Stefan Mileschin

As competition between tablets makers hots up, Amazon has thumbed its nose at the iPad Mini in its latest advert for its own 7 inch tablet, picking apart claims by Apple.

In a new advert for the Kindle Fire HD, Amazon puts its own tablet up against Apple' newly launched devices in full-on sparring mode, under the banner "much more for much less".

Amazon didn't miss its chance to highlight one of the main differences between the two devices, namely the price tag, proudly displaying $199 in large type for the Kindle Fire HD, compared to $329 for the iPad Mini.

As well as claiming that the Kindle Fire HD has 30 percent more pixels than the slightly larger iPad Mini, Amazon took a swipe at its rival by posting a comment from gadget news website Gizmodo: "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, changing more, and accusing others of compromise? Ballsy."

The advert claims that the Apple device cannot handle HD pictures as its own can, and also makes some noise about superior wi-fi connectivity and improved speakers.

Of course, Apple is guilty of its own name-calling as the fight for share of the smaller tablet market gets increasingly catty, proving that it is more than up for a bit of sniping at its competitors.

At the launch of the iPad Mini, the Cupertino company addressed the challenge that Apple faced from competitors which have already released 7 inch tablets such as Google and Amazon. Marketing boss Phil Schiller contemptuously described its rival's efforts as having "failed miserably" in producing a tablet equal to those produced by Apple.

Schiller levelled criticisms at its competition, throwing in barbs about screen size and bezels, lamenting the woeful attempts to chip away at the iPad's dominance.

However, we imagine Amazon bosses were rubbing their hands when they subsequently announced that - on the day after Apple's release - the Kindle Fire HD achieved record sales, according to AllThingsD.

http://news.techeye.net/hardware/ama...i-in-public-ad