Kindle Fire HD, HDX sales help power record weekend for Amazon

The Kindle Fire HD and HDX were the top sellers for Amazon the weekend after Thanksgiving. 

The 7-inch Kindle Fire HDX and Kindle Fire HD tablets topped Amazon's sales lists last weekend, unofficially the first of the holiday shopping season. 

In a press release, Amazon said it was the "best ever [weekend] for Kindle, with customers purchasing more Kindle Fire tablets and Kindle e-readers than ever before," although the company stopped short of specifying exact how many tablets were unloaded. (Amazon is usually tightlipped about Kindle sales of any kind, although some analysts have estimated that the company could make $4.5 billion from its tablets and e-readers in 2013.) 

The Kindle Fire HDX, which was released this fall, is a higher-powered version of the Kindle Fire HD. Prices start at $229 for a 7-inch HDX with 16GB and Wi-Fi; the 8.9-inch models start at $379 and change. 

"Amazon's Kindle Fire tablets spearheaded the current boom in low-cost Android tablets," Jonathan Bray of PC Pro wrote in a largely positive review of the Fire HDX, "but there's one thing you could never accuse them of – they've never felt cheap. The latest model – the Kindle Fire HDX – delivers a swathe of upgrades and carries on the good work." 

Still, Bray pointed out that Google's Nexus 7 tablet matches many of the features of the HDX, for a good deal less money. 

In news from other parts of the tablet universe, analytics firm InfoScout recently crunched data from more than 125,000 American shoppers and determined that at the two of the three biggest big box stores in the country – Target and Wal-mart – the iPad was the top item sold.