Kindle Fire Review
Alan has a review of the Kindle Fire: What it isn’t: iPad killer. I don’t think anything is in iPad killer. Most iPad people love their iPads.
I played with the Fire at Target this week. My thoughts were basically that it was pretty cool but I have no idea what I would use it for.
November 21st, 2011 at 10:42 am
Tam just got one. Check out her site for details.
November 21st, 2011 at 10:57 am
I watched about 47 hrs worth of on-line reviews this weekend since my wife is trying to decide between a Kindle Fire and a Nook Color. As soon as she realized that she wanted it for more than an e-reader, she decided on the Samsung Galaxy.
November 21st, 2011 at 12:28 pm
tl;dr: Short MSFT.
The tablet thing (I have a Galaxy Tab 8.9) is incomparably better than a laptop for internet and media consumption. Going from a laptop to a tablet is like going from command-line to GUI, or from BBSs to the internet: It’s so much better, it’s not even the same tool any more. Wherever you are, if there’s wifi, it’s just there with you, like your phone but with a lot more screen real estate.
Drawbacks: Slow to type on, very little internal storage. It’ll take a couple years for Moore’s law to fix the storage, but they have bluetooth keyboards already. It’s silly to have some giant clunky keyboard bolted onto your computer 24/7 when you don’t usually need it. The laptop will soon be a niche item for developers and content creators.
7″ is a bit small for general media consumption, and 10″ felt too bulky to me. I’m hoping the 9″ size catches on. Apple needs to get the iPad down to 9″x6″ outside dimensions, because iOS is an even nicer user experience than Android.
Consumer electronics is usually about as chew-your-leg-off-to-escape fascinating as baseball statistics, but these things are cool.
November 21st, 2011 at 5:14 pm
Here’s what I’m thinking – walking through the gun show, comparison pricing real-time to gun auction sites. A tablet like the Fire is the perfect size for this – big enough to read (unlike my smart phone) but small enough to not look like I’m toting a laptop!
November 21st, 2011 at 5:28 pm
I guess it’s just human nature, but it would be nice if people would drop this “iPad Killer” trope. A number of very nice tablets have come out that have their own market niche and do quite well in them. I have owned and been researching slate computers, which the iPad and the ones with similar form factor are, since around 2001 (Fujitsu LT P-600 and a couple of Viewsonic products). At that time it wasn’t really time to railroad yet as the technology was just groping in the right direction. Now, though, there is delightful variety in what is on offer. The iPad is a very good general purpose computer (if somewhat artificially stunted through lack of easy file system access). The fire, from all reports, is a superb media device (ebooks, audio, video). They really have different niches that they cover and they cover their own niches quite well. It’s not needful for one to “kill” the other, they just need to serve their niche markets.
November 21st, 2011 at 9:40 pm
You lie! It’s absolutely vital to validate your self worth by the products you have bought and their obvious superiority to the products on which other, lesser, people have foolishly wasted their money.
Plus, you must understand that, by purchasing a car or a firearm or a consumer electronics device, you have joined a team, and that your team must utterly vanquish the other team.
November 21st, 2011 at 10:44 pm
Now Tam, that’s just mean. You do snark well, however. So I’ll shut up.