Kindle Fire - thoughts?

[Aaron Gonzalez]

This is basically exactly the tablet I wanted minus a front facing cam.  A Playbook pretty much but at $200.

It'll stay in my bag and go with me everywhere. I'll probably pick up an ipad 3 when those hit too for around the house browsing and long vacations.

10" tablets are just too big for me to carry day to day.

[Donald Stidwell]

If I didn't have both an iPad 2 and a Kindle 3, this would appeal to me immensely. However, even 7 inches isn't something I'm going to carry around a lot. I prefer to use my Inspire 4G when I'm really mobile, although I do take my Kindle along when I know I'm going to have a lot of time to read. For just a page here and there, the Android Kindle app is sufficient.

Although I see where this could replace my Kindle eventually, I'm not sure how well it could replace my iPad. A lot of the programs I have on the iPad aren't available for Android and even those that are, the extra 3 inches of screen on the iPad make a big difference.

From the Kindle side, what I most enjoy about the Kindle is its superb battery life (the only gadget I own where I don't worry if I'm not near a power source) and the e-ink screen. Although I have the Kindle app for my iPad, I almost never use it as I prefer the wonderful reading experience of the Kindle to the glow of pixels on my iPad. I only use my iPad for reading when there's not enough light to read my Kindle.

--
...prosigo a la meta, al premio del supremo llamamiento de Dios en Cristo Jesús.” (Filipenses 3:14 RVR60)

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[Richard Cartwright]

I do not have an iPad (I reject Steve Jobs and all his works) nor a Kindle (I use my phone and laptop to read books). I have just about decided to get the Kindle Touch and may well get the Flame or its rumored big brother. I have a blog post that I may still post after some tweaking (alas Molly Wood beat me to the punch on the original story) that says that the Torch is going after the low end of the "tablet" market that just wants to read and consume content and Windows 8 has at least the potential to capture the high end laptop replacement for doing your work. Apple is going to high priced in the middle and that is not a good spot long term. 

I could see the Flame as something I take to the coffee house to read or web surf . I have 4-5 articles a day to turn out for tech news so I don't go without the laptop. I need a keyboard to turn out content so other than article research, I don't really see a tablet as a workhorse,  although i am curious as to what Evernote will do with the Flame. I am also wondering how Silk is going to play with Google. Privacy issues aside, I really want to get under the hood with Silk. I don't know how, but I have the vibe that Goggle is getting screwed her somewhere. Other than the whole Android fork and rebel app center thing Amazon has going.

One last thing, I would be looking for a national sales tax for internet purchases that as part of the new law the Feds preempt all state collections of sales tax on internet transactions. When that happens, you are going to see an Amazon distribution center in every major market promising same day delivery for most items ordered before, say noon. When that happens I would tell anyone with Best Buy or  Radio Shack stock to get out when the getting is good.

--
Richard D. Cartwright
901-493-6612

__________________________________

If Dante had known about daytime television the Ninth Circle of Hell would have TV sets.

[Bert Latamore]

I find all these readers much to limited. Why should I have a device that limits me to one bookstore when I own books from several different bookstores? And non-color tablets will never be good for reading e-magazines.

speaking of which, have you noticed that no one is announcing new e-magazines? Newsweek and The Week, for instance, have not. That dried up completely when Apple decided it wanted a 40% cut of all subscription sales and so banned in-app subscription selling. It would appear that Apple has killed that market at least for now. 

And for me the iPad remains a limited toy. I can't run Quicken or anything that works with Quicken like the old Pocket Quicken, or Calorie King, or Pimlical on it, and I organize my whole life around those three core applications. I don't play computer games, so Angry Birds is not a selling point, and I don't feel the need to be tracked wherever I go so that I can get ads for the nearest McDonalds or Starbucks, neither of which I would be caught dead in. 

And yes, there is the semi-promise of Windows 8, the completely redesigned OS with Hyper-V incorporated in it and strong links to the Internet among other things. Guys, this is Microsoft, purveyor of the half-baked. Windows 8 will be Vista all over again. Maybe Windows 9. And what kind of tablet will run Windows 8? It is going to need a dual-core processor and 2 GB of memory, plus several GB of storage (5? 10?) minimum. And a 10-pound battery. This is real power, not a "computing lite" iPad or Android tablet. And if you need a keyboard as well then you are talking another pound or two, plus a complex hinge. And you are back to those clunky UX tablets of a decade ago.

And no one is at all interested in doing a Linux tablet, which I still think would be the answer to all this -- a real OS that is very light and will run well on a low-power processor and 1GB of memory. 

Richard -- I hope we will see a national sales tax. But it won't happen until after the new Congress comes in, and then only if the Tea party is roundly rejected by the voters nationwide. Otherwise we will continue to hear the totally unrealistic "No new taxes whatsoever" chant from the far right and nothing like that will get through the House. But I totally agree with your assessment re Amazon. Hadn't thought of that. Have you published that somewhere? if so could I quote it with a link?

And you do have a huge amount of stuff to turn out every day. Don't know how you find that many stories a day. It is impressive but must wear you out.

Bert

Bert Latamore
Editor and contributor at http://wikibon.org/
Mobile Computing Blogger at http://theinfoboom.com/

Associate Editor, "The Seybold Report"http://www.seyboldreport.com/
Freelance Writer and Book Doctor

[bignoseduglyguy]

Bert

While I probably don’t represent millions of eager buyers, I would be interested in a Linux tablet.  I like what I have seen of Android (10 minutes in my hand) but I am finally getting to play with Linux, albeit in a limited newbie fashion, and would be interested in a low(er) cost tablet as stuff is markedly more expensive here than in the US.

Buzz

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http://bignoseduglyguy.com/