Looking to grab a capable tablet for a loved one this Christmas without breaking the bank? Amazon just slashed $50 off its new Kindle Fire HD 8.9 for customers in the United States — reducing its price tag to just $249. You’ll have to be quick, however; Amazon says “quantities are limited,” and the deal is on for today only.

In last year Amazon has become a major player in the Android tablet wars. The Kindle Fire HD is one of the best Android tablets on the market, and Amazon’s software is pretty solid overall.

Sales of the Kindle Fire HD have been strong over the last few months, and Amazon announced today that their Appstore has grown 500 percent.

Kindle FreeTime is just for kids.

If you’re buying your kid(s) a Kindle tablet this Christmas, then it may be worth checking out Kindle FreeTime, a new, “all-you-can-eat” subscription service from Amazon that’s designed specifically for those aged between three and eight. It provides unlimited access to apps, books, games, movies, and TV shows that are all curated for “age-appropriateness,” with content from the likes of DC Comics, Disney, Marvel, Nickelodeon, and more.

Is Samsung hard at work on a 7-inch Galaxy Note?

Benchmarks for a mysterious Samsung tablet codenamed the GT-N5100 have surfaced online, sparking speculation that the Korean electronics giant is working on a 7-inch version of the Galaxy Note. The device would fit in nicely between the 5.5-inch Galaxy Note II and the Galaxy Note 10.1, and it would allow Samsung to compete with other tiny tablets like Apple’s iPad mini, Amazon’s Kindle Fire HD, and Google’s Nexus 7.

It seems like forever ago that Amazon announced its Kindle Fire HD lineup and while they’ve been selling and shipping the 7-inch HD model for quite some time now, customers wanting the larger 8.9-inch model were left to wait until mid-November. Well, it’s mid-November and Amazon is making good on its promise.