Kindle Fire & Refreshes
For Tech Friday today I would be remiss if I wrote about anything besides the Amazon’s new Kindle lineup, including three refreshes of the current product in different formats and the much-anticipated Kindle Fire. I do have to admit that, that my interest in the announcement that a neutrino particle was timed moving fast then the speed of light late last week was a close second, especially when considering what that could mean for relativity and all the last hundred years of physics. It will have to wait for yet another week though given next week all the hype will be on the anticipated iPhone 5. Okay, enough of the tease, on the Kindles…
As had been expected for several weeks, Amazon jumped into the tablet market this week with the announcement of the Kindle Fire – which I suppose you have likely heard already unless you have been out of contact with any media the last several days. The move is, has been predicted not likely a direct competitor to the iPad in all but one way, which why I specifically chose the image I did above – PRICE! Before I get into the exacts of the Kindle Fire though I want to run through the other three models that are refreshes of the current version of the Kindle in a way.
At the low-end of market is the device just called the Kindle (the true refresh). It is offered at $79 with advertising or $109 without the so-called ‘special promotions’, which makes it just about half off the current models pricing. It does get a bit lighter and smaller, still offering the six-inch e-ink display. Most of the loss comes from ditching the full keyboard (which I admit to being a bit cumbersome anyway) with a set of five buttons for all functions – though it does appear to still have the hand side mounted page forward/backward buttons on both sides of the device.
Next up is the Kindle Touch, which is offered in two models, the upper one being 3G capable as well has Wi-Fi. It still uses e-ink technology, so it is not color. It is however a touch screen which gives it a nice touch if you will pardon the pun. It has no buttons as far as I can tell by looking or reading about it. My wife finds that distressing, as she enjoys using my previous gen Kindle with buttons to read with one hand while the other is busy keeping a cat amused. Pricing is $99 and $139 for Wi-Fi with or without advertising and similar the 3G is priced at $149 and $189.
Amazon is continuing to offering the keyboard models at the same price in the same size (both the same six-inch and the larger DX model. No word if that is until they run out or if plan to continue production.
And then we come to the Kindle Fire. This is the device that is a tablet, but you have to be careful of your definition when you say that. The obvious pros for going that direction include it is color, rotatable, based on the Android OS, clearly a touch screen and seems to be not a bad device – especially at the $199 price mark it is being offered. The plus column continues with some games already loaded (Angry Birds I have heard comes installed), the use of Silk, a predictive and caching method to make the internet browsing experience faster, as well as the free unlimited cloud storage. You will need that last one, because probably the biggest thing it has to offer is all the media that Amazon has to offer for it, including the obvious huge electronic book selection, the equally obvious huge music selection, and the maybe not so obvious and continually growing selection of video streaming from TV shows to movies and everything in between.
It has a lot to over and for a lot of folks the functions that is offering are the primary ones that would entice them to go for an iPad. At the low-end price there of around $500, for the functions they are primarily after (and perhaps a bigger selection – certainly on books) the $199 suddenly makes it an iPad competitor without really being in the same class. There will be fairly quick shrinking of the tablet market as this one rolls on out with the price point in mind. The bigger questions of course are really going to be at the Nook and Rims recently entrance into the market – I figure we will see big price drops on the first and likely a fold up on the later. Interestingly enough, refurbished Nooks were seen at $149 (cheapest price ever for the color Nook) just today.
I have said and implied a couple of times though that it is not a direct competitor with the iPad – so what is it lacking in form and function? First is the fact that it is based on an older version of the Android OS – older in the almost a full year. There is not any indication of an ability to upgrade this in any way. Further, the OS is a very clear Amazon branded system that has some amount of limited function because of that. All indication is that there is not even an ability to go to Android market, only the Amazon store for the device – which means new ‘apps’ are likely to be slow in coming along. The iPad, while a closed OS is clearly a fully developed OS.
They both offer dual core chips at the same speed, so not much being given up there. The iPad does offer models (priced accordingly higher) with much more storage memory then the Fire has at its one 8GB offering. Amazon is clearly aiming this toward a cloud device, tightly tied to their retail offers – which is why I am sure they are offering a price rumored to be below production cost. Both similarly have no external memory slots or USB communication options.
So it seems not far from even if you are more a casual user, right? Casual users however like things like both forward and rear facing cameras and microphones. iPad 2 has all of those and the Kindle Fire has none of those. So for playing multimedia it is going to be great, to create and then share, iPad is your only option. It is not lost on folks that are in the know that two cameras and the slightly larger screen though are a big part of the cost difference. For the geek or multimedia person it is going to have to be an iPad for the fuller feature set available between the two. For the e-reader who wants music, some streaming, and the occasional lightweight work ability the Fire is going to be a big contender, especially, and I can not say it enough, at $199. I see high school and college students, as well as adults who are not so technical buying in droves as we approach Christmas.
Can't respond to the one above effectively as they will not be back... As for Jon, sorry about that. Guess I really was not thinking about smaller screens/resolutions. I have LOTS of room over there. But message recieved and the side bar is gone now. At the time I put that up I asked, but no one really had much to say about it. Thanks for the heads up though, much appreciated and your voice has been heard!
Hate the 'Like', 'Tweet', '+1', ... sidebar. Never coming back.
That side bar has to go. Can't turn it off? I won't read around it.
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