Live unboxing: Amazon ships 8.9-inch Kindle Fire HDX [Video]

Amazon.com began shipping the 8.9-inch Kindle Fire HDX on Thursday, rounding out its lineup of new tablets in time for the holidays.

The 8.9-inch Kindle Fire HDX is Amazon’s full-size tablet. It’ll compete against the likes of the iPad Air and Microsoft’s Surface 2.

Join the Times’ Stacey Leasca and me at 1 p.m. as we unbox Amazon’s latest device.

LIVE DISCUSSION: Watch us unbox the 8.9-inch Kindle Fire HDX at 1 p.m.

Among the most interesting new features on the tablet is Amazon’s Mayday button, which lets users instantly video chat with a customer representative who can help them with any problems they may encounter on the device.

The new 8.9-inch Kindle Fire HDX is also 34% lighter than its predecessor, according to the company. It weighs just 0.83 pounds -- lighter than the iPad Air -- and as such, Amazon claims it’s the lightest full-size tablet.

Amazon sells the device starting with a Wi-Fi only model with advertisements and 16-gigabytes of internal storage for $379. The most expensive models cost $594 and include 64 GB of storage, no advertisements and can also connect to LTE cellular networks.

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