Top 5 Kindle Fire HD tips and tricks

If you’ve succumbed and pre-ordered one of Amazon’s fantastic new high definition Kindle Fire tablets, you might be looking for ways to get the most out of it when it’s released on 25 October.

Kindle Fire HD

Lock your screen to portrait or landscape if you want to stop it auto-rotating

Here are our five top tips for one of the best value tablets around:

1. Add non-Amazon app stores

The Kindle Fire HD is – unsurprisingly – tied to Amazon’s own Appstore for purchasing new apps. But while the selection is pretty comprehensive, it’s not quite as complete as some might like.

Seen an app you like elsewhere? You can enable third party apps and app stores under Settings>Device, and there’s a list of popular alternatives here.

2. Extend the battery life

Turn off wireless settings if you’re not using them, and switch the screen brightness to manual, then set it to about a third of its maximum for a good compromise between readable and low power use. Tips common to any phone and tablet work here too.

3. Remove items from the carousel

Amazon’s interface for the Kindle Fire HD is pretty, but the large icons can soon get cluttered. Remove shortcuts by tapping and holding the image in question.

4. Turn off screen rotation

If you’re using the Fire HD as an eReader or watching a movie, there’s nothing more frustrating than moving slightly in your chair and having the screen rotate to the wrong orientation. You can lock the screen into portrait or landscape mode by tapping the settings gear and then tapping on the ‘locked’ icon. To unlock, just tap the same icon again.

5. See desktop sites

Many mobile websites look strangely out of proportion on a 7-inch screen, and lack some of the features of the same site displayed on a desktop PC. You can ask the browser to find the full desktop version of any site you’re looking at. Simply tap the settings icon while you’re looking at a website and select ‘Desktop or mobile view’.

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