Product Information

Is the Kindle Fire the next Apple iPad killer?

The tablets computer landscape is about to change with Amazon new tablet computer (released in November 2011) called the Kindle Fire. Amazon, known for its Kindle eReader, came out with a 7″ tablet running on a somewhat modified Android OS (Google) making it more easier to use.  It’s price (less than $200.00 US) is half of that of the iPAD.  Amazon also introduced a new Kindle eReader called Kindle Touch. The content for the Kindle Fire comes from Amazon’s own vast library of music, ebooks, movies, etc.  This is similar to Apple’s iPad’s content download via Apple’s iTunes library. The Kindle Fire also have connectivity to Amazon’s Elastic Cloud Compute services for even faster web access and improved user experience.

The only downside to the Kindle Fire is that there is no camera, microphone and no 3G/4G LTE connectivity.  You will have to live with wifi. For most people, this should be more than enough. Amazon also re-introduced a new basic Kindle and 2 new touch-screen Kindles (One with 3G Network access and the other without).

Internet access is via the Amazon Silk browser.

The Kindle Fire seriously competes with the Apple iPad 2 from a costing perspective. At $199.00 (US), it is must less than an Apple iPad 2. If you’re in a tight budget, the Kindle Fire looks very tempting. It is also a great gift for children as it is a serious tablet at a low price.

Here are some initial impressions of the Kindle Fire:

1. It is 7 inch versus 10 inches for the iPad 2,

2. It is quite sluggish compared to that of the iPad 2.  Strange as both Apple iPad and Kindle are running on dual-core 1 GHZ processors. Amazon has addressed this issue and will be issuing an OS update,

3. It is not for business people as it is missing a calendar and other “business” types of apps,

4. No camera so you cannot shoot video,

5. No microphone so you cannot do any online chat or Skyping,

6. Loading web pages is sometimes slow in the Silk browser.

Is it the iPad 2 killer?  Not for now.  The Apple iPad still reigns king (for now).  Next contender please ….

Order your Kindle Fire now.

Amazon Kindle Fire – Home Page