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Survey says -- what the next Amazon Kindle Fire needs

Summary: According a new survey of its owners, the Kindle Fire still has room for improvement.

Sean Portnoy

By for Laptops & Desktops |

The Amazon Kindle Fire has been the most successful tablet launched to date not named "iPad," but it still has room for improvement, according a new survey of its owners from ChangeWave Research.

A vast majority of Fire owners appear happy with their purchase, with 54 percent saying they are "very satisfied" and 38 percent saying "somewhat satisfied." In comparison, 74 percent of iPad owners are "very satisfied," though the Fire's score higher than the score given from owners of all other tablets (49 percent).

As you might expect from a $199 tablet, cost is what its owners liked best about the Fire (59 percent of respondents), with the color screen, ease of use, and selection of books available also being cited by at least 20 percent of owners as pros for the Kindle.

But if Amazon is looking for a set of features to add to the next Kindle Fire -- rumored to already be in development -- it could take a look at the survey's results for owners' dislikes. At the top of concerns is the lack of a dedicated volume button (27 percent), followed by no built-in camera (20 percent), short battery life (15 percent), and the lack of 3G and 4G capability (12 percent).

Perhaps most important for Amazon, which is supposedly losing money on each Kindle Fire it sells, the tablet's owners do seem primed to spend more at the online retailer. While only 19 percent of survey respondents who don't own a Kindle Fire plan to spend more at Amazon in the next 90 days, 29 percent of Kindle Fire plan to. That jibes with Amazon's strategy to sell the tablet at a low price and make it back with online purchases directly from the device.

Are you a Kindle Fire owner? If so, are you satisfied with your purchase? What are your biggest likes and dislikes with the tablet? Let us know in the Talkback section.

Topics: Hardware, Laptops, Mobility, Tablets

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Talkback

30 comments
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  • RE: Survey says -- what the next Amazon Kindle Fire needs

    Yes, we own 2 and honestly, there's very little that we used to do with our other tablets (including the iPad 2) that we cannot do with the fire.<br><br>Also, Amazon gives away so much free stuff and that only gets better with a prime membership. <br><br> Oh and they really need to enable the Bluetooth controller that is built into the fire.
    slickjim
    Reply Vote

  • RE: Survey says -- what the next Amazon Kindle Fire needs

    Had one, sent it back. Longtime Amazon Prime member, but the tablet did not make the shopping experience any better or faster. For music, movies and books, I use a combination of sources, so the Amazon "lock-in" wasn't so attractive.
    terry flores
    Reply Vote

    • Same experience of 3 of my coworkers

      @terry flores I don't own a tablet .... probably won't get one for a long time.

      But having seen and used an iPad and crashed every single Android tablet I tried on 1st usage, I was curious about the Kindle Fire. Three (3) of my co-workers got a Kindle. The only time I ever heard anything positive, was before they got the device. Non of the kept them ... all of them ended up returning them.
      wackoae
      Reply Vote

  • Miss TTS and file of highlighted text

    What I miss most on Fire is some of the capacities of the K3. Fire has no TTS (text to speech) for its reader and no file to retrieve highlighted text. My dream tablet would allow easy highlighting and editing of text, especially Microsoft Word documents.
    gegonder
    Reply Vote

  • RE: Survey says -- what the next Amazon Kindle Fire needs

    Two features that I use regularly on my HTC Flyer, and absent which I would never buy a Kindle (or any other tablet for that matter)

    1: Front facing camera - If it weren't for Skype I wouldn't care. But Skype is one of those killer apps that I'd hate not being able to use on a tablet.

    2: Bluetooth keyboard connectivity - I use my portable, folding keyboard a lot with my Flyer. mostly for commenting on websites and such, and the occasional e-mail. It's nice to be able to whip out a keyboard for some tasks.

    The flyer's got a few more aces up its sleeve, but the above two are the only dealbreakers as far as the Fire is concerned.
    dsf3g
    Reply Vote

  • the kindle swindle

    "The Amazon Kindle Fire has been the most successful tablet launched to date not named ???iPad".

    no, we don't know that. all we have is the double-talk, googlyspeak, yingyang, yabadabadoo besteller PR-BS from Amazon that the tech-press easily swallows. If Kindle Fire is oh-so-popular, why doesn???t Amazon give the real numbers? The charade continues.
    bannedfromzdnetagainandagain
    Reply Vote

    • RE: Survey says -- what the next Amazon Kindle Fire needs

      @bannedfromzdnetagainandagain Amazon is a publicly traded company. They are required by law to faithfully report financial information and where it came from. They can, of course, choose to break the law but then there are significant penalties for that. So chances are the information is pretty accurate.
      DevGuy_z
      Reply Vote

      • They are required to report financial information; they are not required

        to break it out by specific product lines in all cases. Amazon has not ever revealed exact Kindle sales or what percentage of their revenue comes from Kindle sales. This is almost always a good indicator that sales are unimpressive.
        baggins_z
        Reply Vote

      • And the financial reports show ....

        @DevGuy_z .... that they only ORDERED 250K. If they are still selling, that means that they still haven't sold 250K.
        wackoae
        Reply Vote

  • RE: Survey says -- what the next Amazon Kindle Fire needs

    Actually very satisfied with my Fire, but OK - I'll play the game:

    1) Battery life not bad, but could be better.
    2) Add volume control slider to pop-up menu.
    3) Enable built-in bluetooth (wouldn't use it much, but it would occasionally be handy).

    Don't need another camera (got cameras out the wazoo :) )
    KNPepper
    Reply Vote

  • RE: Survey says -- what the next Amazon Kindle Fire needs

    "cost is what its owners liked best about the Fire
    At the top of concerns is the lack of a dedicated volume button (27 percent), followed by no built-in camera (20 percent), short battery life (15 percent), and the lack of 3G and 4G capability (12 percent)."

    If they wanted an iPad, they should have purchased an iPad. You can't buy a $199 eReader and get a $499 iPad.
    toddybottom_z
    Reply Vote

    • Maybe they didn't want an iPad

      @toddybottom_z
      Although I pretty much agree with you here, lack of a dedicated volume button is the current deal breaker for me. In my case an iPad isn't in the budget, and for what I want to do the Fire should suffice. Having said that, the lack of physical volume controls is an issue that should be easy and cheap to fix.

      Despite the fact that I can't read my Kindle books on it, I will probably take a close look at either the Nook Color or the Nook Tablet. Of course I don't care for the storage alottment on the Nook products, but you pay your money and you take your choice. With my budget I'll probably choose 'none of the above' since they all have a deal breaker (price, lack of physical controls, and poor storage management respectively).
      use_what_works_4_U
      Reply Vote

      • Does it matter what they don't want?

        @macadam
        With 97% of the market, people don't have real choice but to buy an iPad if they want a tablet. Sure, there are inferior alternatives but those don't "count" just like buying a Mac didn't "count" when Windows had 95% marketshare.

        It is a sick market. We all lose.
        toddybottom_z
        Reply Vote

      • D@mn you are reaching

        @toddybottom_z
        See? There I was all agreeable and pleasant and you go and change your argument just to be a troll. You go from (essentially) "buy the tool you want" to "you have no choice - you HAVE to buy the iPad". Bull. I bought Macs when Windows had 95% marketshare (I bought Dells and HPs etc...) and I assure you that the Macs absolutely did count.

        I try to get along, I point out when you are making reasonable sense, then you go and pick a fight for the sake of it. Grow up.
        use_what_works_4_U
        Reply Vote

      • I don't believe you

        @macadam
        " I bought Macs when Windows had 95% marketshare "

        We've been told that there was no choice but to buy Windows PCs back then. In fact, we are still told this today.

        Someone is lying.
        toddybottom_z
        Reply Vote

      • Clearly there is a disconnect

        @macadam
        Either you believe everything you are told (there are no options, you WILL buy X product only) or you don't. Your argument is weak, contrived, and ridiculously transparent.

        It's a sick, troll laden comment thread. We all lose.
        use_what_works_4_U
        Reply Vote

  • RE: Survey says -- what the next Amazon Kindle Fire needs

    1) Google apps.
    2) Google apps.
    3) Enable bluetooth. Wires? What is this, 1995?
    4) Fix the crap browser. It's barely BETA quality, obviously wasn't tested with many Web 2.0-ish sites, constantly crashes, re-opens tabs that were closed days ago (_that_ could be embarrassing, huh?)
    5) Stop trying to re-invent the Android wheel. You're doing it badly.
    converter42
    Reply Vote

    • No thank you

      @converter42, for some of us the total lack of Google's spyware is a plus, not a minus. If you want a Google tablet there are many to choose from. Personally, I bought the Fire very specifically BECAUSE Amazon stripped away all of the Google crap from their version of Android.
      itpro_z
      Reply Vote

      • RE: Survey says -- what the next Amazon Kindle Fire needs

        @itpro_z I'm not asking Amazon to put a gun to your head and force you to tap "Purchase" in the Amazon market, all I'm asking for is the option to install the gmail app and a few others. I'm certain Amazon has a few devs around who could figure out how to drop in the glue code on demand, it's not rocket science.
        converter42
        Reply Vote

    • Given that Android is barely BETA quality ....

      @converter42 ... I have no idea why you complain about a browser of similar quality on the same platform.
      wackoae
      Reply Vote
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