Since Amazon announced their Kindle Fire Device, to be released November 5th, I've been wanting to pre-order it. It seemed like a no brainer at first: A tablet that runs android, for much much less than the Apple iPad.
The Amazon Silk browser stores highly used content in the cloud and pre-loads it to your device when you hit a page -- In other words, it guesses what you're going to click on next, so when you hit a webpage, the Fire is working in the background to load what you're most likely next clicks will be, which results in a lightning fast experience for most users. Sounds great!
But upon further investigation, it turns out that what has happened is that Amaon has forked android in a totally different direction ... which makes me a little concerned.
...
So the question becomes, is the Kindle Fire still worth it? I want access to Android Apps, but what I'm really interested in is a cheap tablet that I can use to hit Google Reader and other sites -- I sit infront of a computer long enough during the day that I want a different experience when I'm casually browsing the web.
But is the Kindle Fire taking us in a different, bastardized direction?
Saturday, October 29, 2011
Is Kindle Fire Worth It?
Wade Williams wonders if the Kindle Fire is Still Worth it With No Ice Cream?. In particular, he cites the forked version of Android, the lack of the newest version - Ice Cream Sandwich, and the separate Amazon Android store. I think the price ($199), who it's from (Amazon), and the Amazon content ecosystem (apps, movies, music, and of course books) will make Kindle Fire a very, very popular holiday gift. Google should be worried.
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2 comments:
The Kindle Fire is the true iPad killer. It has more CONTENT than Apple and Android combined! Steve Jobs wanted to nuke Android, but Amazon was nipping in the back tablet door whilst Jobs was fighting Android! Jobs will be turning in his grave...a third tablet rival rises :)
ashane
http://www.kindlefiregeek.blogspot.com/
The beauty of most android devices, however, is that with a little research and elbow grease you can root them and install any version of the OS that you'd like, right?
Amazon seems to have said that they 1) know that this will happen with their device and 2) aren't going to do anything to make it any more difficult than usual.
What excites me is the possibility of buying a $200 tablet and putting either honeycomb or ice cream sandwich on it... (a proposition that's easier than you'd think, and if past tablets and phones are any indication there will be lots of documentation out there very shortly)
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