Amazon's Kindle Fire HD will give Apple's iPad fits
Summary: First, there was Google's Nexus 7, and now there's Amazon's Kindle Fire HD, the Android tablet has come of age and the iPad team should start worrying.
I love my Nexus 7. It's replaced my Apple iPad for daily use. But, at 7-inch display, people who want a full-sized tablet don't like it as much as I do. For them, the new Amazon Kindle Fire HD with its 8.9-inch display, 16GBs of storage, and a price of only $299 may just hit their sweet spot
Don't think for a minute that the Kindle Fire HD is just for home-users. True, it's got lots of consumerish features such as FreeTime, so your kids won't spend all day on the tablet; Dolby audio for music and movies; X-Ray for Movies, which will let you get film info from IMDB while you're watching a film; and so on. That's all nice, but it was the business features that caught my eye.
This new top-of-the-line Kindle comes with Microsoft Exchange support and out of the box can sync e-mail, contacts and calendars with Gmail, Hotmail, and Yahoo. As I was watching this I couldn't help thinking that is what RIM's Blackberry PlayBook should have been... and wasn't. Maybe the forthcoming 4 LTE PlayBook can be competitive, but the Nexus 7 and the Kindle Fire HD have raised the bar.
For its display the Kindle Fire HD has a 1920x1200 screen. It also includes a front-facing HD camera with a customized version of Skype for video-conferencing.
This new model Kindle also includes dual-band 2.4 and 5GHz 802.11n Wi-Fi. Amazon also claims that this is the first tablet to use two antennas. This mean that it can use 802.11n' built-in MIMO (multiple input, multiple outputs) functionality. In practice, Amazon claims that will make the Kindle Fire HD 21 percent faster Wi-Fi than the iPad.. The top-end version of the product also includes 4G LTE support.
For a processor, the new Kindle Fire HD uses a Texas Instruments OMAP 4470 processor. This is a quad-core ARM-based processor. Bezos claims this processor is faster than Nvidia’s Tegra 3.
What we don't know for certain is what Android this new model Kindle tablet will be running. The first Kindle Fire used Android 2.3 Gingerbread with a lot of Amazon special sauce on top. Rumor has it that this version used Android 4.0.3 Ice Cream Sandwich with, once more, a lot of Amazon modifications to the interface. That sounds reasonable to me.
Looking at the bottom line details, the Kindle Fire HD comes with either 16 or 32GBs of storage. The Fire HD in 8.9" with 32 GB and 4G LTE will sell $499, A similarly equipped iPad 3 will run you $729. There's also a 7-inch Fire HD. The 16GB 7-inch model, at $199, is $50 cheaper than its Nexus 7 rival. The smaller Fire will ship on September 14, the larger models will start moving out to users on November 20th.
So how can Amazon afford to sell these at this price point? Well as Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos said, “We want to make money when people use our device not when they buy our devices.” The Kindle family is, as Bezos mentioned, built around a service business model rather than a sales model. And, I, for one, while appreciating that this is sure to be a consumer favorite, can also see it being a business favorite as well.
Apple? Google? The ball is now in your court.
Related Stories:
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Amazon changes the game in tablet market with Kindle Fire HD pricing
Amazon turns heat up in tablet market with 8.9" Kindle Fire HD
Amazon's gadget as a service theme: Hardware becomes irrelevant soon
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Talkback
Samsung
I like having both a 7" tablet and a 10.1" tablet, but if I could only choose one, then an 8.9" might be a decent compromise.
BTW, will Amazon be releasing a WiFi only version? I don't see any pricing info on that.
It's in there
Umm
Is an Android fan and I liked the original fire but, I hated that I had to leave so much content behind when using the Fire. I basically had to rebuy everything I already owned for Android and iOS... With the Nexus I can install the Amazon MP3, Amazon App store, and stream Amazon Videos through the browser! I cannot do the same with my Google or Apple content on the Fire.
Re: Umm
What I want to know is how much the 3 and 5GB data plans will cost. 250mb is practically useless nowadays for anyone with anything other than very light usage.
Not to mention you can install anything you have the .apk for.
google play apps
It doesn't look like that's on the table.
Re: Umm
So did it give the iPad "fits"?
RE: So did it give the iPad "fits"?
http://gadgetian.com/10254/samsung-galaxy-tab-8-9-specs-price/
P.S. Currently, the Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 10.1 (16 GB) sells for $399 U.S., same as the iPad 2.
Kudos Amazon
Don't get me wrong, this won't happen today, just like IE's dominance has taken 10+ years to rectify. Apple can coast for a few more years simply on their current monopoly but eventually, they'll fall to competition that is consistently better, just like IE has fallen to Chrome.
Kudos to Amazon, kudos to MS, and here is hoping the free market can work its magic.
Toddy...I'm just wondering...
As a mutual friend of ours once said...."Cue the double...." No, I can't do it.
One other point....iPad had 151% growth in sales year over year. Not bad (and hardly stagnant) for a three year old product family! http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2012/04/24Apple-Reports-Second-Quarter-Results.html
On a more positive note: you and I finally agree....let's hope indeed that the free market can work it's magic!
It depends
Will they sell these devices as magical and revolutionary? If so, and they aren't, yes, I'll say they are stagnating. Hey, I admitted that IE stagnated. I also hated ME, another clear example of MS stagnating.
"....iPad had 151% growth in sales year over year. Not bad (and hardly stagnant)"
Great. Now you just have to point out where I said their sales have stagnated.
See, you prove my point. Apple has done nothing to improve these products and yet they are rewarded with fantastic growth.
Monopoly.
Has done Nothing to improve their products, Todd?
In the same year that this display was introduced, Apple made available to US customers LTE 4G cellular capability and Bluetooth 4.0 - major upgrades from your iPad2 model.
Of course, some might feel, like you, that the upgrade to a 1080P video camera and the 5 megapixel photo camera was not significant enough to warrant a yawn or that Apple doesn't try hard enough to please their world wide customers.
Then again, Apple did upgrade their iOS from version 4 to 5 when the new iPad was introduced only 6 months ago. (And soon to be ver 6 - so much for the theory Apple doesn't improve their software products.)
My friend, I know you were trying to bait your Apple fanboy admirers (and considering some of their derogatory comments, I don't blame you one bit), but saying the iPad 3 was not a significant improvement over the your iPad 2 model is a very long stretch - at best.
Seriously?
From Behind the Curve to Overkill
?
MICROSOFT AND AMAZON WILL CONTINUE TO COPY AND TRY AND PLAY CATCH UP!
Think Again!
Amazon can give away all the cheap, plastic tablets they want to, but their products will always lack build quality and app ecosystem. All they're doing is wasting millions to kill off the struggling Android tablet market. So say goodbye to the Nexus 7 and the Galaxies and Transformers...but lets just face the facts...they weren't selling ANYWAY!
Hey Toddy, remember to kiss your Life Partner tonight...right on the moustache, you sausage swallowing spunk depot!
Apple fanbois like orandy and ugottabkidding are so classy
You guys stay classy, okay?
Please point to a post of mine
I think you owe me an apology. Please don't try to smear me by assigning to me some of the more offensive nonsense people direct at you.
Don't worry. I won't be holding my breath for that apology.