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Amazon Set to Unveil $199 'Kindle Fire' Tablet
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Spot on. For years sales of PC's and especially laptops have depended on forcing consumers to "overbuy" to meet their requirements. The iPad has been a huge correction to that in the form of a device that meets millions of consumers' requirements quite adequately.
The Fire is analogous. It provides the consumer who doesn't need even the limited computing power of the iPad and its associated content creation features with a "tablet" that meets their needs at a price point less than half that of the iPad (or most other tablets.)
Had the iPad been available when I last purchased a $1500 laptop for my wife, I would have purchased it. And for my daughter, the "Fire" can easily substitute for the iPad.
I've heard that all the Kindles have a non-ad version for $40 more.
If the fire is different, I have not read that anywhere. Thanks for pointing this out.
The real bit of fail is the DX price point remaining the same. It is bigger, heavier and less featured than the fire COME ON AMAZON!
(Mind you, this is because I WANT to want a DX... but $379 does not stop dissuading me ever. I can't even pretend that I would buy it if I had $400 just sitting around. Other gadgets would win out.)
(Mind you, this is because I WANT to want a DX... but $379 does not stop dissuading me ever. I can't even pretend that I would buy it if I had $400 just sitting around. Other gadgets would win out.)
Care to point out where you got this info ? The pre-order page makes no mention of the "special offers" like the pages for the Kindle and Kindle Touch do.
For all we know, the "more expensive" thing is limited to the 79, 99 and 149$ Kindles, not the Fire.
Accusations of "bias" are based off of how closed minded a person is towards teh other side of the conversation. In this case, the responder claimed "IF a $200 iPad existed then the Fire would be inconsequential" which is a ridiculous statement because in order to fulfill his personal opinion he CREATED a fictional scenario rather than just evaluated the reality of whats happening right now. That is clearly a bias.
As for "Apps" being a pro, it is. Yes iPad owns the App market, BUT the point is that Amazon offers a paid app for FREE every day as some sort of promo. These apps aren't the cheapie ones so to label them as "bad" with absolutely no experience with it seems odd. Especially since most of the time they are the same ones as the iPad version.
And BTW. Not everyone is iPad VS Fire. Some people are actually interested in iPad AND Fire because these are two devices that offer different experiences. And from the looks of it, owning both isnt a bad idea.
I get you and your concepts fine. And I agree - both will coexist fantastically. There's no loser here (nor does their need to be)
In fact - the winner is the consumer because the consumer now has options and choices.
So many people are dismissing the Kindle Fire already.
Did you forget about the success of the Nook Color? It's also 7" and missing things like a camera and mic, but Barnes & Noble still sold millions of them to very happy customers.
Not for long. If the Kindle Fire is succesful, I'm sure it will make it to Europe within a few months.
Does the Kindle Fire have the potential to be disruptive to the iPad? Possibly. It does so by cutting out a lot the features the iPad buyer likes, but doesn't necessarily need. Buyers are going to have to think long and hard about how much that extra screen real estate is worth to them, especially if movie viewing is their main concern. (Does the Kindle have a Netflix App? That could be a real killer.)
Obviously, the Fire falls a lot further down the "real computer" continuum than the iPad. That may not matter to some people.
All in all, however, I think Amazon have done a good job with this product. They've got the pricing in the right spot, and they have the delivery and cloud infrastructure in place. But the real test is going to come in the weeks AFTER November 15, once they start showing up on people's doorsteps. The Tech marketplace is littered with devices that looked great at their intro Gala, but fell short in the real world.
I don't understand why they don't offer the Fire with more storage capacity options. Only having 8 GB as the only option for a TABLET is just way too low. They should have 16, 32 and 64 GB options at higher price points. I assume that they eventually will.
Tony
Tony
I doubt it will eat into iPad sales too. At most it will limit (to some degree) it's potential growth. But that's the point. iPads are expensive as hell. Apple can get away with it, other companies can't. But no matter what some people seem to think tablets aren't necessary tools for majority of population. Plenty of people don't feel they need them enough to throw 500+ dollars at them. That's how much full blown computers can cost nowadays. 199 dollars is a whole different tale though. You can spend this much on something that's not essential to your every day life.
So I doubt it will damage iPad sales, but there's a huge market for a good (even if somewhat limited) cheap tablet. So while Apple will be selling 15 mln iPads a quarter I can see Amazon selling 5 mln fires a quarter.
It's not a question of the "cost" of data transmission. It's the demand it places on networks by increasing the traffic with millions and millions of devices that effectively compete for bandwidth with users who are paying at least $30 per month for internet access.
I suspect that Amazon will add a 3G option in partnership with one or more carriers but when they do so it won't be the same $50 lifetime access deal and they'll bring millions of potential monthly contract purchasers to the negotiating table with those carriers.
So if the next gen Apple iPhone is an iCloud iPhone with less storage, you'll have the same complain?
Looks like waiting and developing a decent backend infrastructure might just work for Amazon. Apple did the same, hence why it works so well.
i can't wait to get one! I'm actually glad i didn't get an iPad yet,
only needed a bigger screen to read books on, watch movies and maybe enjoy a better browsing experience on a bigger screen, everything else my iPhone 4 can do!!
only needed a bigger screen to read books on, watch movies and maybe enjoy a better browsing experience on a bigger screen, everything else my iPhone 4 can do!!
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Yawn... Another loser competitor that will get stomped. Will real competition to iPad ever emerge?
Yawn... Another loser competitor that will get stomped. Will real competition to iPad ever emerge?
Amazon UK
Amazon UK now has the basic kindle for order
In US - $79
In UK - £89!! i thought Apple did a good job of ripping us off (on exchange rates), this beats even that.
So a UK Kindle Fire will cost? £200? £210?
Amazon UK now has the basic kindle for order
In US - $79
In UK - £89!! i thought Apple did a good job of ripping us off (on exchange rates), this beats even that.
So a UK Kindle Fire will cost? £200? £210?
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LOL. Well, I'd say is fairly easy to see why Apple just cut iPad component orders by 25%.
LOL. Well, I'd say is fairly easy to see why Apple just cut iPad component orders by 25%.
My apologies then if I misinterpreted your original post. I'm just weary of people writing that Fire will fail b/c it's not as good as the iPad or that the iPad is going to lose market share b/c the Fire is relatively inexpensive. Both will define the tablet market in 2012 -- Amazon on the low end, Apple on the high end. Great for consumers b/c there it creates a wider tablet market and choice breeds innovation.
It helps that they own S3 and EC2 (i.e. the servers that run a good chunk of the internet).
The only real worry I have about the Fire is the amazonappstore™ and how they capriciously changed prices and app descriptions without notifying the developers (let alone asking to do it). That is a whole step above Apple's App Store nonsense (Apple may yank your app but they don't go messing with it).