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Amazon’s Kindle Fire was a huge hit and was the only other tablet in the market to actually post numbers that were impressive enough to be considered a runaway success. In the current tablet space, only Amazon and Apple have made products that have been accepted by the public. Amazon has now decided to heat up that competition with the announcement of new Kindle Fire products, one of them being poised to challenge Apple’s market dominance.

First, the new Kindle Fire upgrade. The new Kindle Fire HD sports a lot of improvements over the original. It is now faster with a TI OMAP 4470 processor and features multiple in, multiple out or MIMO – the first implementation on a tablet, which results in significantly faster WiFi connections. Amazon said that with MIMO offers a 41 percent faster performance compared to the Apple iPad and a 54 percent improvement over the Google Nexus 7. It will also have a new 1920 x 1200 resolution IPS screen and significantly improved battery life. It will come in both a 7 inch and 8.9 inch display models. The 7-inch model will be sold for $199 while the 8.9 inch model will be sold for $299. Both products will be shipping on November 20.

Other new features to the Kindle Fire HD are Whispersync for Voice that allows for “bookmarking” audio books so you always pick up where you left off, Immersion Reading for boo narration, X-Ray for movies that provides information on actors even if you don’t supply their names. Finally, there’s Kindle Free Time, which is a time management feature that helps parents limit a child’s time using the tablet.

Amazon’s entry into the larger 8.9 inch segment of the market only means one thing – it is bringing the fight directly to Apple. With a very low price and significant specs, it is definitely going to take away market share from Apple. That is, unless Apple does confirm rumors and enters the 7-inch market with the rumored iPad Mini.

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