Posted on 09/28/2011 1:24:11 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
The company's new Kindle Fire tablet, a 7-inch touch-screen device powered by Amazon's content ecosystem and priced at just $199, may be an orange to Apple's iPad apple, but I'd argue that it's an iPad killer all the same.
On paper, the Kindle Fire has half the features of the iPad. In fact, it's almost literally half the features--here's a handy comparison chart so you can see for yourself. There's no camera, front or rear; the 8GB of onboard storage is half the amount of the base-model iPad; the Fire has no cellular options, no built-in GPS, and no Bluetooth, as the iPad does. The software options compared to the iPad are minimal, and the app library for Android still isn't nearly as robust as the iOS app library. All true facts. Doesn't matter.
There may be more strikes against the Kindle Fire, too: Amazon hasn't explicitly denied that it will block access to competing content-delivery apps like Hulu, Netflix, or any upstart e-bookstores that might want to be on the Fire, but I'd be surprised if you ever find them there. Amazon has taken a closed, proprietary approach with the Kindle line, and I think it's more than a safe bet to say that this won't be the "open" Android tablet experience you've been hearing about with the Galaxy Tabs or the Xooms of the world. Not even close, in fact.
And then, of course, there's the fact that the Kindle Fire is a 7-inch tablet in a 10-inch tablet world. All previous 7-inch competitors, from the original Galaxy Tab to the poor, doomed PlayBook have fallen by the wayside--while Steve Jobs personally mocked them as "dead on arrival", and once gruesomely suggested you'd have to file down your fingers to live with one.
Again, all true facts about the Kindle Fire, none of which matter. In these troubled times, and possibly even before, you need look no further than the $99 TouchPad buying frenzy for the lesson of the tablet market (and maybe every other electronics market, ultimately): it's the price, stupid.
At $199, virtually any mainstream consumer is going to stand next to these two devices, look at them side-by-side, and make a price-conscious decision--and that decision is easier than you might think, as tablet usage starts to sort itself out. Sure, the Kindle Fire lacks a camera for video chat and movie-making. So what? Hardly anyone is doing that with their tablets anyway. No GPS? That's what your phone is for. No Bluetooth? Shrug. It's one hundred and ninety-nine dollars.
The iPad, in even sideways competition with a Kindle Fire, faces the same problem it's always had, but it's a bigger problem now. The problem is that hardly anyone actually needs an iPad. And as tablet usage starts to shake out, it's more and more apparent that a low-cost option with fewer features will actually suit most people's first-world needs. According to a recent Citigroup survey, the vast majority of tablet users use these devices primarily for lightweight entertainment: mostly casual gaming, Web browsing, e-mail, and, increasingly, e-books.
Fully half of tablet users are streaming video. We're also traveling with them like crazy, which means throwing them in bags; taking them to restaurants, which means exposing them to foodstuffs of all sorts; and giving them to our kids, which means, well, you know. Also, 35 percent of respondents to a Staples survey said they use their tablets in the bathroom. I'm just saying, wouldn't you rather that be a $199 tablet than a $500 tablet?
In my opinion, Amazon has kicked off more than a price war, here. It's unquestionably slaughtered every Android tablet on the market, and it's set up a showdown with the iPad that doesn't have to be feature for feature. If anything, Amazon has done what Apple did with the iPad in the first place: create an entirely new market. And the timing simply couldn't be better.
Had one of these :)
It won’t be long at all before Google launches one using Android. Microsoft has got to be very close (they are in the hardware biz with the x box already), but like Apple both will outsource to Taiwan or China anyway.
Amazon is and always will be a third tier player in this market. They make a big splash and say silly things like “The kindle is the #1 selling product Amazon has ever sold” - well OK, that’s because you can’t find 200,000 people who all buy the same other thing from you. It doesn’t mean you sold a lot of them in the grand scheme of things.
I am not a fan of Amazon for many reasons, but I won’t get into it now.
We bought one for typing a dissertation—it was wonderful. They were a victim of their own success thru marketing mistakes... they introduced the new model production schedule too soon, and people were waiting to buy it, so capital stream dried up...at least that is what I was told...
This is not a table; it’s a POS/cash machine in disguise.
This is not a tablet; it’s a POS/cash machine in disguise.
This is not a tablet; it’s a POS/cash machine in disguise.
We laugh, now. at those old clunky computers, but we were glad to have them ‘back when’. And-lets see if any of the new, Ipad type things are still functional 10-20 years from now. ( If they’re not all lost or destroyed from dropping!) I had an old 286, gave it to a friend years ago, and she reports it STILL WORKS FINE!
Built’em to last, they did!
That's weird. There's an Obama poster on the wall.
A closed system? No thanks.
Wow, I had forgotten about Osborne.
I had the second gen bag phone.
In my garage are a
Mattel Intellivision
Atari 2600
Atari 5200
Commodore Vic 20
Commodore 64
1st Gen Sega System
8 Bit Nintendo
PS 1
Packard Bell 386
Packard Bell Pentium 75
PS 2
E-Machines 1.0 Gig
HP 2.8 Gig
I now use a Toshiba Satellite laptop and a PS 3.
Thanks, I guess then I could use a spare hard drive.
You’re right on the usb port, I just hadn’t had much contact with these devices yet. Very happy with my lap top but if these pads got more power and more storage who knows.
Boy did I want one of those.......
How about...
This is not a davenport; it’s a POS/cash machine in disguise.
This is not a ottoman; it’s a POS/cash machine in disguise.
This is not a credenza; it’s a POS/cash machine in disguise.
This is not a vitrine; it’s a POS/cash machine in disguise.
I can’t believe how many comments and harsh judgments on this and other similar threads are based on some silly and shallow political opinions. (I only used the word “political” as a generous gesture.) So you hate Amazon, Apple, Google, Microsoft? Facebook too, goes without saying. Yawn! How do you survive in this wicked world? There are plenty of reasons to hate your grocery supermarket, the oil company that produces your gasoline, the bagel bakery, Coca Cola, but yes, Pepsi as well, the dairy, the chicken factory, the vitamin maker, and your blood pressure medication Big Pharma manufacturer, among all others. Perhaps you’re terribly uninformed if you are not yet dissing and boycotting all those, and not starving yourself to death in protest. And don’t you hate Fruit of the Loom too? Do us all a favour, huh?!
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