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Many Early Adopters of the Amazon Fire Are Unhappy
Hugh Pickens writes "The NY Times reports that the Kindle Fire, Amazon's heavily promoted tablet, is less than a blazing success, with many of its early users packing the device up and firing it back to the retailer. A few of their many complaints: there is no external volume control. The off switch is easy to hit by accident. Web pages take a long time to load. There is no privacy on the device; a spouse or child who picks it up will instantly know everything you have been doing and the touch screen is frequently hesitant and sometimes downright balky. Amazon's response was: 'In less than two weeks, we're rolling out an over-the-air update to Kindle Fire.' The only problem with that is many of the complaints are hardware related and no amount of software can fix one of the early blunders: 'The fire is shipped in a box that advertised on the outside of the box exactly what it is. "Hello, you, thief, please come steal me!"' wrote one would-be customer who, as you might guess, had her Fire stolen and was left with the box. This was supposed to be an iPad killer, with its much lower price point, but Apple is tough to beat because most of its mistakes are software-based."
Another "iPad killer" in the dustbin. You are not going to compete with Apple with some cobbled together piece of junk. The iPad is positioned to be as dominant as the iPod in the mp3 player market.
Might as well buy a Kia and complain that it's not as polished of a driving experience as a BMW.
I have a Kindle Fire. I generally like it but the gripes above apply (no volume control, no security/locking for reading history, etc).
I can't wait to install a replacement version of android that's more like what you find on other tablets and phones: http://liliputing.com/2011/12/cyanogenmod-7-performance-on-the-amazon-kindle-fire-video.html
(I have no association with whatever site that is, I'm just exciting to be getting cyanogenmod on the fire).
Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
"Itâ(TM)s expected to sell well among parents who always buy the wrong thing." according to Seth Meyers from SNL
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
A SD card slot is also on the missing list ?
I picked up my kindle fire about three weeks ago. I will not even try to hide the fact that it has flaws. However, the feature list for the price is exactly what I wanted.
It's no iPad killer, but anyone who thinks they're going to get a 200 dollar product to replace a 500 dollar+ one is delusional.
it has been on every frigin tech news site. Sicker yet of all the frigin people complaining about a $200 dollar device because they think it should be as polished and as feature rich as a $500+ device. The Fire is awesome at what it was designed for, consuming media at a budget. I think it was all the hype about the "iPad killer" and everyone was expecting so much more.
The Kindle Fire still seems like an interesting device for its main function: consuming Kindle content. But if you want to do more with it, it is clearly limited. Who realistically expected otherwise? Indeed it is cheaper than an iPad, but if every few minutes you get irritated then saving up more for an iPad is the best strategy for everyone except the most Apple-hating zealot.
"There is no privacy on the device; a spouse or child who picks it up will instantly know everything you have been doing."
I don't know the situation for the complainers, but my Kindle Fire has a passcode enabled.
Settings > Security > Lock Screen Password
Actually many hardware problems can be fixed with software.
You can not change physical switch position, but with software you can change how long you need to keep switch in specific position until it will do something. So you can fix most of the problems with software when problems are that device is turned off or put on sleep mode by accident touch.
Of course software can not add a external volume buttons, but with software you can bind some existing buttons to work as such (if there is such buttons). Or you can add a easy to access virtual button to offer those functions. It is more a hack but can work for many.
The sensitivity of touch screen can be fixed with software, as software rules again how the input data is being used. Better to have very sensitivite input touch screen and then slow down outpus what with software.
What comes to privacy, well, that can be fixed with software as well, place PIN code or something similar. Add lock to every application and make a easy way to delete history of web browsing or book history etc.
for Christmas.... D'oh!
Apple is tough to beat because most of its mistakes are software-based
Apple is tough to beat because most of its mistakes are user based.
Huh? What does that mean?
Write boring code, not shiny code!
"a spouse or child who picks it up will instantly know everything you have been doing"
So don't sit around the house looking at porn.
"The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old......They literally know nothing." - Ben Rhodes
Amazon has had hardware products since 2007. They have been in the tablet buisness longer than Apple has.
It's as if the millions of dollars and man-hours of research apple puts in to making their products usable actually matters to the end-user! Who knew that would pan out!
The fire is nice for what it is. It's a low priced tablet designed to utilize Amazon's services. It happens to have some leftover 'muscle' to do some other tablet tasks, just don't expect it to replace an ipad. That's not what it was designed to do.
really, what twit came up with that type of button and its location?
The browser was actually worse than I expected, however I still keep the Fire on the breakfast table for catching up on email. Why? Because it is very one hand friendly. That form factor is great for just holding one handed while eating with another. I know it sounds silly to some, but I like tend to read by holding a paper or such in my left hand it is sized just right to do so. The iPad actually doesn't work so well because of is size.
That said, that browser just sucks. Battery life could be better than they would have been better off with no speakers. To me an ideal seven inch tablet would have a rear facing camera again because the form factor/size is much more ideal than my iPad.
Reading books was fine, getting them was not because again the browser needs help. Use it upside down, it still works and hitting that stupid power button is mostly a non issue then.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
The Fire arrives configured for Amazon One Click purchases, and the option to disable this does not work. Anyone who picks up your Fire will be able to order anything they like without any password, PIN, or other attempt to verify the purchase being made.
See here: Serious Security Flaw In The Kindle Fire
And I would cladly take 4:3 ration over any 16:9/16:10 ration screens. As I LOVE to use device in vertical direction instead just in horizontal and I want to see more from webpages without scrolling.
The 4:3 is great for pads.... give me a iPad with 12-15" screen and I would be very happy with it as drawing board.
Was this article funded by Apple? It's very biased, as demonstrated by the fact that they cite the 22% of people who don't like the Fire rather than the 88% who clearly do. Even if _every_ one of those 22% gave it one star and _every_ one of the other 88% gave it only 4 stars, it's still a 3.75 rating. My wife got one a while back and she loves it. Sure, it's not an iPad, but it's also only $199, and it fits in a good-size pocket. It's a great little tablet for the price of two nice dinners. I sill prefer the real e-ink, but for getting all the additional tablet features, I'd say it's a pretty good compromise. Sure, it could use some improvements, but its the first generation, and it does what its advertised to do. Anyone used to Android should have no problem with it.
It's designed to consume Amazon services. It does that quite well. It also plays angry birds.
I've been boycotting Amazon ever since they started bullying states into dropping sales taxes.
I think they're just trying to keep from having to report taxes in thousands of local tax districts - many of which span zip codes, making it difficult and expensive to comply. Amazon does support a national proposal to simplify and streamline state sales tax collection.
I bought my girlfriend a Kindle and a couple gift cards, but aside from maybe a few more books for her Kindle, Amazon won't be getting any more of my money.
That's not much of a boycott - by buying a Kindle you've locked her into purchasing further e-books from Amazon (unless she buys all unprotected content that can be viewed on the Kindle). You should have gone for a Nook.
It means he wants a +3 Insightful next to his post.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
You know you have problems when you have fewer buttons than the equivalent Apple device.
Bogtha Bogtha Bogtha
Except by all accounts, nearly none of these problems exist for the Nook Color which is the same price. The Nook Color is slower than an iPad, but it is generally responsive and fairly well polished, especially after a year of updates. The Kindle Fire by comparison is a shoddy rushed product.
So this is like buying a Kia when you could have gotten a better Hyundai for the same price.
I'm an owner, and am VERY satisfied with my device.
The complaints I have are minor. It can take a little bit for it to connect to a wifi network, but that's not a huge deal. Sometimes, it's a little sensitive in registering taps, but that's once again not a big issue. The carousel is a little too speedy for my liking, but I rarely use it, and when I do, it's usually just to open the very most recent thing I've opened.
I haven't noticed any real speed issues with it; at least, nothing show-stopping. Books read fine. If you're trying to fly through a bunch of pages like you're thumbing through a book to find a certain page, sure, it can slow down there, but I almost never do that. Games & streaming content perform perfectly.
I didn't notice any real issue with the browser; I was able to load websites faster on my Kindle than a local iPad owner, over the same wifi connection.
Typing is easy for me; in landscape mode it can be slightly difficult, but not unusable. I usually use portrait mode, anyway.
The lack of physical volume controls doesn't bother me at all. It's stupid-easy to get to, and keeps me from accidentally raising/lowering volume.
I do wish I could change the lock screen photo(s) easily, but that's not exactly important.
Regarding the lock/power button, I have NEVER accidentally tripped it, and I'm using it on a daily basis in a variety of situations.
If you look at reviews on Amazon, there are a good number of 4 and 5 star reviews; more than 3 or less.
"Better to be vulgar than non-existent" -Bev Henson
I honestly can't say why people are pissed off about it. I had a Kindle 3rd gen keyboard and now I have the Fire. I'm extremely pleased with it. I admit, the power button is awkward (particularly since its close proximity to the USB and headphone jack make it difficult to plug in my headphones at the same time as the other two), but really? It certainly isn't an instantly returnable product by any means. If people expected it to be exactly the same as an iPad, that's their fault. I played around with it at Best Buy for a while before I bought mine and had no illusions about how well it would perform. I wonder how many people have done the same that then downrated it significantly.
$199 tablet not as good as $499 tablet. News at 11:00.
Most of the complaints are from idiots from what I can see.
"There is no privacy on the device; a spouse or child who picks it up will instantly know everything you have been doing"
So when the device is picked up it instantly displays browsing history? Hello? the ipad is the same way as well as every android device made. the ipad home button is easy to hit, Granted the lack of volume buttons sucks but can be fixed with an on screen one. etc....
Sounds like the people buying it are morons and idiots expecting a $600.00 experience from a $199 device.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
I own a kindle fire and while it's not a home run by any stretch of the imagination, it's not bad. I like it...a lot. There are quite a few kinks that I really think Amazon should have known better than to not go ahead and fix. Bad word of mouth or ill will can cause a lot of damage if trust gets reduced. It could impact sales of the 2nd or 3rd generation device when they do finally get things right. By the same token, I know they were rushing something "good enough" to market in the hope of not getting left out. I guess it's a damned if you do, damned if you don't kind of situation.
FWIW,...I agree with all the gripes (and I have some other issues to boot, like graphic novels simply refuse to display on my unit. I get a white screen only and so far amazon support can't figure out the problem).
It means that the users make the mistake of using the device incorrectly.
For instance, if you recall, Apple users held their iPhones incorrectly, thereby causing antenna malfunction. Steve Jobs (RIP, Hallowed be His Name) was forced to publicly instruct iPhone users in the correct method of holding their iPhones, since their ignorance was not surmountable through regular support channels.
Another example would be with the early iPod. As you recall, users were not treating their iPods as the holy relics they rightfully should have been treated as, and instead subjected them to all kinds of profane abuse -- like putting them in their pocket with their keys. This resulted in desecration of the viewing screen on those iPods, again, totally caused by the user.
And, lest ye forget, it would be remiss of me not to mention the abhorrent failure of users to recharge their iPod batteries every two hours when using iOS4.
Seriously, though, Apple gets a pass on a lot of mistakes because they do a lot of things right. They also have major brand loyalty, which is kind of unique in the gadget world, where most people judge on features, not on styling or brand ("no wireless... less space than a Nomad... lame" is the relevant quote, I believe).
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
OMG scandal. How dare they ship a product in the box with a picture, branding, or anything else on the outside of the box. This is outright scandalous. Oh what? This is the industry norm? Oh well, move along then.
I suppose they may be complaining that the Fire got delivered without the device and that someone in the postal service or courier nabbed it. Well guess what? In that case it's insured. Heck my room mate's experience with Amazon is that they delivered something while no one was home and it was stolen (presumably or someone just delivered it to the wrong house). Amazon shipped out a replacement the day of the complaint.
Why wreak an article full of bad points about the Kindle Fire with a quote that looks like people are now really reaching for anything at all to complain about? It destroys the credibility and seriousness of the article.
That word... I do not think it means what you think it means.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
For Amazon's first go at a tablet, I think the Kindle Fire is a great product for the price of $200. It is not without flaws, but I am very happy with mine thus far. I do agree with nearly all of the complaints, but for some of them there is a workaround and (I'm guessing) a software updating coming to fix them. None of them are enough to send mine back and I've just gotten used to the touch sensitivity. The sluggishness can be an issue at times, but I wasn't expecting something super snappy for the price that I paid. An external volume control would be nice, as the device can be sleep and still be playing audio with no way to adjust it, but you can get headphones that have a volume control on them to workaround this issue. I've never had issues with web page load times except for some sluggishness at times and privacy settings/parental controls would be a very nice feature to have so you could share the device with others without them messing up your settings or viewing content you don't want them to view. The off switch problem was fixed for me by getting a cover for it, as it makes it more difficult to hit the power button in accident.
Overly simple quantitative consumer reviews measure performance against expectation (plus, a healthy dose of astroturfing sometimes). They can't really be used to compare inequivalent products, like the iPad and the Fire.
TFA is about specific features.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
The iPhone 4 is not an iPad
I bought a Playbook recently during the big sale they had. The only reason I feel it's worth mentioning this here is because of the flak I got from people saying they would rather buy the Kindle Fire for 199$ when it would be out rather than the Playbook when it was selling at the same price point.
It amazes me that people were expecting the Kindle Fire to be some high grade tablet. I wasn't expecting it to be terrible mind you but this just shows how people are putting down a perfectly good deal for a device they haven't even seen the performance of yet. I just have to shake my head on this one.
The Playbook has a lot that needs to be improved but hardware isn't one of the problems, even if the power button is hard to hit but you won't be turning this device off by accident I assure you and it does the basics stuff well which suits me fine.
I'm no trying to bash the Kindle Fire. I don't have one or have even seen one to determine it's worth. I'm just thinking people are quick to judge a product and in the case of the Kindle Fire from the article, people didn't bother to see if it was worth what they expected for 200$ and yet strangely enough, I felt the Playbook got shunned for that same 200$ value yet does seem to be able to perform well.
And I would cladly take 4:3 ration over any 16:9/16:10 ration screens. As I LOVE to use device in vertical direction instead just in horizontal and I want to see more from webpages without scrolling.
The 4:3 is great for pads.... give me a iPad with 12-15" screen and I would be very happy with it as drawing board.
You can orient the 16:9/10 screens vertically or horizontally just fine. In fact, I use my tablet vertically 90+% of the time and would lose out on that benefit with an iPad. 4:3 just doesn't make sense to me when most devices (and a lot of content) in the world has switched over to something closer to 16:9.
But, opinion is just that. Enjoy your 4:3.
Really? The basis of the article is that people expected it to be as good as the ipad and where dissapointed, and it uses consumer reviews to prove this! Directly quoting them! This is where ALL of the articles proof comes from. Your complaint is with the article not the poster.
All these negative reviews focus too much on the lack of polish of the UI is compared to the actual usefulness of the device. It's UI lags behind iOS, but it is about the same as a mid range Android device, which are widely successful.
I own the Kindle Fire, and its flaws are really just minor annoyances with device, but the overall experience is good enough. I can surf the Internet, watch videos and play graphic intense games no problem and the small form factor makes it comfortable to hold in one hand. Just because you occasionally have to double tap on a button or experience a 1/2 second lag every once in a while, doesn't mean that the $200 tablet is a failure.
Apple is tough to beat because most of its mistakes are user based.
Huh? What does that mean?
It means you're holding it wrong ...
This device was never intended to be an iPad killer. Amazon itself said as much. The linked article makes it sound like it was set to be an iPad killer by "important people," but the link just links back to another pcmag.com article. What a joke.
The fire is not intended, has not been intended to be an iPad killer. It's a cheap tablet device that does what many people need it to do without all the extras that the iPad has that some people will never use. It's one of the primary reasons I returned my iPad and got a Color Nook and rooted it - the Nook did everything I wanted a tablet to do at a fraction of the price. If I were to do the same thing today, I would buy a fire instead of a Nook.
The article looks at a few individual reviews on amazon's website, to support its claim that consumers are unhappy with the device, however overall if you look at the average of these ratings they are on par with the iPad. And the statement that "some of the early adopters are unhappy" is relatively useless as it could be applied to the iPad or any other device and still be true. Where is the substance to this argument?
That's not much of a boycott - by buying a Kindle you've locked her into purchasing further e-books from Amazon (unless she buys all unprotected content that can be viewed on the Kindle). You should have gone for a Nook.
On /. of all places... believe it or not, its possible to download stuff for free off the internet. Not just music and movies, either.
Adding to the weirdness it depends what she's into, but Amazon "sells" a heck of a lot of zero price content from their storefront. If you're classically educated you can get pretty much a whole lifetime library downloaded for free. The final weirdness, if you read classics, see above, you can go to PG and perfectly legally download free (old) books and toss them on the kindle if amazon for whatever weirdness isn't offering them for free. Just select .mobi format on PG, plug the kindle in like a flash drive, save it there, all done. Not terribly difficult or stressful.
I will say this for my Kindle, despite the best efforts of astroturfers the e-ink display sucks and its glacially slow. But its bigger than my ancient ipod touch, and much lighter than my ipad, with wireless off it runs freaking forever, and its cheaper than dirt (a new non-spam kindle is about the cost of one college level hard cover textbook. ONE BOOK. not $600 or $200 or whatever)
I know a bunch of places I can get .. um.. any book I want for free. I know two places I can get legal kindle content, amazon and free stuff from PG. The astroturfers need to work harder to educate us about the nook because all I know is I assume you can get legal content from the b+n website, and thats it, don't know anything about these supposed 3rd party book vendors.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
Ugh, now I am that parent. I ordered my daughter a Nook Simple Touch ($99 E-Ink reader) for Christmas this year because (1) she really likes to read, (2) reading is the only thing I want her to do on it, and (3) $99 is about my upper limit for a portable electronic device for a kid. But now her friend has an iPad and all the other kids are awestruck by it. I used to have my daughter pretty well brainwashed against i-devices (she would say, "don't call my mp3 player an iPod!) but peer influence is so much stronger than parental as they get older.
No, my issue is with the poster.
The OP wrote that the products must be equivalently good, since they have approximately the same consumer rating. This is not a valid conclusion, for the reason pointed out in my prior post.
Both the article and the summary point out the feature/flaw gaps between the two products.
To spell out my point again, since you seemed to have missed it the first time:
You cannot use 5-point overall consumer review ratings as the end-all of product comparison, since the consumer ratings used for the different products are not equivalent. The Fire was not rated according to the same set of specifications that the iPad was rated. Qualitative analysis is much more useful, which is where we find the feature and flaw gaps between the products, which is described in the article and the summary.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
The amount of bitterness emanating from your post is enough to power a whole room full of returned Kindle Fires.
"All available data points" = whatever user-written reviews an anonymous poster on Slashdot claims to have seen. Sorry, guys, story disproved!
The only people I have heard call it a supposed "iPad killer" are Apple sycophants who assume that everything in the world that looks like an iPad might unseat it from it's throne. Low self esteem or unsure of their core beliefs or something.
Disclaimer I use Apple stuff but I hate fanboys of all stripes (except OSS fanboys those my homies)
I disagree. The article is explicitly about people being unhappy with the kindle and returning, it uses consumer reviews to prove this, yes it mentions specific flaws, however that is not the basis of their argument, their argument is about users being overall unhappy and returning it, something facts don't support. I summed up my view better in a comment below: The article looks at a few individual reviews on amazon's website, to support its claim that consumers are unhappy with the device, however overall if you look at the average of these ratings they are on par with the iPad. And the statement that "some of the early adopters are unhappy" is relatively useless as it could be applied to the iPad or any other device and still be true. Where is the substance to this argument?
The Fire is meant as a consumer device. Connected to the Amazon store. To read books, watch videos and/or movies, listen to music, read magazines, etc. It's not meant to compete with the iPad, and Bezos said that up front. Yes, it only has 8GB onboard storage. Most of the heavy stuff is meant to be streamed. You're not going to be storing mass amounts of data on it. And not all of us care in the least about jailbreaking it or cracking it or rootkitting it or any of that. That's not why we bought it.
I preordered one, got it, and I love it. The box it arrived in did not announce it was a Kindle Fire, it was in a normal Amazon box. I do agree, the lack of external volume controls is awkward. That being said, my 11yo stepson figured the thing out in about 10 minutes and loves it, too. No one that I've let play with it has accidentally powered it off. I have noticed sluggish touch-screen response, but nothing that keeps me from working or reading. Yes, the Amazon app store if limited, but I imagine it will grow modestly. For now, all the major apps that most normal people use are there and available.
I think the only people who were disappointed or mislead were expecting too much. They didn't read the details, they just saw "tablet for a lot less than iPad" and thought it would be something amazing. It's not amazing, but it is completely and totally adequate for what it is meant to do. Seriously, what are you expecting from a $199 device? That says up front that it is a media consumption device? Get real.
Baseless self confidence kills more people each year than bathtubs.
I bought one for myself. I have, admittedly, never owned one of the previous Kindles. I have had it a week now, and I am rather happy with it. There are, however, a few things that I wish were different, but it's not a deal breaker.
Pros: I can read on it (the main reason I bought it) with white text on a black background (E-Ink isn't... that particular contrast.). It runs the apps in Amazon's store reasonably well. Video looks pretty good streaming. Even the PC Magazine I read on it looked pretty good.
Cons: It can be "touchy" sometimes and doesn't register button presses. I can't put custom wallpaper on the lock screen. I would like the ability to delete apps I have no intention of using again from "The Cloud", but cannot seem to accomplish this.
-Kinsey
On /. of all places... believe it or not, its possible to download stuff for free off the internet. Not just music and movies, either.
Yes, it's obviously possible to have an e-book reader and stick with all free content, and I should have said "uses unprotected content..." instead of "buys..." but his girlfriend is obviously not the kind of person who would wants only what's available for free... otherwise why would he have bought her the Amazon gift cards to go along with her Kindle and "maybe a few more books"?
If he really wanted to boycott Amazon he would have gotten her a Nook and some B&N gift cards. Buying a gift card is one of the worst ways to boycott a company - they get to hold on to your money while you tell them that you're going to protest them by not purchasing any content.
My point is that you don't boycott a company buy purchasing their device and purchasing their content. If you really want to make a stand against Amazon, support only their competition (which doesn't have to be B&N, buy a Sony reader, or one of the other competing products). I went the opposite direction - I bought a Nook and installed CM7 and Amazon's Kindle app, so I can read my Kindle content on the Nook.
I got rid of my full sized, loaded Iconia because it just didn't fit anywhere in my user profile. Who needs/wants GPS, cameras, weight, and all that? My iPhone does those things perfectly well(using it now). I wanted something exactly like the Kindle Fire.
Most of the complaints I have can be resolved by software updates. The on/off button location is annoying, though. Some apps force a certain orientation, thereby negating the "turn it over" option.
I've been boycotting Amazon ever since they started bullying states into dropping sales taxes.
The states were illegally demanding taxes be collected by an entity with no nexus in that state. Additionally, there is no database of tax by address. It's impossible for Amazon to collect the proper tax, and illegal for the states to require it. The issue is that the states are owed the tax by the residents who are not paying it. Rather than going after the tax cheats, Amazon is being targeted because it's more politically simple to tax one company not in your state than to make it clear that sales tax is owed on all purchases, even mail order, and failure to declare and pay mail order taxes will result in penalties. Because Bob was breaking the law in not paying use taxes owed, the states illegally attacked Amazon. And you are defending the states? With that logic, we should throw jaywalkers in jail for unsolved murders, as someone should pay, and they are "bad people" for having jaywalked...
Learn to love Alaska
Can someone clarify WHAT the Fire is....I thought it was a media device designed specifically to channel Amazon content, and not a fully featured tablet, hence the low price point. Isn't it unreasonable to expect so much for a 199 dollar price?
There is no security when liberty is sacrificed.
Resist. Just because the herd do it, doesn't mean you are bad for not.
Our prayers are with you. Be strong! :o)
That's the truth. My wife bought me the latest iPad and it was just too big to be comfortable in my hand. If you want a glossy coffee table book, then the iPad is fine. If you want something you can take with you and get stuff done when you're on the move, something like an HTC Flyer or a Galaxy Tab 7.7 is better. I've got the Flyer and I use it every day. The pen support is great and it'll actually fit in my coat pocket.
So now my daughter's got the iPad and I've kept the Flyer for myself. I notice that she leaves the iPad at home more often than not, but my Flyer is always close at hand.
The 7" (or even 6", if they made one) is the ideal form factor for me. It feels like holding a book instead of a serving tray and a page sets up quite nicely on the screen when held vertically.
One thing that I did think was nice about the iPad's size was that I can load PDFs of sheet music and set the iPad on a music stand and be more than a few steps away. But even there, I've got an app that will let me display (and edit) an Musicxml file, and with the nifty pen the Flyer makes a great device for working on lead sheets and scores when I'm traveling. I've tried Maestro and iComposer for the iPad, and the pen didn't work as nicely as on the android device. But to be honest, I didn't give it much time.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Steve Ballmer, is that you?
You can get the Acer A100 for $260 and it's a much better device: Android 3.2, two cameras, Bluetooth, standard Android market, etc.
The Kindle Fire (like the Nook Color and Nook Tablet from B&N) are marketed as tablets (the Nook Color was originally marketed as "the reader's tablet"), and marketing for both the Amazon and B&N devices often includes the e-Ink devices from the same vendors as preferred devices as readers while the LCD devices are pushed as tablets.
While the iPad may not be the most relevant comparison for any of these devices (their closest competitors are each other rather than anything from Apple), it is the marketing from the vendors that has invited them being compared for features as tablets rather than as "book readers".
Ditto.
I bought a Nook Color before, mod it with cm7. Pre-ordered Fire, got it on release day also. I now use Fire far more often than using Nook Color. Once I get root access to Fire and install gmail app from google I will have little reason to use NC on a daily basis.
The integration on Fire is simply awesome. Yes I don't like the no-privacy mode while browsing but I'm sure it can be fixed. I got used to the location of the power button that it is not an issue at all. At least it doesn't annoys me.
Goodness me, you must have quite the lower back issue to contend with, carrying that massive chip around.
hey fool, what are you doing talking about the other tablet by a book seller? Didn't you know Amazon does not want the press to mention that other company and it's products when mentioning their product? shame on you.
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
I can agree that somepoint they are just in the way. And I dont remember the time when I last time changed volume while on the call. It must have been when I bought phone and I set volume to max. As Nokia phones does not have so strong volume if not using speaker option and... well... you know speaker option.
I use headset anyway and on that I like the physical volume scroll if having cables. But otherwise it is from screen setting what matters.
Ah yes, the "antenna that is much, much better than the one it replaces in the 3GS that only shows the Death Grip(tm) issue when it's in areas of signal that the prior one couldn't even pick up in ideal conditions" problem.
In other words, something blown out of all proportion... perhaps something that the current article is being accused of...?
No, it wasn't.
Some of the complaints i can see are valid in some situations, but others i think it was just people being cry babies.. But its their $, so they can cry as much as they want.
And no, i don't own one, i chose a nook tablet instead, and i still don't understand all the uproar.
( and ya, that 'steal me box' was the first thing i thought too when i saw one )
---- Booth was a patriot ----
And I think these issues are being way overplayed by the tech media and some users with a big axe to grind against Amazon. It's a fine tablet with a very few rough edges that can be smoothed out with a couple of software updates. The notion that so many buyers are returning them is based on CNN counting the number of 1-star reviews at Amazon (some of which are fake) and guessing about how many are being returned, it's BS and nonsense. I've never hit the power button by mistake, web pages load just fine, and any hesitation in the interface is pretty minor and not what I would call balky. The ONLY significant hardware issue for me is that both speakers are on one side of the device. It would have been much better to split them up.
That the worst kind of flamethrowing / sniping / namecalling would be happening in here.
A**ple fankids have been the snidest bunch I've ever had the displeasure of dealing with - going all the way back to the 80's at SF Macromedia conferences, where, when the PC's crashed during presentations, howls of laughter and yelled-out snide remarks were all the rage. When the Macs crashed... polite silence. Some things never change.
I'm getting a Fire for my honey for Xmas. I'm not expecting it to be the damned second coming of Christ. Nor am I expecting it to perform on par with / exceed a $500 to $900 tablet - because I actually did my research before buying it. (And if I WERE going to buy one, you can bet yer ass it wouldn't be an iPad) The Fire is is a media consumption tablet with some extra bells and whistles - and if you compare it apples to apples (sorry) to something like an iTouch (which I have)... I'll take it in a heartbeat - if for no other reason than the fact that I don't have to use some POS proprietary software (iTunes) to get an damned MP3 on it. And for those of you who protest when someone rightfully describes iPads and iTouches as closed systems - well, hope yer enjoying the Kool Aid.
Amazon never positioned this as an iPad killer - pundits and press did - and in a sense they were right - maybe not killing the iPad as a device - but definitely taking a big chunk of the market that the iPad never could. Why? Because there are a whole bunch of folks out there who would never shell out over half a grand on a tablet. They are now.
One last thought - I work independently in tech - have for over 20 years, on both platforms. So do a bunch of friends - some of whom have actually made the plunge and bought a Fire. Everything I've heard back is positive - they think it's a lovely little device that does what they expected it to. In fact, I haven't heard a single negative.
It's funny that GP relates three factual stories (slight exaggerations, obviously, but based in fact nonetheless) with a humorous tone and two Apple fanbois (bonch and yourself) just can't handle being joked with at all.
--Jeremy
Jesus was a liberal
What the "fact" that putting your keys in your pocket with a polished metal/glass object would scratch it then wail about it being a "design flaw"?
Then some non sequitur about iPods running iOS 4 not charging batteries every 2 hours (some battery issues on some *iPhones* with *iOS5* [issue related to GPS that the iPod does not have]).
Then we have "antennagate" - the biggest non-issue to be made into a thing since the MMR nonsense. An antenna that picked up a signal over a much wider range than the one it replaced, and having a detune issue that was *slightly* accentuated compared to other phones due to the antenna being external, that only caused a problem in fringe reception areas (ie, in areas where most phones can't pick up a signal anyway).
There's joking, and there's posting nonsense. The problem with joke posts is that a lot of people go on to repeat them as facts, especially when they're about Apple. I was correcting people *this year* who were posting that the iPhone couldn't play Youtube videos, just as one example.
It's also interesting how the GPP gets +4 funny and any such joke about Android handsets gets modded into the ground. I tried to send an SMS about that, but it somehow never arrived for the person I sent it to.
The negative, as in extremely low, reviews are usually nothing but whiners. They didn't do their homework and get pissed because what they got is different than what they imagined, not what they were promised. Also a lot of them relate to shit that isn't the product. Like people who get one that is broken, and get a refund. Ok well that doesn't warrant a low rating. How about get a fixed one and see how it works?
My buying experience generally aligns with the well written (as in not one sentence) positive reviews of products. I find they are usually pretty accurate in telling me what the product is good for, and letting me know about any gotchas.
Is there any fact in this "story" at all? Who is unhappy? And what qualifies as "many" ? Tens of thousands could be unhappy and that would likely still be a very small % of overall sales. Does that mean many are unhappy? Or instead that almost everyone is happy or satisfied with their purchase? This piece is nothing more than heresay without real figures.
This whole piece reads more like sorting the reviews on a Newegg product from worst to best - when there are 20 one stars and 500 5 stars.
* It's significantly lighter!
* It plays movies as well as the iPad
* The interface is faster and easier to use than the iPad.
* The web browser is infinitely better than the cr*p browser on the iPad.
I have the original iPad and not the iPad2, maybe they fixed the horrendous UI and the lack of responsiveness of the original iPad. I find neither tablet a usable replacement for a book or an e-reader. Both that have screens too much glare to use for reading more than about 5,000 words at a time and the back-lit displays make them unsuitable for use in either low light or sunlight conditions so using either to read a book or other lengthy material out of the question.
I didn't even think of it until this was posted on slashdot, but the iPad hasn't left it's cradle since the Fire was activated.
That said there are a couple issues.
* The "power button issue" has an easy workaround, hold it so the button is on the top and not resting on your tummy. But this could have been avoided by making it not stick out and instead needing you to use the point end of a finger to push it.
* The is no way to password protect the purchase function. This means you can't have a credit card associated with the account if you have small children which in turn makes purchasing apps a chore. I'd prefer something where a password isn't required to just update apps or "purchase" free apps like on the iPad, because that is really annoying. But whenever a debit is being made against my CC I'd like a password prompt.
I have as many Apple devices as the company (literally 5 or more computers, three ipods in the house, and an ipad). I like their products a lot and I love the ipad for web browsing and such. I use it daily.
I bought a Kindle Fire last Friday and I think it's great. Is it an iPad? Well, no. But it's a nice device that doesn't have to be compared to the iPad. It stands on its own and is a fine device. It actually fits in some of my pants pockets, so I like the size even if the screen's a little smaller. It plays Angry Birds and a lot of other games, it has nice built-in software (I like Silk), and I have no problem changing the volume on-screen. The batter also lasts a long time.
I feel like this comparison is similar to the comparisons made between the iPad and some low-end netbooks or notebooks when the iPad first came out. The iPad was a different device but quite useful, and now the Kindle Fire is also a slightly different device but also quite useful. It might not be what every wants, but I think it's a fine device.
Do you have ESP?
Ugh, now I am that parent. I ordered my daughter a Nook Simple Touch ($99 E-Ink reader) for Christmas this year because (1) she really likes to read, (2) reading is the only thing I want her to do on it, and (3) $99 is about my upper limit for a portable electronic device for a kid. But now her friend has an iPad and all the other kids are awestruck by it. I used to have my daughter pretty well brainwashed against i-devices (she would say, "don't call my mp3 player an iPod!) but peer influence is so much stronger than parental as they get older.
Is she hot?
Be seeing you...
I am extremely happy with my Kindle Fire, far more than I would be with an iPad if someone had given me one for free. The form factor is right for the airplane and for reading in bed, much more useful for what I want it for than a 10" tablet would be.
It's true that exactly like the iPad, the iPhone, every Android phone, every other Android tablet, HP's ill fated WebOS tablet, most default OSX, Linux, and Windows installation with auto-login enabled, etc. that there is no privacy protection. It's a single user device, and anyone who sees the device can pretty easily determine what its user was doing on it recently (and in general). That is indeed perhaps a weakness, and I wouldn't mind having Android devices (especially tablets, but perhaps phones also) be multiuser (likewise for the iWhatever stuff).
During my most recent plane trip with my Kindle Fire, which unlike an iPad fits in my pocket, I:
* Read a variety of documents sent to the device from web pages using the Firefox Readability plugin
* Read some PDF documents
* Read (part of) some books that I purchased from Amazon
* Watched a video that I downloaded directly onto the device from a 3rd party website (in anticipation of flight)
* Listened to some music I had put locally onto the device
* Played a few moves of Words with Friends before takeoff
* Played Plants vs. Zombies while in flight
* Checked GMail and Facebook and Google+ quickly before takeoff (using Wifi connection to hotspot)
In every respect that I can see, not least including price, but even more so including Freedom, the Kindle Fire is a far better device than the iPad is.
Buy Text Processing in Python
Does the iPad not do that? All tablets (not slate computers) I have seem do not seem to be set up with user accounts.
The iPad has a large number of apps that essentially provide accounts. Plus of course for things like games there is GameCenter, where you can log in as different people.
The iPad also has parental controls safeguarding purchases. The Fire has none; once it's wired to an Amazon account you cannot block purchases (without unlinking the account which also disables some things on the tablet).
The iPad has basically lurched halfway to being a multi-user device, while the Kindle doesn't pretend to be at all to start with.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Don't worry, when the iPad 3 is released, sans volume controls, it'll be reclassified as a feature.
Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
Check your batteries on your sarcasm detector. Or maybe just get a bottle of Scotch and reboot it.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
But don't worry, you'll figure it out sooner or later, as Android tablet manufacturers will eat Apple's lunch.
They sure will.
The only problem for them is that Apple has already moved on to dinner.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Book reading. And it is quite good for that purpose. It replaces the similarly priced e-ink readers Amazon had before.
All the other functions of the Kindle Fire are secondary and are gravy.
You must have been sent a special message from Jeff Bezos, because all the Amazon marketing for the Fire has emphasized all the *other* stuff it supposedly can do. Book reading is strictly an afterthought.
It's hard to stop that inertia from carrying over into making an ever grander mistake. The kindle is a beautiful example of function. It does what it does and does so ideally. The audience for the Kindle is a rare one, too. Those of us who read books. A dying breed to be sure.
The fire is aimed at a completely alien segment. The consumer of media. The form over function. The short attention span, who lives in the world of youtube and sitcoms, chatrooms, and forums. Who has learned to replace you with u for expediency.
The mistake here was in calling it a 'Kindle', and risk harvesting some good will from those who have so far been served so well by foisting upon them a new device that both fails to understand what the audience that could possibly want it desires, and also fails to grasp what those people are like who are already loyal to the brand, such as it is.
The ipad thrives. It can be handed to a toddler who within hours will be sliding tiles with the letter A into their appropriate slot, with no training. It is intuitive and deftly executed because the creators consider all of their users to be to some degree like that toddler. Incompetent, and benignly harmful and who are best served by a very pretty black box.
The kindle, like the android phone both live in a strange world where at some degree their creators hold a secret contempt for the ignorant. They want to create tools that the brilliant can leverage, and in some darkened shadows of reason and camaraderie with their fellow geeks they are quite happy if those who 'do not get it' are de facto denied it by simple dint of a failure to quit the blinking twelves that it provides.
So many failed MMORPGS have taught us the lesson that it is not enough to merely mimic the superficial aspects of a successful venture. And understanding of why those ventures are successful stems from an understanding of the people who make those ventures successful. That is the same opacity we see here. It's not enough to make a cheaper, less approachable, less "ipad" ipad and think that anything will shadow the success.
Regardless, people will try.
"No good deed goes unpunished"
Given that the New York Times is the unpaid press office for Apple and writes what it is told in return for pre-review hardware it is clear that the story is bogus. Apple is really concerned about the success of the Fire so of course the New York Times runs a spoiler. In fact the Fire is selling well and looks pretty good. It is also a third of the price of the iPad.
When the first Kindle came out, I bought one, mainly because I wanted to read the Washington Post every morning. It was great. I used to bring it to work every day. Then the Ipad 2 came out, and after waiting for availability, I bought one. What I immediately discovered was that for reading books on e-reader, the Kindle was far superior, but I didn't want to lug around two devices. Then Amazon released an Ipad Kindle app, and I've never needed a Kindle again. It just sits on my desk and collects dust. What this did was unbelievable. When the Kindle was only black and white, books now came in color on the Ipad Kindle App. So when I heard about the Kindle Fire, I thought, "why would I need that?" And that's the problem Amazon has right now. They developed such a good alternative "free" market for reading their books that there's no need to actually buy one of their devices. As a devoted Ipad user, there's no way I'd trade down for a Kindle Fire, so all they can do is attract new people who never would have bought an Ipad in the first place (and that number dwindles every year). I'm not even an Apple fanboi, and I love the Ipad (I usually hate Apple).
Sarbonn's blog: http://www.sarbonn.com/blog
That sounds EXACTLY like an Android Tablet to me!
The main problem is that consumers see it as the "cheaper Android" version of an iPad. They expect, due to various trumpeting and possibly the fact that Apple products are always more expensive than they're worth, that the iPad is like so as well; more expensive by far than what it costs, and thus the lesser but modestly priced Android tablet would be a straight competitor.
And then they find that it's just another shoddy (in comparison) tablet with an Amazon tailored interface.
Hmm. All I'm gonna say is much as its possible to buy an ipod touch and stuff it full of legal and illegal content without ever purchasing anything from the ITMS, its is a nearly perfect analogy that you can buy a kindle and stuff it full of legal and illegal content without ever purchasing anything from amazon.
On /. its an assumed certainty that "almost everyone" either has done, or at least could easily do option 1, but in public option 2 is never discussed and for all intents and purposes doesn't exist.
And suggesting buying a Sony product as part of a boycott? No hardware company is hated by more people, more intensely, than Sony. I'd rather join the Amish than purchase another Sony product. Never again. Its like taking a stand against violating the 6th commandment by simultaneously violating the other 9 commandments (which sounds like it would be a fun video game quest).
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
Hmm. All I'm gonna say is much as its possible to buy an ipod touch and stuff it full of legal and illegal content without ever purchasing anything from the ITMS, its is a nearly perfect analogy that you can buy a kindle and stuff it full of legal and illegal content without ever purchasing anything from amazon.
Yes, it's possible to buy a kindle and fill it with non-Amazon content, but the original poster who said he was boycotting Amazon didn't do that since he already said he'd bought some gift cards and would likely buy a few more books.
And suggesting buying a Sony product as part of a boycott?
It all depends what you're trying to boycott. The original poster wanted to boycott Amazon because of their sales-tax policies. So in that case, buying a Sony reader lets you obey that boycott, while you can't really boycott Amazon by buying their reader and their content. He's not taking a stance against electronics manufacturers in general, just against Amazon.
Amazon has been terrible at supporting their "premium" product lines, because of the comparatively low userbases. For example, while corresponding Kindle "Keyboard" 3rd generation is now at firmware version 3.3, Kindle DX "Graphite" 3rd generation has been stuck in 2.5.8, with a horrible browser, no support for international fonts and no pictures in paid magazine and newspaper subscriptions (ridiculous). Now in the case of Fire - it is unlikely to see huge adoption as compared to smaller 4th generation devices (due to it not being an eInk eBook reader and its future as a tablet is being threatened by iPad). Therefore eventual support efforts are not going to be focused on the Fire, resulting in experience similar to that of DX customers (which yours truly is one of; needless to say I am never buying an Amazon product ever again, especially a "premium" model). [/rant]
Bow before me, for I am root.
The Fire is a fine piece of hardware, especially at this price point. The problem is that Amazon is selling it as a Kindle.
Kindles are expensive ways to read books sold to people who have enough disposable income to buy a single-purpose device.
The Fire is a tablet for cheapskates who aren't willing to spend the money to buy an iPad.
These are, of course, two dramatically different markets and if a Kindle owner buys a Fire they're going to be incredibly disappointed. Amazon's problem is that's who they're marketing the Fire to. If they made it a separate product line and market it to those who can't afford an iPad but want to play Angry Birds, they would have dramatically better customer satisfaction.
forgiven for not remembering the Newton.
Making something easy to jailbreak implies that non-technical people will do it, knowlingly or not ("Re: Re: RE: Hey, try this out!"). That leads to malware/viruses/buggy software being run on Apple devices which leads those non-technical people to blame Apple, not themselves, and value their Apple device less.
Similarly, from Apple's perspective, for marketing purposes they would rather be known as the device which is simple & safe for nontechnical users--and even a small fraction of jailbroken Apple devices can serve to tarnish that reputation.
How about a car analogy? what if there was a button to manually deploy the airbag on the dash of a new car. Anyone who doesn't want to push it doesn't have to; we've only added a degree of freedom here, so how could that possibly subtract value. Who's going to buy that car?
but I would be shocked if there wasn't a technical reason for Apple limiting compatibility with older chargers or speakers. I know that in at least one case the reason they broke compatibility was because when they transitioned from iPod -> iPhone there was some noise issues that would have compromised the use of the phone while attached to an older charger or speaker. Another time there was some issue when they started exporting video over that connector, presumably another noise thing.
Apple could change the connector every generation if they wanted to, and they don't. They pushed for DRM-free music and they continue pushing for DRM-free movies/TV--there are so many things they could do to create artificial lockin but in nearly all cases their focus is on making a better device that people want to buy rather than tricking them into buying something.
I'm sure there's a little fiscal gamesmanship here and there; but generally less so than other companies as near as I can tell.
"no wireless... less space than a Nomad... lame" is the relevant quote, I believe
I believe the point of this article can be summarized as:
No hardware volume buttons. Less speedy than an iPad. Lame.
Most criticisms of $200 tablets seem to fall along these lines. It's time for manufacturers to step up and show people why a product doesn't have to duplicate Apple's ideas in order to be acceptable.
"There isn't any external volume control!"
Was there an external volume control when you bought it? Does it have external volume control amongst its feature list?
All in all, I've said it before and I'll say it again: brand names aside (both Amazon and Apple are major brands), you get what you pay for. Who in their right mind things that a cheap tablet ($199) will perform as good as a more expensive one ($525)? Quality tablets cost hundreds of dollars for a reason.
I was trying to have a legitimate discussion but if you want to be a douche then you can be a douce by yourself, alone, dry-humping your Android.