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Amazon's Fire tablets get a little thinner and a little faster

The Fire 7 gets a new body, the Fire HD 8 is $10 cheaper.

Amazon

If you grabbed a person in the street and asked them when Amazon releases new tablets, you'd expect them to shout "September-ish!" before calling the calls. After all, the company has released a new Fire HD slate in late September or early October for pretty much the last five years. So it's a little surprising to see Amazon pulling the dust sheets off its updated lineup of tablets in May.

There's nothing too drastic or shocking with the update, and the Fire 7 gets a thinner and lighter chassis and an improved 7-inch IPS display. Battery life and chip performance have been tweaked, as well as the WiFi connectivity, not to mention the addition of voice assistant Alexa.

Amazon's done a little less to the Fire HD 8, throwing in faster, more power-efficient internals but leaving everything else the same. Thankfully, the device's biggest new feature will help your wallet: it's $10 cheaper than the existing model, retailing for $79.99.

The company is also whipping out Kiddie versions of the tablets, with both the Fire 7 Kids and Fire HD 8 Kids getting "kid-proof cases." Otherwise they're pretty much the same as their adult relatives, albeit with a year of Amazon FreeTime Unlimited and a two-year, no questions asked guarantee.

Price-wise, the vanilla Fire 7 will set you back $49.99 (£44.99), while the Fire HD 8 is priced at $79.99 (£79.99), with the kids versions coming in at $99.99 (£99.99) and $129.99 (£129.99), respectively. All four members of the trio will begin shipping on June 7th, and Amazon will knock 20 percent from the price if you buy more than three in one go.