With a wealth of tablets already available and the market looking increasingly crowded every day, Amazon's Kindle Fire HD finds itself in a unique position. The bookseller turned tech magnate beats many high-tech reading devices and sleek tablet computers better in many ways than its competitors. Yes, even the iPad.

Here's a look at the key differences between a mid-range Kindle Fire HD model closest to the iPad, along with the original Kindle Fire, the iPad and other leading competitors.

Kindle Fire HD

- Price: $299 for 16 gigabytes of storage

- Screen size: 8.9 inches diagonally

- Screen resolution: 1920 by 1200 pixels

- Weight: 1.25 pounds.

- Cameras: Front-facing camera.

- Battery life: Undisclosed.

- Operating system: Modified version of Google's Android

Apple's iPad

- Price: Starts at $499 for 16 gigabytes of storage, goes up to $699 for 64 gigabytes, more for versions with cellular data access. (Apple still sells the older, iPad 2 for $399.)

- Screen size: 9.7 inches diagonally

- Screen resolution: 2048 by 1536 pixels

- Weight: 1.44 pounds

- Cameras: 5-megapixel camera on back and a low-resolution camera on front, for videoconferencing

- Battery life: 10 hours.

- Operating system: Apple's iOS

Google Inc.'s Nexus 7

- Price: $199 for 8 gigabytes of storage, $249 for 16 GB.

- Screen size: 7 inches diagonally

- Screen resolution: 1280 x 800 pixels

- Weight: 0.75 pounds

- Cameras: Front-facing, 1.2 megapixel camera

- Battery life: 9.5 hours

- Operating system: Google's Android

Barnes & Noble Inc.'s Nook Tablet

- Price: $199 for 8 gigabytes of storage, $249 for 16 gigabytes

- Screen size: 7 inches diagonally

- Screen resolution: 1024 by 600 pixels

- Weight: 0.9 pounds

- Cameras: None.

- Battery life: 11.5 hours.

- Operating system: Modified version of Google's Android

Samsung Electronic Co.'s Galaxy Tab 2 10.1

- Price: $399 for 16 gigabytes of storage

- Screen size: 10.1 inches diagonally

- Screen resolution: 1280 by 800 pixels

- Weight: 1.24 pounds

- Cameras: low-resolution front camera, 3-megapixel back.

- Battery life: 11 hours.

- Operating system: Google's Android.