color saturation at any viewing angle. Most tablet displays are made up of two pieces of glass—an LCD on the bottom and a touch sensor on the top, separated by an air gap. This air gap allows light to come through the touch sensor and reflect off the LCD, which causes added glare for the user. Kindle Fire HD solves this air gap problem by laminating the touch sensor and the LCD together into a single layer of glass, creating a display that’s easy to view even in overhead light, and reducing glare by 25% relative to iPad 3. Like many tablets, Kindle Fire HD uses in-plane switching (IPS) to improve color reproduction. However, displays that only use IPS still appear washed out at various angles, such as when laid sideways in bed, flat on a table, or propped up in a case. Kindle Fire HD features an Advanced True Wide polarizing filter that is applied directly to the LCD panel. This results in a display that shows the same deep contrast and rich, detailed color from any angle.
High-End Laptop-Quality Wi-Fi
HD content has much larger file sizes than standard definition content. Files of this size require the very latest in Wi-Fi technology to download HD content quickly and reliably—anything else results in buffering, slow downloads and dropped connections. Many Wi-Fi enabled devices only use the 2.4 GHz wireless frequency. This frequency is crowded since it is used by everything from other tablets to microwave ovens, baby monitors, Bluetooth devices, not to mention the neighbors’ Wi-Fi networks. Kindle Fire HD circumvents this congestion with state-of-the-art dual-band Wi-Fi. Kindle Fire HD can switch automatically between the 2.4 GHz network and the newer, less crowded 5 GHz network, resulting in better range and less interference. In addition, dual antennas and Multiple In/Multiple Out (MIMO) allow for higher bandwidth and longer range. The new Kindle Fire HD is the first tablet to market with all three of these latest generation Wi-Fi technologies—dual-band support, dual antennas, and MIMO. This is the first time this state-of-the-art Wi-Fi technology has been offered in a tablet, resulting in 40% faster throughput compared to iPad 3.
Powerful World-Class Processor—Snappy and Smooth
An HD display and HD content must be driven by a powerful processor and optimized software. Kindle Fire HD features a world-class processor and the new Imagination Technologies graphics engine for lightning-fast HD graphics and excellent fluidity. Combining the latest generation processors with significant customization of the Kindle Fire software by Amazon engineers results in a snappy and smooth experience for the user.
Dual Stereo Speakers and Exclusive Dolby Audio—The New Standard for Tablet Audio
Customers shouldn’t need to wear headphones to get excellent sound from their tablet. Kindle Fire HD solves this by combining dual stereo speakers with the exclusive Dolby Digital Plus audio engine—the standard in high performance audio—to offer a world-class audio experience. Dolby’s audio suite for Kindle Fire HD includes technology used to adjust volume, optimizes the audio profile automatically based on what a customer is doing. All of these pieces combine to create an exceptional audio experience that results in clearer, crisper and balanced sound quality.
11 Hours of Battery Life
Kindle Fire HD is optimized to deliver high performance without sacrificing battery life, delivering over 11 hours’ worth of battery life.
Thin and Light
Even with a customized display, a powerful processor, extra speakers and dual-band/dual-antenna Wi-Fi, the new Kindle Fire HD is extremely light and thin. In fact, Kindle Fire HD weighs only 395 grams and is just 10.3 mm thick. Kindle Fire HD is small enough to take everywhere and light enough to hold easily and comfortably in one hand.
Connect with Bluetooth and HDMI
Kindle Fire HD supports Bluetooth, enabling customers to connect their wireless Bluetooth headphones or Bluetooth speakers to listen to songs. HDMI out makes it easy for customers to connect the Kindle Fire HD to their big-screen TV to enjoy their favorite HD photos.
Stay in Touch with Front-Facing HD Camera
The new Kindle Fire HD features a front-facing HD camera. Skype created a customized app tailored for Kindle Fire HD that is ready to use out of the box for free HD video calls at home and abroad. Kindle Fire HD makes it easy for the over 250 million customers already using Skype to get in touch with friends and family.
Beautiful Leather Covers
Covers for Kindle Fire HD feature a premium textured leather exterior in a variety of colors and a subtle woven nylon interior to provide the lightest and thinnest form of protection. The integrated magnetic clasp ensures the cover remains securely closed while in a backpack, handbag, or briefcase. The cover wakes Kindle Fire HD automatically upon opening and puts it to sleep when closed, making it easy for the customer to dive right back into whatever content they’re enjoying.
Amazon’s Vast Content Ecosystem, the Best Cross-Platform Interoperability and World-Class Customer Service
All the Content—Over 22 million Books, Apps, Games, Songs and Manga
Kindle Fire offers customers a vast selection of digital content.
- The new Japanese Kindle Store, which will launch on October 25, offering customers the largest selection of digital best sellers in Japan, with the most titles from this week’s Oricon top 100 books, top 50 bunko, and top 100 manga lists and a total of over 50,000 Japanese-language Kindle books including over 10,000 free Japanese titles and a broad selection of works from a wide range of leading Japanese authors and publishers. In total, the store offers over 1.4 million titles, including the largest selection of best sellers in English and other languages.
- For fans of manga, Kindle delivers the best experience, with the largest number of manga best sellers and over 15,000 manga titles overall. With the new exclusive Kindle Panel View experience for manga, finely-tuned image processing algorithms render each image beautifully while keeping page turns responsive. Rotating to landscape presents a double-page spread to showcase the story’s largest sequences. A user can read Manga just like a book, or select Kindle Panel View to zoom in and enjoy the details of each page.
- Instant access to the most popular apps and games, including TSUTAYA TV, Yahoo!Headline, Hello Kitty Schedule, Mushroom Garden, Japanese Food 3000 Recipes From Three Minutes Cooking, DOCOMO-ZEMI 100 English Naruhodo phrases by docomo/ALC, The Nikkei Online Edition, FINAL FANTASY III and Puzzle & Dragons.
- Millions of songs from hundreds of thousands of artists. Customers can stream their music from the cloud and download albums, songs and playlists for offline listening.
Arrives Pre-Registered
Kindle Fire comes automatically pre-registered so customers can immediately start enjoying their digital content purchased from Amazon or shop for new content immediately.
Top-Rated, World-Class Customer Service
Whenever customers shop on Amazon.co.jp, purchase a Kindle Fire or Kindle Fire HD, or buy Kindle content, they know that they are also getting Amazon’s world-class customer service.
Best Cross-Platform Interoperability with “Buy Once, Enjoy Everywhere”
With apps available on the largest number of devices and platforms, Kindle makes it easier than ever to access content anytime, anywhere. With the new Kindle reading apps launching October 25, customers can read and sync their Kindle books across iPad, iPhone, and Android phones and tablets.
All New Features
Ideal for Gaming
In addition to hardware that’s perfect for gaming, such as stunning customized HD displays, fast Wi-Fi and large on-device storage, the Kindle Fire HD also offers HD Games, gyroscope and accelerometer for full tilt and turn controls, as well as social gaming features including group leaderboards and achievements.
Whispersync for Games
One of the biggest frustrations of mobile gaming is that when customers switch devices or delete and re-install the game on the same device, they have to start a level over or go back to the beginning of the game. To solve this problem, Amazon extended its Whispersync technology to gaming with Whispersync for Games. Whispersync for Games syncs a customer’s place in the game and saves unlocked levels, so even if they get a new device, the progress is backed up in the cloud.
Cloud-Accelerated Silk Browser
The new Kindle Fire family uses a new version of Amazon Silk with the unique “split browser” architecture that leverages the computing speed and power of Amazon Web Services to deliver content faster. The new Amazon Silk browser has a completely re-engineered core Webkit engine that contributes to faster page loads. Customers can experience full-screen browsing, reading view, and improved browsing with most-visited, trending and recommended sites all available from a single screen.
All New Productivity Features
The new Kindle Fire family features world-class Microsoft Exchange integration, with fine-tuned performance on many of the most critical e-mail functions. For example, typical Exchange accounts sync with the oldest emails first, ending with the most recent emails—Kindle Fire, however, syncs with newer emails first, then with older emails instead, giving customers faster access to the most recent emails they are looking for. Kindle Fire also features a new calendar app, making it easy for customers to stay connected and keep track of their schedules. The new e-mail client offers support for the world’s most popular email providers—including Gmail, Microsoft Exchange, Hotmail and more. Customers can email spreadsheets, PDFs, Word docs and other documents directly to their Kindle Fire, or upload documents from their PC or Mac using Amazon Cloud Drive. For customers who depend on corporate access on the go, they can connect to a VPN for secure enterprise access using one of a variety of apps from the Amazon Appstore.
Photos Brought to Life
Customers’ favorite photos come alive in stunning high-resolution on Kindle Fire HD. Fire’s mosaic view arranges personal photos beautifully, and customers will be delighted to see their best shots on their TV with HDMI out. Kindle Fire lets customers easily import their photos from Facebook and because their photos are securely stored in Amazon Cloud Drive, they never have to worry about losing their favorite pictures.
New Latest Generation Kindle Fire—Only ¥12,800
The new Kindle Fire, also available for pre-order starting today, comes with all the content, seamless integration with the Amazon Cloud, Whispersync, and a brilliant 7” touchscreen, as well as with a faster processor for 40% faster performance, twice the memory and longer battery life than the original, first-generation Kindle Fire.
Pricing and Availability
The all-new Kindle Fire HD with a stunning HD display, the fastest Wi-Fi, exclusive HD audio with two stereo speakers and Dolby Digital Plus, 16 or 32 GB of storage and powerful world-class processor—all backed by Amazon’s vast content ecosystem, the best cross-platform interoperability and the best customer service is ¥15,800. Kindle Fire HD is available for pre-order starting today at www.amazon.co.jp/kindlefirehd and ships on December 19.
The new, latest generation Kindle Fire with a faster processor for 40% faster performance, twice the memory and all the new features is only ¥12,800, and is available for pre-order starting today at www.amazon.co.jp/kindlefire and ships on December 19.
Kindle Fire and Kindle Fire HD will be available at a variety of retailers in addition to Amazon.co.jp, including: K’s Holdings, Bic Camera, Joshin Denki, and Kitamura.
For high-resolution images and video of the all-new Kindle Fire family, visit www.amazon.com/pr/kindle.
About Amazon.com
Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN), a Fortune 500 company based in Seattle, opened on the World Wide Web in July 1995 and today offers Earth’s Biggest Selection. Amazon.com, Inc. seeks to be Earth’s most customer-centric company, where customers can find and discover anything they might want to buy online, and endeavors to offer its customers the lowest possible prices. Amazon.com and other sellers offer millions of unique new, refurbished and used items in categories such as Books; Movies, Music & Games; Digital Downloads; Electronics & Computers; Home & Garden; Toys, Kids & Baby; Grocery; Apparel, Shoes & Jewelry; Health & Beauty; Sports & Outdoors; and Tools, Auto & Industrial. Amazon Web Services provides Amazon’s developer customers with access to in-the-cloud infrastructure services based on Amazon’s own back-end technology platform, which developers can use to enable virtually any type of business. Kindle Paperwhite is the most-advanced e-reader ever constructed with 62% more pixels and 25% increased contrast, a patented built-in front light for reading in all lighting conditions, extra-long battery life, and a thin and light design. The new latest generation Kindle, the lightest and smallest Kindle, now features new, improved fonts and faster page turns. Kindle Fire HD features a stunning custom high-definition display, exclusive Dolby audio with dual stereo speakers, high-end, laptop-grade Wi-Fi with dual-band support and dual-antennas/MIMO for 40% faster throughput than other tablets, enough storage for HD content, and the latest generation processor and graphics engine—and it is available in two display sizes—7” and 8.9”. The large-screen Kindle Fire HD is also available with 4G wireless, and comes with a groundbreaking $49.99 introductory 4G LTE data package. The all-new Kindle Fire features a 20% faster processor, 40% faster performance, twice the memory, and longer battery life.
Amazon and its affiliates operate websites, including www.amazon.com, www.amazon.co.uk, www.amazon.de, www.amazon.co.jp, www.amazon.fr, www.amazon.ca, www.amazon.cn, www.amazon.it, and www.amazon.es. As used herein, “Amazon.com,” “we,” “our” and similar terms include Amazon.com, Inc., and its subsidiaries, unless the context indicates otherwise.
Forward-Looking Statements
This announcement contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Actual results may differ significantly from management's expectations. These forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties that include, among others, risks related to competition, management of growth, new products, services and technologies, potential fluctuations in operating results, international expansion, outcomes of legal proceedings and claims, fulfillment center optimization, seasonality, commercial agreements, acquisitions and strategic transactions, foreign exchange rates, system interruption, inventory, government regulation and taxation, payments and fraud. More information about factors that potentially could affect Amazon.com's financial results is included in Amazon.com's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including its most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K and subsequent filings.
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