Reviews of Kindle Fire Are a Mixed Bag

MrSeb writes "Ahead of tomorrow's full-scale launch of Amazon's new wunderkind, panacea, and lynch-pin of its continuing distribution domination, initial reviews of the Kindle Fire are starting to trickle in... and they're not as fantastic as we had hoped. Unsurprisingly, not a single review is denying that the bright screen, solid construction, and $200 price point make for a perfect holiday season outing — but to actually win the hearts of consumers, to steal those throbbing, Cupertino-captivated organs away from the iPad, the Kindle Fire has to be amazing... and it isn't. Throughout almost every review, one particularly telling observation rears its ugly head: the Kindle Fire can be sluggish. Page turns can lag. Menus can be slow to load. Screen touches can be unresponsive. For a device that is entirely about media consumption, the Fire will live or die depending on its perceived alacrity. If an E Ink Kindle or Nook is better for reading books, and a smartphone or iPad is better for watching movies or listening to music, what space is there for the Fire?"

Comments

Stock roms, lawl

[Anonymous Coward]

Let it get rooted, and optimized by XDA devs and we can see what the tablet can really do.

Most embarrassing

[bonch]

The most embarrassing part is that, like many Android devices, the Fire can't scroll smoothly despite having a dual core processor. Scrolling between pages is pretty important for an Amazon tablet. What is it about this task is so difficult? iOS 1.0 handled it back in 2007 on less powerful devices.

Re:Surprise

[Enderandrew]

I don't think that has as much to do with the Linux kernel so much as that Android is based on Java. And large chunks of Android (along with 99% of the apps) don't use hardware acceleration. Google wouldn't allow it initially due to differences in hardware.

Now most everyone is using one of two types of GPU in all Android devices, and hopefully the software stack starts to take advantage.

The iPhone 4S takes full advantage of offloading all UI rendering to the GPU, which makes it seem snappy and responsive.

Amazon wrote a fairly customized version of Android here, so it is their own fault if they didn't take advantage of the GPU.