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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?"
A $200 tablet is unresponsive and sluggish? Shocker.
I'm not saying tablets are a "fad"- they will be around for the foresable future. However, the public's response to tablets at the moment is "fadish".
It's the cool thing to have- especially for anyone wanting to look yuppyish and in the in-crowd. Not saying they don't have function for many people (although most people would still be more practically served by a netbook).
So someone needs to fill the niche for the majority of people for whom Apple and other quality tablets are just too expensive.
So regardless of whether kindle fire is any good- it will sell because there is a need for less wealthy people to feel "with it".
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
The problem is people comparing it to an iPad2. It's not an iPad2. I don't feel sorry for anyone buying one thinking it's a cheap iPad2, nor do I think any reasonable people thought they would or should be competing for the same audience.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
People were probably hoping that Amazon was selling the Fire at a loss and that they were actually getting a $500 tablet.
Remember, You are unique...just like everyone else.
Depends what you mean by "feature wise". If we ignore screen size (7" versus 10"), memory (8GB versus 16GB), construction (plastic versus aluminum), UX (sluggish versus snappy), thickness (0.45" versus 0.34"), glass coating (none versus oleophobic), camera (none versus front and back), and bluetooth (none versus yes), the features are competitive.
The Fire may be a better value for you if you don't *want* the iPad's extra features, but it's not like there's feature parity for the $300 price difference.
If I wanted a sig I would have filled in that stupid box.
Even if it can be rooted, that will not make it succeed. How many people can actually root a device?
I think the 90% (maybe more) of the people that buys a Kindle (or any tablet) do not even know about what rooting a device is.
This.
The whole story is partisan trash; I invite anyone to go to the articles source and browse the archives. They literally have a "why this is going to fail" article for every major Android product release, obscure "experts" decrying the benefit of any tech not found in iPhones (quad-core processors, newer nVidia chips, etc.), talk about how new Android versions "won't save them"; they do have a (very few) positive articles about Android features, but the overwhelming majority of content on their site is anti-Android and pro-Apple. There are valid complaints to have with Android, but it's top in marketshare, and it looks just a little fishy when 90% of stories are so heavily critical of Android.
That's without getting to the meat of the matter, though. They make a lot of talk in the article about the poor reviews, about problems rearing their "ugly heads" throughout "almost every review," and then at the end they link two -- one of which calls the Kindle Fire "revolutionary" and gives it their first Editor's Choice for small tablets, and the other stating it's unquestionably a terrific value. Neither is anything but enthusiastic. So one has to wonder where, exactly, the conclusion in TFA comes from?
This is just more Apple dittohead speak. Apple makes quality products. I wish they made quality users.