Kindle Fire HDX For Dummies

Getting Started with Kindle Fire HDX

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In this part…

Get your first glimpse at Kindle Fire HDX as it comes out of the box.

Discover how to use the touchscreen and work with the Kindle Fire HDX interface.

Step through useful Kindle Fire HDX settings to work with everything from connecting to a network to setting up the language your Kindle Fire uses.

Chapter 1

Overview of the Kindle Fire HDX

In This Chapter

arrow Comparing Kindle Fire HDX to the competition

arrow Surveying all of the Kindle Fire HDX's features

Let's start at the beginning. A tablet is a handheld computer with a touchscreen and an onscreen keyboard for providing input, and with apps that allow you to play games, read e-books, check e-mail, browse the web, watch movies, listen to music, and more.

Amazon, the giant online retailer, just happens to have access to more content (music, movies, audio books, and so on) than just about anybody on the planet. So, when an Amazon tablet debuted a couple of years ago, and as Amazon stacked up media partnerships with the likes of Fox and PBS, the Kindle Fire tablet was seen as the first real challenge to Apple's iPad.

Now, in its third generation, the Kindle Fire HDX offers several very nice improvements at the right price and feature mix for many people, while offering the key to that treasure chest of content that Amazon has been wise enough to amass.

In this chapter, you get an overview of the Kindle Fire HDX: how it compares to competing devices and what its key features are. Subsequent chapters delve into how to use all those features in detail.

What's New in Kindle Fire HDX

whatsnewhdx.eps Kindle Fire HDX and the new operating system, Fire OS 3.0, bring several new or improved features to the table, including:

Mayday: A support feature that allows you to interact with a live tech advisor who can talk you through procedures, point out items on your screen by circling them, or actually take over your Kindle Fire and perform procedures for you.

X-Ray: This feature was available on Kindle Fire HDs, but with Fire OS 3.0 it has been enhanced to provide information about books and music in addition to TV shows and movies. X-Ray makes available information about topics such as movie cast members and vocal artists, and can even display song lyrics as music plays.

Grid View: The Favorites area in the lower part of the Home screen has been redesigned into a grid, the first two lines of which contain icons for commonly used apps such as the Silk browser and Email. You can add apps and content such as books and music selections to this grid so that you can access them more quickly.

Quiet Time: If you don't want to hear notifications for events such as arriving mail or download completions for a time, just tap the Quiet Time button in the Quick Settings bar (swipe down from the top of the screen to display Quick Settings).

Quick Switch: To see content and apps you've used recently, from any screen but the Home screen swipe up or to the left from the Options bar (depending on whether it's positioned at the bottom or on the right of the screen) to see a scrollable list. This Quick Switch feature lets you quickly jump to another option without returning to the Home screen.

Printing Support: You can now print docs, photos, and e-mail messages to wireless printers.

Accessibility Tools: Screen Reader, Explore by Touch, and Screen Magnifier have been added to help people with hearing or vision challenges. See Chapter 3 for more details about these features.

Second Screen: This feature wasn't yet available when Kindle Fire HDX first shipped, but it will appear soon. It allows you to fling content on your Kindle Fire HDX or the Amazon Cloud to your television. This causes the content to stream to the TV so that your Kindle Fire HDX is freed up for you to do other things with it while watching.

Kindle FreeTime: This improved feature lets you create a unique environment for your kids by limiting what content and apps they can use. When you turn on FreeTime, your kids see only the content you've given them permission to use, and it's all shown against a more kid-friendly graphical background.

Goodreads: This service is like a social network for readers. You can download the free app and then track and share what you're reading and get access to reviews and recommendations from other readers.

Immersion Reading: You can synchronize a book on your Kindle Fire HDX with an Audible audiobook. When you do, text in the e-book will be highlighted as each word is read from within the Kindle reader, which Amazon considers a more immersive reading experience to aid learning.

Kindle Matchbook: This sales feature, coming out soon, allows you to get a discounted Kindle version of any book you've purchased on Amazon.

1-Tap-Archive: If you haven't used an app in quite some time, say, a month or more, a check mark appears on it to indicate that it's not being used. If you want to remove the app from your Kindle Fire HDX, you can simply tap the app to do so.

A Quick Rundown of Kindle Fire HDX Hardware Features

Kindle Fire HDX comes in two sizes: 7 inches (see Figure 1-1) and 8.9 inches. Improvements with the third generation HDX include a faster processor, longer battery life, and higher screen resolution in both models. The 8.9-inch model includes both front- and rear-facing cameras, and both models offer dual microphones.

Figure 1-1: The neat size and weight of Kindle Fire HDX make it easy to hold.

tip.eps Looking for your Kindle Fire HDX speaker? With this latest model, it has been moved from the back of the device to the top.

Table 1-1 provides an at-a-glance view of Kindle Fire HDX features.

Table 1-1 Kindle Fire HDX Specifications

Key Features of Kindle Fire HDX

Kindle Fire HDX is a tablet device with all the things most people want from a tablet packed into an easy-to-hold package: e-mail, web browsing, players for video and music content, built-in calendar and contacts apps, an e-reader, a great online content store, access to tens of thousands of Android apps, and so on. In the following sections, you get to explore all these useful features.

Storage on Earth and in the Cloud

Kindle Fire HDX offers 16GB, 32GB, or 64GB of storage in its 7- and 8.9-inch models. Any storage amount will probably work just fine for you because when you own a Kindle Fire HDX, you get free, unlimited Amazon Cloud Drive storage for all digital content purchased from Amazon (but not content that you copy onto Kindle Fire HDX from your computer by connecting a micro USB cable). This means that books, movies, music, and apps are held online for you to stream or download at any time you have access to Wi-Fi, instead of being stored on your Kindle Fire HDX.

This Amazon Cloud Drive storage means that you don't use up your Kindle Fire HDX memory. As long as you have a Wi-Fi connection, you can stream content from Amazon Cloud at any time. If you'll be away from a connection, download an item (such as an episode of your favorite TV show), watch it, and then remove it from your device the next time you're within range of a Wi-Fi network. The content is still available in the Cloud: You can download that content again or stream it anytime you like.

tip.eps If you want to go whole hog into Kindle Fire HDX, you can opt for the highest memory device, the 64GB 8.9-inch Kindle Fire HDX 4G LTE Wireless version of the device. Just be aware that 4G devices come with the added cost of an AT&T or Verizon data plan.

App appeal

Kindle Fire HDX is generally easy to use, with a simple, Android-based touchscreen interface. Its primary focus is on consuming media — and consuming media is what Amazon is all about. Kindle Fire HDX also offers its own Silk browser, an e-mail client, calendar and contacts apps, and an available Skype app, as well as the Kindle e-reader (see Figure 1-2). In addition, the OfficeSuite productivity apps are built in and include word processor, spreadsheet, and presentation programs.

Figure 1-2: Where it all started, with Kindle e-reader functionality.

tip.eps Just because a particular type of app doesn't come pre-installed on Kindle Fire HDX doesn't mean you can't get one @@you can, and often for free. At this point, the selection of apps available for Android devices isn't nearly as robust as those available for Apple devices, but that will change over time. See Chapter 11 for a list of ten apps that can flesh out your Kindle Fire HDX with popular features such as a budget tracker, weather reporter, and drawing app, and check out Chapter 12 for ten or so great game apps.

Pre-installed functionality

Here's a rundown of the functionality you get out of the box from pre-installed apps:

E-reader to read both books and periodicals

Music player

Video player

Audiobook player

Contacts app

Calendar app

Docs document reader for Word, PDF, RTF, and HTML format files

Silk web browser

Camera and Photos (see Figure 1-3) in which you can view and make edits to photos (such as rotate, change brightness and adjust for red-eye, and crop)

E-mail client (use this to set up Kindle Fire HDX to access your existing e-mail accounts)

Integration for Facebook and Twitter

OfficeSuite for simple word processing and spreadsheet functionality

Figure 1-3: Use the Photos app to view photos and edit them.

tip.eps Check out the apps stored in the Cloud (meaning that these apps are stored at Amazon, rather than pre-installed on your device) by tapping Apps on the Home screen and then tapping the Cloud tab. Here, you may find a number of free apps, such as a Wi-Fi analyzer (to check your Wi-Fi connection), free games, and more.

Here are some of the things you can use your Kindle Fire HDX for:

Shopping at Amazon for music, video, apps, books, and periodicals, and viewing or playing that content.

Storing Amazon-purchased content in the Amazon Cloud Drive and playing music and video selections from the Cloud instead of downloading them to your device. Amazon content doesn't count toward your Amazon Cloud Drive storage limit (20GB), but other content backed up there does. Note that you can go to www.amazon.com/clouddriveand purchase anywhere from 20GB for $10 a year up to 1,000GB of storage for $500.

Sending documents to yourself at a Kindle e-mail address that's assigned when you register your device (see Chapter 2 for more about setting up your Kindle Fire HDX, and Chapter 10 for more about using your Kindle Fire e-mail address to send documents to your Kindle Fire HDX).

Sideloading (transferring) content from your computer to your Kindle Fire HDX by using a micro USB cable that comes with the tablet. Using this cable (see Figure 1-4), you can copy photos, music, videos, and documents (Word or PDF) from any computer onto your Kindle Fire HDX.

Making video calls using the free Skype for Kindle Fire HDX app.

Flinging movies from your device to your large-screen TV using the Second Screen feature.

Figure 1-4: The Kindle Fire HDX's micro USB cable and a power adapter.

The magic of Whispersync

If you've ever owned a Kindle e-reader, you know that downloading Amazon content to it has always been seamless. All you need for this process is access to a Wi-Fi or 4G network. Then you simply order a book, music, or a video, and within moments, it appears on your Kindle device.

Kindle Fire HDX enjoys the same kind of easy download capability via Amazon's Whispersync technology for books, audiobooks, music, video, and periodicals.

Whispersync also helps sync items such as bookmarks you've placed in e-books or the last place you watched in a video across various devices. For example, say you have the Kindle e-reader app on your Kindle Fire HDX, PC, and smartphone. Wherever you