Kindle Fire outsells iPad 2 at Best Buy

[Don Kosak]

I don't think the Kindle Fire is a huge success. I've had one since launch day. It's okay. It's okay at a lot of things. It's not great at any of them. In fact, both the iPad and iPhone seem to be better Kindles than Kindle Fire.

For $200 bucks it's a great way for someone without a tablet to get into the game and have access. I think some of the other Kindles are better for reading books though, and much cheaper.

I'm glad the Kindle Fire hasn't failed. I hope Amazon does a Kindle Fire 2, 3, 4, etc, and keeps making it better. It was a fair start. I have been really spoiled by the iPad, so it kind of disappointed me.

The $499 entry level iPad is a much better value overall, if you can afford it. It's much snappier, the UI doesn't lag at all.

My wife and son aren't that thrilled with the Kindle Fire, and it mostly sits out on a coffee table ignored. I'm going to use it for development and port some Apps to Android, so it won't go to waste.

I will most likely buy the next tablet from Amazon also, especially if they can get the performance and usability cranked up a bit on future releases. I don't really care about cameras or extra features. Just make it react when you tap buttons on the screen (instead of lagging, and then logging multiple presses on subsequent screens...)

 

[jsh1120]

...
Same goes for a bad movie that is #1 at the box office for weeks that many believe sucks.

"Nobody goes there anymore. It's too crowded." - Yogi Berra.

 

[Mac.World]

You know, i wanted to see if the Kindle Fire was the number one selling tablet at Best Buy.com. The funny thing is, how can it be number 1 on bestbuy.com if you can't buy it online? In fact, it doesn't have a single customer review. Just curious how you can have a best seller online, if you can't buy it online, nor does it have any reviews? Seems kinda fishy to me. Every other product has reviews from apple, acer, asus and samesung.

 

[davedvdy]

"Nobody goes there anymore. It's too crowded." - Yogi Berra.

So you quote this to make a point that hype turned to sales equals a great product?

Even if the Fire outsells the iPad it doesnt make it a better product (which Id doubt). Lets not get started on how price point motivates the sales figures. What about the HP Touchpad "firesale"??

The Fire can sell a gazillion and it will still be a laggy product in other respects...browser for example. Lets not get started on how it will most likely grossly outsell the Nook Tablet (a far superior device in many ways IMHO)

The Fire is a lackluster/"loss leader" glorified e-reader product made to motivate Prime memberships.

 

[aberrero]

I bought a Fire. Can't remember the last time I even used it. It's a terrible product at this point. I'm sure it will improve greatly with Ice Cream Sandwich, but, honestly, it just sucks. I'm going to play with it one last time this weekend and then mail it back.

I want an iPad 3 with a retina display. The low density display on the current gen iPad is honestly pretty bad.

 

[jsh1120]

So you quote this to make a point that hype turned to sales equals a great product?

No, I quoted the eminent sage Yogi Berra to note that popularity means just that. The fact that "many believe it sucks" hasn't prevented it from being a success in the marketplace. No more than bad reviews necessarily means a film is a failure.

This thread was not devoted to a comparison of the features of the Fire versus the iPad. The OP noted that the Fire has been a major success at Best Buy. It is currently the largest selling single product from the largest online retailer in the United States. IHS, a major retail tracking firm, estimates that nearly 4 million Fires will be sold by Christmas. Finally about 85% of those who have reviewed the Fire at the Amazon site rate it at 3 out of five stars or higher. Not exactly a sign of buyer's remorse, especially considering that a substantial portion of those who rate the Fire lower than that cite dissatisfaction with delivery issues.

Time will tell whether consumers continue to embrace a lower price tablet with fewer features than the iPad and whether Amazon can (or will) follow up the success of the Fire with more fully featured models. But right now, it is a major sales success for a new product that has been available only in the US and only for a few weeks.

 

[davedvdy]

Finally about 85% of those who have reviewed the Fire at the Amazon site rate it at 3 out of five stars or higher Not exactly a sign of buyer's remorse, especially considering that a substantial portion of those who rate the Fire lower than that cite dissatisfaction with delivery issues.

Do you trust these reviews or have you tried it for yourself? I for one will not defend or trash a product unless I have spent time with a product.
I've read quite a few reviews from people even in this forum who tried it and found it very laggy for web browsing in particular. I bought/returned it after the supposed 6.1 OS update and it was still very unresponsive.
I've seen quite a few open box/returned Fires btw.

Time will tell whether consumers continue to embrace a lower price tablet with fewer features than the iPad.

That's only part of the problem. I think anyone can forgive features missing such as storage and a camera for the price point, but that isn't where it ends. Not only does it lack features, it doesn't seem to do a satisfactory job at one of it's supposed highlights...web browsing. You have a browser called "Silk" but yet it is anything but. Cloud accelerated web browsing via EC2 servers?


Just curious...do you own this product? have you tested it in a place other than the working demos at Best Buy that don't allow you to test the web browser?

This thread was not devoted to a comparison of the features of the Fire versus the iPad

A comparison was made with the iPad regarding sales figures, so there was a comparison made.
I didn't bring in any differences in features, but did compare the products as a whole in a very small way (not exhaustively).

 

[jsh1120]

Do you trust these reviews or have you tried it for yourself? I for one will not defend or trash a product unless I have spent time with a product.
I've read quite a few reviews from people even in this forum who tried it and found it very laggy for web browsing in particular. I bought/returned it after the supposed 6.1 OS update and it was still very unresponsive.
I've seen quite a few open box/returned Fires btw.

Do I trust the more than 4000 reviews of the Kindle Fire on the Amazon website more than the "people...in this forum"? Yup.

The Kindle Fire doesn't fill a technology "gap" for me personally. My iPad 2 covers (with some overlap) the space between my quad-core laptop and my smartphone. I'm a gadget fan but with six computers, two smartphones, and an iPad in the household, purchasing a completely redundant device is, at least for me, silly.

I've had the opportunity to use the Kindle Fire a neighbor purchased, however, and found it to be a perfectly adequate media consumption device (including web browsing) and it serves my friend's requirements quite well.

Of course, I use both my iPad and tested my friend's KF in ideal conditions; specifically with a very fast wifi network connected to the very fast wired cable modem in my home and with a 4G/LTE (again with very respectable and reliable speeds) mobile hotspot. Under less ideal conditions, I suspect that both an iPad and a KF would suffer and most likely the KF would suffer more.

I've maintained on other threads on this board that the KF appears to provide about 80% of the functionality of the iPad at about 40% of the price. That still seems to me to be a reasonable estimate. And I'd add that it provides about 80% of the iPad's excellent "user experience" at about 40% (or less) of the price.

It appears that several million Amazon customers probably have a similar view. I wouldn't trade my iPad for a KF but that doesn't mean it's not a very attractive alternative for many, many consumers.

 

[davedvdy]

I've maintained on other threads on this board that the KF appears to provide about 80% of the functionality of the iPad at about 40% of the price. That still seems to me to be a reasonable estimate. And I'd add that it provides about 80% of the iPad's excellent "user experience" at about 40% (or less) of the price.

If u open a browser and try repeatedly to scroll a page and it doesnt move...that certainly does not give you 80% functionality of an iPad. Not all sites did that, but the problem did come up a handful of times. The lag is very apparent in MOST sites.

You have less than 6 GB of storage, laggy browser (admitted by quite a few reviews), no cameras, hours less battery life, thousands and thousands of less apps, yet u knock off 20%?

 

[Mac.World]

If u open a browser and try repeatedly to scroll a page and it doesnt move...that certainly does not give you 80% functionality of an iPad. Not all sites did that, but the problem did come up a handful of times. The lag is very apparent in MOST sites.

You have less than 6 GB of storage, laggy browser (admitted by quite a few reviews), no cameras, hours less battery life, thousands and thousands of less apps, yet u knock off 20%?

Don't take what jsh1120 says to literally. In his eyes, any device that has wifi, email and access to an app store is nearly the same as an ipad. His view of the device does not transcend into reality.

 

[davedvdy]

Don't take what jsh1120 says to literally. In his eyes, any device that has wifi, email and access to an app store is nearly the same as an ipad. His view of the device does not transcend into reality.

LOL. Thank you, that seems to explain it.

 

[Carouser]

And just as amusing that some Apple fans reject comparing the single Amazon model to the most comparable iPad model (the 16Gig wifi model) and want to include the entire Apple product line to beef up the iPad numbers.

Even being hugely generous, 'the most comparable iPad model' will only be the 16GB model without distinguishing based on black or white. But Best Buy disaggregates their ranking based on colour, so people are right to say what they do.

Suppose there are three options* for the consumer:

- 16GB Kindle
- 16GB iPad White
- 16GB iPad Black

You would have to presume bizarre ranked preferences to think it meaningful to distinguish sales based on colour, e.g. someone's preferences would be:

1) 16GB iPad White
2) 16GB Kindle
3) 16GB iPad Black

This is ridiculous; people will make the choice to buy an iPad over a Kindle (or vice-versa) before they make a colour selection.

*'no purchase' is also an option, left out for clarity

 

[jsh1120]

Don't take what jsh1120 says to literally. In his eyes, any device that has wifi, email and access to an app store is nearly the same as an ipad. His view of the device does not transcend into reality.

Apparently it "transcends into reality" (whatever such twisted syntax means) for several million customers over the last few weeks.

 

[Mac.World]

Apparently it "transcends into reality" (whatever such twisted syntax means) for several million customers over the last few weeks.

You must be in our own reality distortion field. Please point to one source that shows the Fire has sold millions of Fires and they are in customers hands. Shipped and sold are two entirely different things.

And I wish I could understand your grammar. I have no idea what you are attempting to say with "whatever such twisted syntax means"? At least give me complete sentences.

 

[davedvdy]

Apparently it "transcends into reality" (whatever such twisted syntax means) for several million customers over the last few weeks.

Quality>Sales

Which one of these credible reviewers made the bold and daring claim that the Fire is 80% as functional as an iPad? Most reviews I've read (even if positive) don't even make the claim.

Even this positive review states:

So while we're on the subject of iPad, let's have the talk. No, the Kindle Fire is not anywhere close to being the precision machine that the iPad 2 is.

http://technolog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/11/14/8790557-kindle-fire-review-yes-its-that-good

Even the launch reviews contradict each other on same subject:

Frankly, we expected more from the Kindle Fire's Silk browser, and its results were disappointing...

Same article:

That said, app downloading was nearly two times slower than downloading on the iPad 2 and Galaxy Tab 8.9, lending credence to the possibility that the Kindle Fire is just slow all around when it comes to Internet downloading. As you can see, comparatively, it was certainly slow in our tests under the conditions we stated above.

Read more: http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-19736_...-vs-tab-8.9-performance-speeds/#ixzz1gB3pAqzL

http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-19736_7-57324233-251/kindle-fire-vs-ipad-2-vs-tab-8.9-performance-speeds/

-and the contradictory review-

Speaking of fluid, the Fire's Silk browser is nice and quick, and only gets faster as it wises up to your browsing patterns.

http://technolog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/11/14/8790557-kindle-fire-review-yes-its-that-good

 

[jsh1120]

You must be in our own reality distortion field. Please point to one source that shows the Fire has sold millions of Fires and they are in customers hands. Shipped and sold are two entirely different things.

And I wish I could understand your grammar. I have no idea what you are attempting to say with "whatever such twisted syntax means"? At least give me complete sentences.

Oh, please. In the first place, there is not a significant difference between "shipped and sold" when most sales occur via an online retailer. And while Amazon does not release sales figures for any of its Kindle products there is no serious debate among analysts that sales of KF will be somewhere between three and five million (with 3.9 million being among the most recent estimate from IHS) by the end of December.

Do you seriously believe there is some vast conspiracy among retail analysts from firms like Forrester and IHS to overestimate the sales of the KF? Such analysts make their money by providing accurate estimates to investors, not by hyping sales that don't exist.

As for the reference in the previous post, tell me what "transcends into reality" means and I'll tell you what "twisted syntax" means.

 

[*LTD*]

I wonder if Amazon will ever publish sales figures.

 

[Mac.World]

Oh, please. In the first place, there is not a significant difference between "shipped and sold" when most sales occur via an online retailer. And while Amazon does not release sales figures for any of its Kindle products there is no serious debate among analysts that sales of KF will be somewhere between three and five million (with 3.9 million being among the most recent estimate from IHS) by the end of December.

Do you seriously believe there is some vast conspiracy among retail analysts from firms like Forrester and IHS to overestimate the sales of the KF? Such analysts make their money by providing accurate estimates to investors, not by hyping sales that don't exist.

As for the reference in the previous post, tell me what "transcends into reality" means and I'll tell you what "twisted syntax" means.

Yeah, cause analysts are always right. LOL. But if you can't understand the difference between shipped and sell through, well, I can't help you. Analysts are using shipped to retailer numbers. Nothing more. Same thing they love to dofor all other Android tablets, since the sell through numbers don't lookas rosy.

While I would love to see actual numbers of Fires sold, return percentages and amount of money lost, unfortunately I will only be able to find out how much money Amazon loses at the end of this quarter.

 

[jsh1120]

Yeah, cause analysts are always right. LOL. But if you can't understand the difference between shipped and sell through, well, I can't help you. Analysts are using shipped to retailer numbers. Nothing more. Same thing they love to dofor all other Android tablets, since the sell through numbers don't lookas rosy.

While I would love to see actual numbers of Fires sold, return percentages and amount of money lost, unfortunately I will only be able to find out how much money Amazon loses at the end of this quarter.

I do understand the difference between "shipped and sell through." I also understand how Forrester and firms like IHS do their market research, something you seem not to understand. They don't simply use "shipped to retailer" numbers. They use confidential sales numbers provided by retailers (at a price) and well-designed random consumer samples to validate those numbers.

The "shipped" numbers to which you're referring are self-serving PR numbers provided by manufacturers and while you may think you're especially clever in noting they are quite different from retail sales, you're not. Market research firms know that, too.

If you want to see more detailed analyses of sales figures you'll have to pay a firm like Forrester to give you access to their work. Otherwise, you'll have to be content with their conclusions. That's how it works in the real world of business and investment.

 

[Mac.World]

[/COLOR]

I do understand the difference between "shipped and sell through." I also understand how Forrester and firms like IHS do their market research, something you seem not to understand. They don't simply use "shipped to retailer" numbers. They use confidential sales numbers provided by retailers (at a price) and well-designed random consumer samples to validate those numbers.

The "shipped" numbers to which you're referring are self-serving PR numbers provided by manufacturers and while you may think you're especially clever in noting they are quite different from retail sales, you're not. Market research firms know that, too.

If you want to see more detailed analyses of sales figures you'll have to pay a firm like Forrester to give you access to their work. Otherwise, you'll have to be content with their conclusions. That's how it works in the real world of business and investment.

And why don't i bother looking at those numbers? Because they are never right. Those firms and their analysts are good for one thing... manipulating stocks. Nothing more. You might as well throw darts at a board, as believe what these guys have to say. But, I expect you to believe any numbers as long as they favor your notions... Right up to the point when they don't. But that is what I have come to expect from you; Pointless, ill conceived, out of left field chatter, which usually has nothing to do with the topic at hand.
Bye bye... Getting ready for UFC 140. Much more entertaining than you.

 

[something3153]

No one cares. Just wait till all those people who bought them are disappointed in its performance.

I have one. You'll be waiting a while.

----------

Sort of like the Android fans who claim "Android beats Apple!" when they are comparing 2 gazillion different variants of Android OS to just a few iOS makes/models.

As the saying goes....

"Statistics is a science...but lying with statistics is an art."

That argument started sounding hollow a few years ago.

 

[J&JPolangin]

this just in! purple Ford outsells purple Hondas because there are no purple Hondas!!!
that's how much merit this article has.

...please check your facts before posting un-truths on the internet, I live in Japan and Honda does sell a factory purple color option

It's actually a good looking color = on sunny days it looks metalic purple and at night or cloudy days it looks metalic black

 

[something3153]

That's only part of the problem. I think anyone can forgive features missing such as storage and a camera for the price point, but that isn't where it ends. Not only does it lack features, it doesn't seem to do a satisfactory job at one of it's supposed highlights...web browsing. You have a browser called "Silk" but yet it is anything but. Cloud accelerated web browsing via EC2 servers?

Just curious...do you own this product? have you tested it in a place other than the working demos at Best Buy that don't allow you to test the web browser?

I own one. I've never missed the features that supposedly cripple it, and I find the web browsing perfectly adequate. Great? No. But it fits in a jacket pocket and cost less than half of what an iPad does. It's quite a win for me.

 

[jsh1120]

[/COLOR]
And why don't i bother looking at those numbers? Because they are never right. Those firms and their analysts are good for one thing... manipulating stocks. Nothing more. You might as well throw darts at a board, as believe what these guys have to say. ..

Really enjoy hearing know-it-alls on the internet disparage the work of firms that are quite successful in estimating sales, demand, and retail strategies. That's why they stay in business. Because investors who find that analysis that is no better than "throwing darts at a board" are not prone to pay for such advice.

 

[jsh1120]

Sort of like the Android fans who claim "Android beats Apple!" when they are comparing 2 gazillion different variants of Android OS to just a few iOS makes/models.

Yes, a similar level of naivete. But that's not the claim in this thread.