[imitchellg5]

That was phrased wrong. I meant that even in the light of the iPad, the Kindle has been able to sell well.

[calverson]

Yes, that is true. And I am sure that Amazon are going to make a stupidly large amount of money off of the Fire. Even if they loose money from it, they will gain huge market share into the tablet arena.

In March or April or whenever Apple announce the iPad 3 (or iPad 2S... Noooooooooo!!!!) for $499 for the base model–the Amazon Fire will look even more attractive to the average consumer who just wants a tablet, provided the iPad 3 is an incremental upgrade. (as I expect it to be)

[imitchellg5]

I'm sure they'll start making money fairly quickly. I'm guessing the greatest cost of the Fire is the screen. The viewing angles from some of the pictures I've seen look very very good. It isn't the same display as in the PlayBook (which itself has a pretty decent display). Once the display costs go down, I'm sure they'll start making money very quickly. I'd also be interested to see how many they thought they'd sell in the first quarter or so of sales. I'm guessing that they'll continue to sell like hotcakes through the holiday season, but it'll be interesting to see if they can carry those sales through the typical post-holiday slump.

[calverson]

I got my iPad a few days after release, and for the first few months had random people ask me at Starbucks and on the Metro and so on "so that's like a Kindle but with a light?" (meaning the IPS display instead of the e-ink).

Walking around with a Fire I am sure people will ask me "is that an iPad?" and then "Oh, it's like an iPad but made by Kindle?"

I'm sure, at $199 the Kindle will sell incredibly. It's also very interesting to me that the iPod Touch now starts at $199. I am sure coincidentally, but I know what I consider a more value-for-money purchase.

[freudling]

Originally Posted by calverson 

I'm sure, at $199 the Kindle will sell incredibly. It's also very interesting to me that the iPod Touch now starts at $199. I am sure coincidentally, but I know what I consider a more value-for-money purchase.

This is the point. The Touch IS competition for the 7" tablet in a very big way. If I had to choose between a 7" tablet and my iPod Touch 4G, I'd take the iPod Touch in a heart beat. There's been some press on this too.

The iPod is just too capable and portable with nary any compromises over the 7" to pass it up.

[Wiskedjak]

Very true. My daughter is reading 3 Amazon-purchased books in the Kindle app on her iPod. I, however, need a screen about twice the size of the iPod.

[Eug]

The touch sucks for reading, if you happen to be over age 25.

[freudling]

Originally Posted by Eug 

The touch sucks for reading, if you happen to be over age 25.

Early 30s, no problems. Retina display and iBooks all the way.

[imitchellg5]

I sold my iPod touch last year specifically to get a Kindle.

Did anyone here order the Fire?

[freudling]

Originally Posted by imitchellg5 

I sold my iPod touch last year specifically to get a Kindle.

Did anyone here order the Fire?

Is this some kind of straw man? Why would someone replace a Touch with a Kindle? In other words, I don't think most people buy a Touch just to read. They buy it to have all their music, movies, TV shows, contacts, and the mobile Web in their pocket, along with zillions of Apps.

The eBook functionality is a nice added benefit now with the Retina display.

Unless, of course, you needed the money...

[imitchellg5]

Sure. It's anecdotal, but I started to read a lot on my touch and found it pretty unenjoyable. So I bought the Kindle. I have a 5th gen iPod nano and a smartphone, so it's not like I don't have any less functionality.

[calverson]

Except that is three devices to replace one.

Technically, you could just have that all on a decent smartphone...

If they made an e-ink "smartphone" I would buy it in a heartbeat. And yes, I am aware of the numerous disadvantages, I just think that battery life could be killer.

[imitchellg5]

Not really, because I already had the nano and the smartphone.

[Uncle Skeleton]

The question I have is, why did you ever have a smart phone and an ipod touch in the first place? Isn't the ipod-touch just a smart phone without the phone?

[Wiskedjak]

Originally Posted by freudling 

Early 30s, no problems. Retina display and iBooks all the way.

Yes, but you aren't everybody. Different people have different needs. Not everyone is capable of reading a book off of a 3.5" screen just because you are.

[calverson]

I read on my iPod Touch when I am taking a sh*t at work–otherwise I read only on my iPad. It was hard to get used to, but now it's just like reading a normal book to me.

[calverson]

And I have a pretty severe astigmatism. Don't know if that makes a difference or not.

[Spheric Harlot]

Not really. It's why you wear glasses - unless you have a really crappy optician.

But yeah, eyesight varies.

[imitchellg5]

Originally Posted by Uncle Skeleton 

The question I have is, why did you ever have a smart phone and an ipod touch in the first place? Isn't the ipod-touch just a smart phone without the phone?

Because it's an Android phone and I need to be reminded that there are good UI designers out there. Oh, and games.

[Eug]

Originally Posted by freudling 

Early 30s, no problems. Retina display and iBooks all the way.

OK, wait a decade then, until your presbyopia starts to rear its ugly head. Then you'll be screaming for that 7" tablet again like you were last year.

The iPhone / iPod touch just isn't designed for reading for long periods. Actually, none of the LCD-endowed tablets really are either, but at least it's infinitely better on a 7" or 10" tablet than it is on a 3.5".

For reading: Book >> e-ink >> 7"/10" tablet >>>> iPhone/iPod touch

[calverson]

After the recent news, I saw this thread and thought... a Kindle what???

[freudling]

I've been saying this over and over again. 7" tablets are tweeners, throwing down with Steve Jobs.

Then many of you argue against this, and say that the 7" form factor is the perfect replacement for "a novel/standard size book". That it will do well. That the iPad is "too big".

Then reality hits:

Wired reviews Amazon’s tiny-screen Kindle Fire: Web browsing sucks, emotionally draining, makes reading a chore

The Verge reviews Amazon’s tiny-screen Kindle Fire: Uninspired, confusing, incredibly unoriginal

Engadget reviews Amazon’s tiny-screen Kindle Fire: Sluggish, clunky, too limiting and restricted

NY Times’ Pogue reviews Amazon’s tiny-screen Kindle Fire: Sluggish, ornery, unpolished

[imitchellg5]

Did you even look at the reviews?

The Verge:

[Wiskedjak]

I think you're only seeing what you want to see, and are ignoring the rest.

From the same Engadget article:
"So, the Kindle Fire is great value and perhaps the best, tightest integration of digital content acquisition into a mobile device that we've yet seen. Instead of having a standalone shopping app the entire tablet is a store -- a 7-inch window sold at a cut-rate price through which users can look onto a sea of premium content. It isn't a perfect experience, but if nothing else it's a promising look into the future of retail commerce."
Amazon Kindle Fire review -- Engadget

[Eug]

Heh. He didn't even link those reviews.

I read a few, and it seemed the main complaints include the lack of polish and the jerkiness, and there were mixed reviews of Silk.

Some did complain about the screen size, but others seemed to like it.

BTW, Giz seemed to like the Fire.

Kindle Fire Review: The iPad Finally Has Serious Competition

Like

Reading, watching, browsing, and listening on the Fire are all tremendous, easy fun. Books, even very long ones, spring open quickly; page turning is, most of the time, very responsive. Typeface settings allow a variety of visual tweaks to set each page the way you like it, and whether in landscape or portrait mode, books look great on the dense, 1024x600 screen. It's neither Retina Display nor e-ink, no. But for a conventional LCD, it looks about as great as you can expect—after hours of reading on a dark train, my eyes felt fine. Graphics-rich magazines look lush, even when their pages don't quite fill the screen. If you don't care so much about glossy layout, the Fire bakes in a stripped-down text mode, a la Instapaper. Clever and convenient.

But it's not just about reading, you big nerd. This is a media machine, not a mere e-reader. You'll be able to switch between your novel, an episode of Archer, or the latest issue of the Washington Post with only a few taps. And that's where the rich lather of Prime really starts to work. Your membership yields you unlimited streaming flicks and TV episodes, making casual watching as fun as television couch surfing. Watch the beginning of Bridesmaids. Get bored. Watch that scene in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind that you love so much. Want to spend a few bucks to buy a movie or episode? It'll be stored in Amazon's cloud, so you can watch it anywhere you've got a wireless connection, and never have to sweat storage. Or, download it straight to the Fire before you hit the road. Up to you.

Oh, and that much bandied browser, Silk? It works just as well as Amazon said—pages rendered fine and rapidly, thanks to the cloud-crunching, and can be bookmarked, emailed (via Amazon's capable little native client), Facebook shared—and yes, tabbed. Silk is as real a browser as mobile Safari, and ultra legible thanks to that book-worthy display. Pinch it! Zoom it! It's great. The best part is it'll only become faster as more beings start caching their online journeys for the rest of us. Thanks, fellow Kindle Fire owners! We're in it together!

It sounds horribly corny, but you'll feel a little powerful using the Fire, in a consumer couch potato kind of way The volume of stuff that's available for your brain to munch on is so immense and easy to grab that the Fire feels massive beyond its small-ish frame—which, by the way, is sturdy and satisfying to hold, like a good paperback.

A paperback filled with internet magic and delectable liquid crystal. The Kindle Fire is a spigot, and Prime tastes delicious.

No Like

I said the Fire is very responsive, most of the time. Most of the time, yes. But when it's not, it's awful. There's absolutely no excuse for a machine with these guts to be unable to turn pages with zero lag. It has two cores, for Chrissake. What are they being used for? Lag is, other than using your tablet to bludgeon someone to death, the worst possible sin of portable computing. Unfortunately, the Fire is probably cursed with the same blood as every other Android device that can't manage to run a mile without tripping over its laces. Luckily for Amazon, its tablet is among the peppier around—but it's pretty pathetic that it can't match the iPad at this point. Paper doesn't lag. Your Kindle shouldn't either. A pity.

Figure. This. Out. And fix it.

Aside from the occasional chop, your main beef will likely be with the Fire's sole—but quite glaring—interface hole. There's no dedicated home button. To return to your content shelf HQ, you have to tap squarely in the middle of the screen, which brings up a soft home button. This would be fine, except most of the time you'll turn a page by mistake, rather than trigger the navigation bar. It's dunce cap design, made all the more glaring by the great design surrounding it.

Should you buy it

If you like what Amazon Prime has going on in the kitchen, the Fire is a terrific seat. It's not as powerful or capable as an iPad, but it's also a sliver of the price—and that $200 will let you jack into the Prime catalog (and the rest of your media collection) easily and comfortably. Simply, the Fire is a wonderful IRL compliment to Amazon's digital abundance. It's a terrific, compact little friend, and—is this even saying anything?—the best Android tablet to date.

---

I haven't used a Fire yet, but my guess is I won't like reading magazines on it either. Fortunately for me, I don't give a damn. I don't read magazines on the iPad either. I think they're stupid. I'd rather just read their webpages.

Very important though is the price. If I can surf on the thing with not too much lag, and check my email, then $200 has me interested. At $500 for the iPad? Not so much.

I won't be buying with the current CPUs though. I might get one when the new crop of tablets go with ARM Cortex A15.

[freudling]

I was just going to post: bring on the dogma. The same old MacNN party line.

[freudling]

Originally Posted by Wiskedjak 

I think you're only seeing what you want to see, and are ignoring the rest.

From the same Engadget article:
"So, the Kindle Fire is great value and perhaps the best, tightest integration of digital content acquisition into a mobile device that we've yet seen. Instead of having a standalone shopping app the entire tablet is a store -- a 7-inch window sold at a cut-rate price through which users can look onto a sea of premium content. It isn't a perfect experience, but if nothing else it's a promising look into the future of retail commerce."
Amazon Kindle Fire review -- Engadget

I posted it didn't I? Yes, I read it.

7", a sweet spot indeed. So sweet how all the 7" have cleaned up, like the PlayBook and all the rest of the 7"ers.

[freudling]

Wired's conclusion:

Pretty much all text must be tapped into a magnified view, and that’s a telling indicator of why so many people avoided 7-inch tablets the first time they were floated to the public last year: They suck for web browsing.

WIRED A great platform for casual video playback. A perfectly fine Android 2.3 app device. A price that pleads “buy me,” repeatedly, until you crack a big grin, and give in like a good-natured father buying trinkets for the kids at Wal-Mart.

TIRED Small screen size and insufficient processing power. Crap browser performance. Near useless as a magazine reader, and roundly trumped by superb e-ink Kindles as a book reader.

Pogue, even though an Apple fanboy:

Magazines are supposed to be among the best new features. Most offer two views. There is Page View, which shows the original magazine layout — but shrunken down too small to read, and zooming is limited. Then there is Text View: simple text on a white background. It’s great for reading, but of course now you’re missing the design and layout, which is half the joy of reading a magazine. And Text View sometimes loses words, cartoon captions and so on.

The Fire deserves to be a disruptive, gigantic force — it’s a cross between a Kindle and an iPad, a more compact Internet and video viewer at a great price. But at the moment, it needs a lot more polish; if you’re used to an iPad or “real” Android tablet, its software gremlins will drive you nuts.

Jon Phillips reports:

It really does bring something fresh and clever to the tablet space — namely, an insanely low price...but its real-world performance and utility match neither...public expectation, nor the standards set by the world’s best tablets. ... Fire lives at the bottom of the...food chain — and this limits what the Fire can actually do. ... [But] the Fire is pretty good bargain for anyone who’s only comfortable with cautious toe-dipping in...murky (and expensive) tablet waters.
...
Despite all claims from Amazon that its Silk browser technology would bring sublime web-surfing performance...I found the tablet’s overall web experience to be quite ratty. ... A great platform for casual video playback. ... Near useless as a magazine reader.

There's also some positive reviews out there, from MSNBC, Fox News, and a few other spots. We'll wait and see what the real user reviews are and how well this thing sells. I have already predicted it'll flop.

[freudling]

Originally Posted by Eug 

Very important though is the price. If I can surf on the thing with not too much lag, and check my email, then $200 has me interested. At $500 for the iPad? Not so much.

I won't be buying with the current CPUs though. I might get one when the new crop of tablets go with ARM Cortex A15.

You're just still not getting it. Over and over again I've put out there: smartphones/iPod Touches... you don't need a tweener tablet when you have these multi-touch, pocketable devices. People won't buy 7" tablets for Web surfing and Email. They're a dead form factor. Too big to compete with smartphones, too small to compete with a laptop. That's Jobs, and he's right.

[Lateralus]

Technolog - Kindle Fire review: Yes, it's that good

[freudling]

Originally Posted by Lateralus 

Technolog - Kindle Fire review: Yes, it's that good

It must be that good then. If you post a link, according to the rules, you should provide some dialogue on it.

I'll bet anyone here $100 USD that this thing ends up being a complete flop. I'll take the first person who replies to this post wanting to make the bet. After some initial hype (3 months), it's going to falter and then flop. High return rates, less and less sales, etc. Headline articles, "Amazon struggling to gain traction with Kindle Fire".

Must use PayPal.

[imitchellg5]

I'll take that bet.

[ShortcutToMoncton]

All I've got to say is that I'm ordering the Kindle Touch. Lookin good.

[ort888]

You guys are going to have to have some sort of real tangible way to settle this bet... because I'm thinking it will be somewhere between a flop and a hit.

It will sell... and sell okay... but it's not going to make a huge dent.

What it's more likely to do is knock the bottom out of the non-iPad market and force everyone to drop prices, which will end up making a dent in the iPad as a collective force.

The reviews are pretty bad if you ask me. First and foremost it needs to have a killer browser... and if it can't nail that, it's a tough sell.

[Lateralus]

Originally Posted by freudling 

If you post a link, according to the rules, you should provide some dialogue on it.

Why? You don't read for any purpose other than to pick out and manipulate tiny bits of information that suit your purpose and your opinions.

[freudling]

Originally Posted by imitchellg5 

I'll take that bet.

You're on.

[freudling]

Originally Posted by ort888 

You guys are going to have to have some sort of real tangible way to settle this bet... because I'm thinking it will be somewhere between a flop and a hit.

It will sell... and sell okay... but it's not going to make a huge dent.

What it's more likely to do is knock the bottom out of the non-iPad market and force everyone to drop prices, which will end up making a dent in the iPad as a collective force.

The reviews are pretty bad if you ask me. First and foremost it needs to have a killer browser... and if it can't nail that, it's a tough sell.

In my review of the Samsung Galaxy 10.1 Tablet, I knocked the performance and browser. I had high hopes for Android 3.0+, but it hasn't gone according to what some people's expectations were, including mine.

The browser is brutal. Performance is bad on all Android tablets now, particularly compared to the iPad. Sluggish. Lags. The Fire is no different. I knew Silk was just a half-baked attempt at something to differentiate itself. Marketing... I kept telling everyone that it's just Android afterall, a fatal flaw. If I were Amazon, I would get out of that mess and buy webOS or something if they really want to commit to colour, multi-touch tablets. But Amazon doesn't have money to burn. They're profits are virtually nothing. This is a huge bet they've made. Now, the Kindle Touch. Ok, not half bad. Stick to what's been "working". The only issue is, it's not really a money maker for them either.

By the way, WP7 rips ass on Android in terms of performance. Love or hate MS, the only other mobile OS I really like besides iOS and webOS is WP7. It actually performs better than anything out there other than iOS. Good old MS knows what they're doing. Doesn't mean you have to love WP7, it's just a comparison.

Most would agree at this point that Android is a complete failure in the tablet space. It's not working. I really liked only one: the Samsung Galaxy 7". But it wasn't something I was really using at all. And no way as good as the iPad.

It's going to take a fresh newcomer to the tablet space to make some noise, and if MS does everything right, that's going to be Nokia/Sony/maybe Samsung with WP7/8. This is the new software needed to make a go at the tablet space. Android is a flop. WP7 has the innovation, uniqueness, hardware acceleration, and fit and finish to get some traction. Just need some sexy devices to go along with it.

[Shaddim]

To be quite frank, Android's mostly non-accelerated GUI is crap. The hesitations and stutters, on even the fastest devices, are inexcusable. There's no reason why that should happen on a high-powered phone like a SGSII, but it does. Plus there's the quirks, like how no Android device I own will automatically connect to known wifi hotspots with regularity, leaving me to do it manually. Or how app updates fail constantly, leaving me to retry 2-3 times until they're successful. Oh, and my favorite, memory leaks in the OS and various apps that run my battery down in a matter of a few hours while the display is off, unless I cycle power on the tablet.

There are a lot of things to like about Android, it's flexibility, customization potential, and features are top notch. But as a day-in-day-out mobile OS, iOS smashes it to pieces.

[Wiskedjak]

Originally Posted by freudling 

I posted it didn't I? Yes, I read it.

7", a sweet spot indeed. So sweet how all the 7" have cleaned up, like the PlayBook and all the rest of the 7"ers.

Point is, you're cherry picking the reviews, quoting the parts that agree with and dismissing the ones that don't.

[Shaddim]

Most people who are tech savvy have smart phones, and a 7" tablet just isn't that much bigger. 9-10" tablets are the sweet spot, no scrolling or pinching to see a whole web page. I own two 7"ers, a Nook Color and a Galaxy Tab, and there just isn't enough screen real estate for a dedicated multimedia device.

[imitchellg5]

You're saying a smartphone is better at devouring media than a 7" device?

[Shaddim]

Originally Posted by imitchellg5 

You're saying a smartphone is better at devouring media than a 7" device?

Not much difference, really. For media consumption, a 9"+ device is far superior. It's one of the reasons why the iPad, and the Transformer, to a lesser extent, has been so wildly successful. The thing is, for entertainment, you need something that's either ultra portable or has generous screen real estate. A smart phone covers the first, a larger tablet the second, but a smallish tablet is neither.

Now, for an e-reader, a 7" e-ink display is fine. But when things get more complex, and you move to LCD, that size just isn't as attractive. Also, there's battery life, a 7" tablet will suck on that count, offering just a few hours. Whereas e-ink readers, larger tablets, and smart phones blaze ahead again, due to size restraints on the Li-ion cells.

No, I don't see tablets of that size being a huge hit in the long run, but when Amazon hauls out their own 10"er for ~$300, Apple will finally see some real competition.

[Shaddim]

I just read the following, and they're 100% correct. This isn't the tablet you've been waiting for.

Is This Really the Tablet Everyone’s Talking About? | Product Reviews | Wired.com

[mduell]

Originally Posted by Shaddim 

Most people who are tech savvy have smart phones, and a 7" tablet just isn't that much bigger.

Yes, it's only four times the size of a phone. But somehow if you double the size to 10" that makes it completely different.

[freudling]

Originally Posted by mduell 

Yes, it's only four times the size of a phone. But somehow if you double the size to 10" that makes it completely different.

Can we just stop this bickering? I work in publishing, and after all the testing, 7" tablets are a dead end for most content. Most all reviews corroborate this. They all complain about how horrible the 7" screen is for interactive content.

This is a fact. Anybody who thinks otherwise is either ignorant, trolling, or otherwise. I simply don't believe people on here really believe half the stuff they write. Does anybody in this thread own a Kindle Fire? Does anybody own a 7" multi-touch tablet?

At any rate, they've all failed, with the Nook showing modest success. However, I never see anybody with a Nook. I have yet to see hard numbers of sales with them. Like actual sell through, non returns.

This whole thing isn't that difficult. Jobs told the world the solution, and over time I think he's right. 7" tablets are tweeners. A total dead end for multi touch tablets because the iPad category and smartphone category already exists, effectively cancelling out this middle category.

If 7" tablets were that great, I'd be recommending them up and down. I'd be betting my business on them. I gave them a lot of my time. They're just not worth the time and effort.

[imitchellg5]

Originally Posted by freudling 

Can we just stop this bickering? I work in publishing, and after all the testing, 7" tablets are a dead end for most content. Most all reviews corroborate this. They all complain about how horrible the 7" screen is for interactive content.

This is a fact. Anybody who thinks otherwise is either ignorant, trolling, or otherwise. I simply don't believe people on here really believe half the stuff they write. Does anybody in this thread own a Kindle Fire? Does anybody own a 7" multi-touch tablet?

How are you getting all these "facts" about a device that started shipping today? No, nobody on this thread owns a Kindle Fire!

[Eug]

Heheh. It's amusing to see him froth at the mouth.

Anyways, I'd consider buying an A15 based 7" machine, as I'd just use it for surfing and email.

P.S. Ironically, the only e-publications I have paid for are all web-page based, and I use either a laptop or a desktop to access them. (They're work related.) I do not use my iPad for them. And quite frankly I don't give a chit about e-mags on the iPad either, because I think the current e-mag world is almost as irrelevant as the hard-copy mag world is becoming these days. I don't pay for their printed mags, and I have no interest in their electronic versions either. I mean really, do I really need to subscribe to Wired to have their opinion on tech?

The last time I read Wired was when I was sitting in the dentist's office waiting for my cleaning. That goes for Time too. Hell, I don't even keep the free e-mags on my iPad either.

[Wiskedjak]

Can't we please just stop bickering .... and agree that I'm right?

[freudling]

Originally Posted by Wiskedjak 

Can't we please just stop bickering .... and agree that I'm right?

Can't we please just stop bickering .... and agree that I'm right?

[imitchellg5]

Your creativity astounds me.