Amazon has launched an attack on Apple’s iPad mini by comparing it to its own Kindle Fire HD on its US retail website, highlighting the  advantages of its tablet over the alleged shortcomings of Apple’s tablet.

In the comparison, the retailer points out that even though its screen is  0.9in smaller than the iPad mini’s 7.9in screen, the Kindle Fire HD has a  “stunning HD display with 30 per cent more pixels than iPad mini.” It insists  that the Kindle Fire HD can handle HD movies and TV whereas its rival  cannot.

Amazon also lists the Kindle Fire HD as having 216ppi compared with the iPad  mini’s 163ppi, as well as having dual stereo speakers whereas the iPad mini has  a mono speaker.

“…your [Apple's] 7.9-inch tablet has far fewer pixels than the competing  7-inch tablets! You’re cramming a worse screen in there, charging more, and  accusing others of compromise? Ballsy,” the quote reads.

Lastly, the retailer highlights the price of the Kindle Fire HD, which, at  $199 (£159), costs nearly 40 per cent less than the iPad mini’s starting price  of $329 (£269).

The blatant marketing attack may be in response to what Phil Schiller, Apple  marketing chief, said at the iPad mini launch last week. In a keynote for the worldwide  unveiling of Apple’s latest range, Schiller slammed competitors to the iPad  mini.

“Others have tried to make tablets smaller than the iPad and they’ve failed  miserably. These are not great experiences,” he said.

This bold display of confidence by Amazon comes after it announced last week  that following Apple’s iPad mini release, the Kindle Fire HD had “its biggest  day of sales since its launch,” according to AllThingD.

Amazon is not the only one with big sales, however – the  iPad mini sold out only hours after it became available for pre-order on 26  October.

by Monira Matin,                                            29 October, 2012

The iPad mini shapes up at 200 x 134.7 x 7.2mm and weighs 312g, against the  Nexus 7’s dimensions of 199 x 120 x 10.45mm and 340g weight. So while the  devices are pretty much the same height, the iPad mini is wider – yet still  thinner and lighter – reflecting more favourably on its overall form factor.

Display

The Nexus 7 has a 7in IPS LCD screen with a resolution of 1,280 x 800 pixels  (216 PPI), which trumps the 1024 x 768 pixels (163 PPI) of the iPad mini. Some  may prefer the larger 7.9 screen of the latter however, with its thinner bezel  accommodating more room in which to operate.

Storage and memory

The Nexus 7 comes in 8, 16 and soon, 32GB offerings, while the iPad mini will  available as a 16, 32 and 64GB model. Neither has a card slot for additional memory.

Processor

The Google-Asus manufactured tablet boasts a quad-core Nvidia Tegra 3  processor clocked at 1.3GHZ. We don’t know about the speed of Apple’s A5 chip,  but its dual-core engine is likely to lag behind the Nexus 7.

Software

The Nexus 7 runs the latest Android 4.1 Jelly Bean OS, with the iPad Mini  running the much-maligned iOS 6.

Camera

The iPad mini offers more in this department with a 1.2-megapixel front  camera and a 5-megapixel rear, while the Nexus 7 has only a 1.2-megapixel  front-facing cam. Both devices record video in 720p.

Battery

This is a dead heat on paper. Each party claims its tablet can last for 10  hours.

Connectivity

While the Nexus 7 does not even come with integrated 3G, the iPad mini boasts  super-fast 4G LTE connectivity on the more expensive models. The cheaper  additions are Wi-Fi only like the Nexus 7.

Price

The Nexus 7 was noted for its excellent value on release at £159 for the 8GB  model and the imminent 32GB edition is expected to cost £200. This makes  Google’s product much more of a budget device, with the iPad mini’s price range starting at £269 for the Wi-Fi only 16GB version, and ending at £529 for the 64GB LTE  model.

by Will Dalton,                                            23 October, 2012

French device maker Archos could cause a splash in the tablet market after its brand new Archos G9 tablet has been placed on preorder on Amazon for as little as £220 for the 8-inch model and £250 for the 10-inch model.

Both run on a dual core TI OMAP4460 processor clocked at 1.5GHz with 1GB RAM, Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich and 8GB onboard storage. A 16GB 10-inch model will also be available for £270.

The 10-inch version has a 1280×800 pixels resolution while the 8-inch one has a 1024×768 pixels one. Both come with a microSD card slot, a front facing 720p front camera with HD video recording, a HDMI and USB port, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS and a kickstand.

Archos claims that the tablet can run for up to 36 hours when playing music and up to seven hours when dealing with videos.

Amazon quotes March 2012 for the release of the smaller tablet and May for the bigger one.

No news as to when (or whether) the 250GB model which sports a traditional hard disk drive and offers nearly four times more capacity than other 64GB tablets, will come to the UK.