Tablet and Mobile

Archive for the ‘Kindle Fire’ Category

The title of this blog is misleading as the two tablets are not in the same league – but this is no doubt how the press will play this for a while until we all get used to the idea that Amazon has finally decided to go into the colour tablet market.

Feel sorry for those who’ve just bought a Kindle as the price of the existing models is about to drop – considerably!

So – what IS the “Kindle Fire” and how does it stack up against existing models such as the iPad 2? 

Firstly price, you can’t beat the expected retail price of $199 or around £130 IF the display quality is up to it – and that we’ll only find out with time.

The Kindle Fire is a 7” (as against 9.7” for the iPad) display Android Tablet that comes fully set up for getting you to buy Amazon products (books, magazines, movies etc. – the latter being something the existing Kindle could never handle due to the slow screen speed). The resolution is lower than the iPad at 1024*600 as against 1024 * 768 but frankly this is not as important as screen quality – I’ve seen many 7” tablets with similar but watery displays that you just would not wish to own.

So what does it NOT do? The Kindle Fire has NO cameras, NO Bluetooth, NO HDMI, NO expandable storage and we don’t yet know how much memory it will come with though STORAGE-wise it will have 8Gbytes.

At 0.45” it is a little thicker than the iPad but then, being physically smaller, at 14.6 ounces it is refreshingly LIGHTER than the iPad 2’s 21.1 ounces  (sorry to give measurements in old-fashioned imperial, I’m getting the info from US sites as there’s not much on the UK front yet, given that the tablet has only just been announced).

Processor is at this time unspecified but will be dual-core and the claimed battery life is 8 hours though that does not say under what conditions. The unit DOES of course come with WIFI.

The format of the tablet is WIDE – ie cinema-style and so this is much better suited to movies than the iPad – though conversely way LESS suitable for book reading.

Release date, sometime around November – though the UK launch might take a little longer, who knows at this stage.

Will it do well – of COURSE it will do well, given the marketing punch of Amazon – it CAN’T FAIL.  Is it an iPad-killer? No, not a chance. It’s not even in the same league – however it might make those who’ve been put off by the limits of e-reader screen technology (and it’s lack of capacitive touch technology) finally take the leap away from reading paper.

For me, the main areas I’d be concerned about at this price would be screen quality, touch experience and battery life. We’ve no information on that yet.

Would I buy one? Well, NO, because I have an iPad – but if I didn’t? That would depend on a number of things – very tempting for movies for example for travelling – but is 8Gb going to be enough? No, not unless you only want to keep half a dozen movies on there – so that leaves the question – will the USB connection allow for external storage? Preliminary specs say NO but we’ll take that with a punch of salt.

The iPad has the fantastic Apple store – the Kindle is not going to have that – and the VAST bulk of APPS available on the Android market are of no great use to tablet owners – certainly Android has nothing to touch the likes of GoodReader and many of the other Apple-based tools – for streaming media, for doing work etc. –but then we’re not comparing like for like.

At the end of the day however it may be APPs that make or break this product – we’ll soon find out  – but not until AFTER the great Christmas rush – surely they can’t fail to sell millions this Christmas?