Amazon Kindle Fire HDX hits the UK in 7in and 8.9in versions with 3G and 4G connectivity

New Kindle models boast a mix of enterprise and consumer features

Amazon has made its latest Kindle Fire HDX tablet line available for preorder in the UK, offering both 7in and 8.9in touchscreen formats with a choice of 3G or 4G network connectivity if customers buy the devices through Vodafone.

First announced last month, the Kindle Fire HDX models boast 2.2GHz quad-core Snapdragon 800 processors for a claimed 3x performance boost over earlier Kindle Fire devices, "beyond HD" pixel density displays and the latest version of Amazon's Android-based tablet platform, Fire OS 3.0 Mojito.

Buyers can now preorder the devices, although these will not be delivered until mid-November at the earliest, according to Amazon.

Pricing for the 7in Kindle Fire HDX starts at £199, shipping from 13 November, while the 4G LTE version will set you back £269 and will ship from 27 November.

Meanwhile the 8.9in Kindle Fire HDX costs £329, with deliveries beginning 19 November, while the 4G LTE version of this will cost £399 and will not start to ship to customers until 13 December.

A special deal with Vodafone means that customers buying a Kindle Fire HDX via this network can get the device with a preinstalled SIM card for 3G or 4G network access, enabling them to sign up for a Vodafone Internet Starter Pack at switch-on.

For a one-off fee of £25, this deal provides users with 5GB of data for three months, after which customers are offered the option to sign up to one of Vodafone's standard data plans.

With Amazon's Fire OS 3.0, the new Kindle Fire HDX tablets display an interesting mix of features designed to appeal to both enterprise and consumer customers.

For businesses, it offers Exchange ActiveSync support for corporate email access, encryption of the user partition of the device to secure data, support for Kerberos authentication and a native VPN client.

For consumers, Amazon claims the new Kindle Fire HDX devices offer console-quality graphics via the Adreno 330 GPU inside the processor, Dolby Digital Plus audio, and an on-screen Mayday button that connects the user to an Amazon expert for free technical support.

The 7in Kindle Fire HDX boasts a 1920x1200 display and has a starting weight of just over 300g, while the 8.9in model has a 2560x1600 screen and a starting weight of 374g. Both are available with 16GB, 32GB or 64GB of flash storage.