Amazon Set to Unveil $199 'Kindle Fire' Tablet

[vitzr]

Simply Fantastic!

I just pre-ordered both the Fire and the Touch. At these incredibly low prices, they are a terrific compliment to my iPad 2.

Amazon has such a great track record with the Kindle. I've had everyone since day one. They are quick to update and improve these readers, making them better and for less money at each refresh. The latest one I bought a few months ago is light years better than the original.

So now I have iPad2 for all the things it does best. The Fire for all the content I was already buying from Amazon. Their eco system is perfect for this type of device.

As a very avid reader I really enjoy the light, small form factor and the distinct lack of eyestrain one avoids by reading on a Kindle.

This brilliant strategy will help Apple sell more iPads as people that do not already have them, try a $79.00 Kindle, find out how neat it is, and then realize they can buy an iPad as well, and really enjoy the additional capabilities Apples tablet.

This is win/win for everyone involved.

Why anyone would even try and compare these two VERY different devices is sheer lunacy.

This brings a entire new device into the picture at a price point that will encourage the competition that arrives, to be much more aggressive in lowering tablet pricing.

Two winning ecosystems. Apple and Amazon.

 

[The Economist]

Looks fairly good. I like how Amazon is evolving.

 

[341328]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_3 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8J2 Safari/6533.18.5)

iPad is also about gaming. This fire is nothing to do with gaming.

 

[urkel]

Heres my opinion about iPad vs Fire and how they're intended for two different class of consumers.

iPad = For people who want to consume and create content
Fire = For people who want only to consume content

I absolutely love my iPad because I both consume AND create on it. I read websites/rss, I play games, I listen to books, I do email. But I also create using iMovie, photo editing apps, video camera etc. So to me it's easily worth $600.

But for my mom, brother, wife and most friends then all they'll do on a tablet is consume. So email, browser, kindle, mp3 player, video and games covers 99.9% of what they'll actually do. And on the rare occasion they'd need to create a document then there's google docs and apps to rely on.

So while I do feel the iPad is the superior product, for many then a tablet is NOT a computer replacement and their primary purpose is simply to consume media in a new way. And if thats the case then $200 is a no-brainer while $600 may require some strong justification. (And lets be honest, how many of us really used iMovie or Garage Band as much as we thought we would?)

 

[Dillenger]

Ahhhhh, it's another iPad killer! ROFL.

 

[miamialley]

The only threat towards Apple really is the iTunes bookstore. From what I understand people just aren't buying books through Apple, and this tablet combined with a new Kindle for $79 will further bump up Amazon's marketshare in the ebook area.

The Fire Tablet isn't really designed to compete with the iPad. It's designed to be a Kindle on steroids by being an ebook reader plus a media player.

It's designed to directly compete with the iPad. People who might have bought an iPad for this holiday season, will instead buy the Fire. That makes them competitors.

 

[divinox]

Clear mobile internet?

12V charger. How would you do the same with an ipad?

 

[AidenShaw]

The Kindle Fire will sell incredibly well. Tens and millions of people visit Amazon.com everyday, the Fire will be on the homepage.

Already is, with a wonderful dig at Apple....

 

[ntg]

Oh BBC - why do you hate Apple so?

I just sat and watched a BBC article which gushed about the wonderful challenge to the iPad's supremacy by the new Amazon Fire.

It then listed all the things that the Fire does better for so much less money, yet never once pointed out that the damned thing is only a tweaked 'Kindle Colour' AND ONLY A 7" SCREEN!!

Just shows how you CAN compare Apples to Lemons, eh!!

 

[JGowan]

If you like saving more money, go with Amazon.

If you like losing more money, go with Apple.

^^ I don't mean that last statement to be derogatory. There are many consumers who want more quality will gladly pay more. But at the same time, those sheep will blindly buy anything with the Apple logo stamped on it. Apple is only one that is popular enough to price gouge their consumers. They did this with the first iPod for $500. Or the first iPhone for $600 with contract. Or the first cheapest iPad for $500.

Think about it. Amazon is probably LOSING money for every hardware sold. Apple makes money for every hardware sold. When Sony was losing $200 for each PS3 sold back in 2006, people thought they were so greedy for selling it for $600. When the iPhone only cost like $180 to make, people salivate it even with a $700 non-contract price-tag.

While some competitors might look greedy, it becomes "high quality" (while being made in China) to Apple and their zealots. Double standard.

And yet: your avatar is an iPhone 4. Double standard.

 

[AppleScruff1]

Wow! This news really has the fanboys in a tither. What is everyone worried about? It's a different product targeted at a different market than the iPad.

 

[tenks]

my old post got burried..everyone interested in buying needs to read..


A fire is a neutered Blackberry Playbook, which was already a pos...

The real deal will be out in a few short months..But go ahead and buy it just to have something under the tree..

The fire is a 1 qtr stopgap..I wouldnt touch that thing with a 10 foot poll

 

[guch20]

good catch, it looks like its only horizontal for video and games.

I've been trying to point that out but the anti-Apple crowd can't see past their raging boners for this thing.

 

[dgree03]

Already is, with a wonderful dig at Apple....

Yes and these advertisments are what is going make this thing explode! I stand by my statement that I do believe that the same people who shop at apple.com also shop at amazon.com.... but the reverse isnt true. This is huge for the amount of looks this tablet will get!

 

[dukeblue91]

One big lol for these comments:


My $400 g1 iPad has no 3G, Camera or Microphone and it works just fine. There simply is no use for those features for me and few million others.

If this runs TouchOSC then i'll buy one.

It is very easy to say that if it runs Angry Birds it will be a HUGE hit in xmas.

Well actually the iPad 1 does have a microphone.

 

[guch20]

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iPad is also about gaming. This fire is nothing to do with gaming.

They show it having Angry Birds (which I'm so done with). What they don't mention is that since it's missing an accelerometer, any game that uses it can't be ported.

----------

my old post got burried..everyone interested in buying needs to read..


A fire is a neutered Blackberry Playbook, which was already a pos...

The real deal will be out in a few short months..But go ahead and buy it just to have something under the tree..

The fire is a 1 qtr stopgap..I wouldnt touch that thing with a 10 foot poll

So isn't this, if true, an example of Amazon bilking buyers?

 

[divinox]

Then they can show the two Fire owners getting buyer's remorse when they realize they have to pay nearly a hundred bucks a year for Prime (which only makes sense if you're a hardcore Amazon user), they have a small number of apps to download, can't use apps that require an accelerometer, can't take pictures or video, can't Skype, can't surf the web without Wifi, can't do anything that requires more than two fingers for input, can't read it at the beach or in any bright sunlight (a former selling point of the Kindle), can't store more than 8GB worth of media (which sucks I'd you're gonna be out camping or somewhere without Wifi), and can't even turn the volume up or down without using the onscreen controls (which can be touchy on most touchscreen devices).

Oh, and there's no built-in email app. The Playbook was crucified for that. Sure, it cost more than the Fire, but my $30 Sanyo Katana phone has freaking email.

1) quite few of us doesnt have a camera with us that wouldnt beat a crummy tablet camera anyway. If not in our phones, in our dedicated devices.

2) no lcd tablet will do well in direct sunlight.

3) yeah, so you're out camping... and you need more than 8gb (for some unknown reason). where would you camp where you would have electricity to power your device anyway? Its not like power sockets grow on trees... literally that is..

 

[Taank]

It's not for everyone. I find a keyboard and mouse both more comfortable and easy to use. Everytime I use a tablet, I'm reminded of why I love my MacBook Air so much.

At the price I got the TouchPad and the price of this Fire ? Makes sense for people like me who just want a sort of throwaway device for a quick fix. An iPad is out of the question, no way can I justify the kind of money it costs for what I would end up doing with it.

Exactly. I use a mouse anytime I need to get anything done in any way on a laptop. So, perhaps that is one of the factors. Some people love touchpads and touch devices, and some do not. If I am just going to click a movie and play it, or click a song and listen to it... ok, touch is fine. If its any sort of real work, I can't stand it. So, as you said, a device like this is a throwaway device for me, a luxury, not something I NEED in any way. $500 is way too much for something I don't need. $200 is still, you know, money...for something that I don't need.... but it is getting down there in price to the point I could justify it in my head if I just felt like buying a toy that day.

Now, if you feel you NEED an iPad...or even just want one, cool, buy an iPad. I just don't understand why the desire to make people feel like if they don't LOVE an iPad, they must just not have tried it enough and don't understand. I have tried it, several times, in the comfort of peoples homes, not in the store. I don't like it. Deal with it.

 

[PCClone]

It's designed to directly compete with the iPad. People who might have bought an iPad for this holiday season, will instead buy the Fire. That makes them competitors.

It is designed to compete withe Touchpad, Xoom, playbook, etc. Comparing it to the iPad is asinine.

 

[AppleScruff1]

It is designed to compete withe Touchpad, Xoom, playbook, etc. Comparing it to the iPad is asinine.

I don't think it was designed to compete with any of those. This release will create a new market segment.

 

[PCClone]

Exactly. I use a mouse anytime I need to get anything done in any way on a laptop. So, perhaps that is one of the factors. Some people love touchpads and touch devices, and some do not. If I am just going to click a movie and play it, or click a song and listen to it... ok, touch is fine. If its any sort of real work, I can't stand it. So, as you said, a device like this is a throwaway device for me, a luxury, not something I NEED in any way. $500 is way too much for something I don't need. $200 is still, you know, money...for something that I don't need.... but it is getting down there in price to the point I could justify it in my head if I just felt like buying a toy that day.

Now, if you feel you NEED an iPad...or even just want one, cool, buy an iPad. I just don't understand why the desire to make people feel like if they don't LOVE an iPad, they must just not have tried it enough and don't understand. I have tried it, several times, in the comfort of peoples homes, not in the store. I don't like it. Deal with it.

Do the people know you are using their iPads in their homes or are you really sneaky?

 

[Oletros]

I've been trying to point that out but the anti-Apple crowd can't see past their raging boners for this thing.

Games can have their interface in vertical and how can you watch videos in portrait mode in a 16:10 screen?

 

[AidenShaw]

I've been trying to point that out but the anti-Apple crowd can't see past their raging boners for this thing.

So the Kindle Fire made every fanboi go soft?



Seriously, penis jokes about computers are pretty lame - if anyone gets or loses an erection during a hardware announcement he should look into buying a life.

 

[pivo6]

my old post got burried..everyone interested in buying needs to read..


A fire is a neutered Blackberry Playbook, which was already a pos...

The real deal will be out in a few short months..But go ahead and buy it just to have something under the tree..

The fire is a 1 qtr stopgap..I wouldnt touch that thing with a 10 foot poll

Andy Ihnatko would disagree about the Fire being a "stopgap" product.

Link

I'm excited about the Fire, not excited enough to pre-order it. As others have already pointed out, if you're looking for a device to consume media, then I think this one is a good bet.

 

[BC2009]

I don't get why you're trying to downplay it. It's a great innovation, built on the shoulders of others who have tried such a thing before. It does greatly help with ressource limited devices, something that Opera Mini has shown us quite handily in the previous years and something thin client computing has been teaching us for decades. It is the Web made thin client (or even thinner than it was). Now we get a rich web experience without the need for complex local renderers.

I do think it is a great innovation -- I also think that Amazon has really made it seamless -- I have never denied that. I just did not like Amazon downplaying the innovations in Web browsers for the past 20 years by opening that video with the exaggeration that browsers have not fundamentally changed since their inception and Amazon's work represents the first fundamental change. If that were true, then the fundamental innovation happened over a year ago with Opera Mini (albeit on a small scale without the cloud-computing of a giant like Amazon). Either way, given the difference of opinion between you and me, it is clearly a matter of opinion, and I am certain Amazon's bias is likely to be more inline with your perspective, so I get it.

The biggest gotcha here is how much of the HTTP traffic is tunneled or proxied through Amazon's servers and whether or not the pre-fetching is going to bite them for certain websites. If they did the off-loading correctly, then when the browser notices a URL with a MIME type mapping to an image, it would then request that image from the cloud server -- allowing it to be scaled down (increased latency, decreased bandwidth). Alternatively, they could simply be tunneling/proxying all of your traffic through Amazon's cloud servers.

I know that Opera Mini is parsing the HTML on the server side into a compressed binary structure that the client understands and can quickly render. I just don't know what happens with HTTPS/SSL requests since that makes it kinda impossible for a cloud server to sit in the middle UNLESS your client is never truly connected via SSL to the target website, but rather is using an SSL connection to the cloud proxy which is maintaining its own SSL session with the target website. This would get them in trouble though.

I am always weary on iSwifter of using any websites that would require credentials. Basically, I don't have any guarantee that the browser is not speaking SSL to their cloud server, which is then using SSL to my target website. If that was the case, then iSwifter cloud server would have access to any credentials I provided even if they were sent via SSL to iSwifter, because they would arrive for the iSwifter server-side code in clear text so they could be re-sent via SSL to my target website.

My guess is that HTTPS/SSL content is never going through Amazon's cloud server, but anything that is straight HTTP is completely available for Amazon to snoop for marketing information (like what your most recent Google searches are or what you are shopping for on Buy.com and what their prices are).

Performance-wise it looks like Silk is going to be great. Privacy-wise they probably need a pretty solid privacy policy and an opt-out of marketing tracking. Functionally, Silk may hit some snags with some websites whereby they attempt to prefetch things incorrectly, but if they are just storing them in a cache to later be flushed then its not too big a deal since the user will never know.