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But at about half the cost of an ipad2, and cheaper than the Nook, it is a wonder why this tablet is priced below its competitors. Could it be just to wipe the competition out, or is there a catch?
Attributes
Just like any other tablet, the Fire offers an ereader, movie and music player, email, streaming functions for music and movies. The ipad, having said that, has got an advantage in this specific area as it has extra functionalities like photo stream as well as a calendar.
When you first check at this fully colored, touchscreen tablet, you will notice how sleek and well-designed a product it is, with crisp, sharp, and highly radiant colors. It is no surprise then that when presented with magazines, a child's books, and browsing/searching online, it was a very pleasant experience. But do the specs stand up?
With regards to specs, there are 3 differences between your ipad, Nook and Fire worth noting.
1. Memory: For one, the Amazon Fire comes at 8G and 512MB RAM, whereas the Nook is 16G and 1G RAM. The ipad includes a range from 8G onwards.
2. Connectivity: The Fire and Nook currently only have wifi, but the ipad has options with wifi only or wifi/3G.
3. Battery life: The Fire is anticipated to have 8 hours, whereas the Nook and ipad are expected to possess 10 hours of battery life.
Considering the variety of functions, it really is natural that the memory and processing speed are key considerations for many a buyer. So let's look at this first.
Memory & Processing Speed
Initially, the Nook may seem to score on memory with 1G RAM. However with pc memory, there are many factors that affect processing speed. So this is where we believe that despite having 512MB of RAM, the Kindle Fire has got an advantage.
The Kindle Fire connects straight away to Amazon's web-services cloud making use of the massive Amazon web server. Essentially, this then allows the Kindle tablet to gain access to the huge network of Amazon's cloud server.
When seeing a demonstration of the Kindle Fire, it was amazing to observe how the screens changed at lightning speed.If you have used android phones and iphones, something that you may notice is how it takes a while for one page to move to another. With the Fire, they change almost instantly!
Connectivity
Presently, both Nook and Fire are only wifi enabled, whereas the ipad has models that carry 3G; hence the difference in the cost.While Amazon's Kindle in Color works well in places that has connection to locations with a high-speed wifi connection, without access to wifi locations, it's probably best to either think about the ipad 3G, or a future model of a Kindle tablet with 3G access.
Battery Life
Lastly, the battery life. At 8 hours, the Fire has less battery life than the Nook and ipad. Is this a big difference? We all love more battery life, but working with a PC than has 6 hours of battery life on paper, but with only about an hour or so in real life, it is one of those things that we simply cannot fully judge using the specs.
To conclude, while a year ago, the only real tablet out there was the ipad, the launch of the Kindle Fire gives its competitors a real run for its money, the only drawback being that it currently does not have a 3G model. While there are certainly slight differences in the ipad, Nook and Kindle Fire, from the demo and specs, it seems the Kindle Fire has been built with one of the best in mind. Having seen its demo, it seems clear that the low price tag of $199 is probably ingenious marketing. Perhaps the makers are planning to put a tablet in the hands of everyone.
Here's a video that displays the Kindle Fire at a recent demo.
I hope this blog provides a summary of the key differences about the Kindle in Color, ipad and Nook to enable you to make the right choice.
Update since the launch of the Kindle in Color
Since its launch in mid-Novemeber, sales of the Kindle products has been soaring. But there were initial teething problems, namely:
a)the page-turning speed and b) the non-reactive touchscreen (some users found that the screen had to be touched really hard to get a screen reaction).
It is good to know that these issues have been resolved in an over-the-air update.
As one user said, it is not surprising that the first launch has been seen with issues, but what is assuring is the fact that Amazon is making continuous improvements based on user feedback. Being with a responsive company and having issues dealt with promptly is a huge comfort.
Update: Jan 2012
It has been reported that in December 2011, there were more than 4 million Kindle products sold. It is believed that of these, half of them were just the Kindle Fire. It appears that while many readers love the Kindle ereaders, there are many who also like the fact that they have an ereader that carries features of a tablet - and at a much lower price point than other well-known tablets.
The response is very good to date. And the trend of ebooks and color ereaders like the Kindle Fire is expected to continue its steady growth.
Update: Transferring videos to the Kindle Fire
One of the things many users worry about is transferring videos from their existing software to the Kindle Fire. The format for videos on the Kindle Fire is MP4. Although many think this is not possible to transfer other formats to MP4, it is not true. In fact, it can be done in 3 easy steps with:
1) A video convertor software available online
2) a micro USB which is commonly used on phones, etc and available for less than $5.00
3) accessing the video through your Apps on the Fire.
This is video outlining these 3 easy steps:
Many people have been asking if the Kindle Fire has the “read-to-me”
feature found on the Kindle e-readers.
Unfortunately at this point, it does nothave this feature, nor is there
an app in the market to allow the Fre to read a book out loud to you. Perhaps the developers of the Fire should
take the suggestion into consideration, given how many people have been asking the
same question.
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