Now that the dust has settled from the Kindle Fire announcement, I’d like to take a closer look at the Fire and its cousins and give our readers a better idea of which one to choose.
What the Kindle Fire is NOT
First things first: ignore the “Kindle vs iPad” articles and debates currently raging. The Kindle Fire is NOT in the same class of device as the iPad and therefore is not a straightforward alternative when tablet shopping.
Without getting too technical, the iPad is the nearest thing to a mobile computer as you can probably get right now – aside from tablets such as the Samsung Galaxy Tab.
If you’re looking to take your Amazon.com experience with you everywhere you go (books, store, movies, tv shows, magazine, newspapers, etc) – then the Kindle Fire is the affordable choice.
If you want to be able to edit files, play a wide variety of games, take pictures and share, enjoy FaceTime or Skype calls, have access to apps such as ‘LogMeIn Ignition’ or word [ more ]
And so it’s official – the new product line of Kindle eReaders and tablets is now announced and available for pre-order the Amazon.com website. They all ship in November, but Bezos himself recommends pre-ordering now.
10:52AM Fire ships November 15th. “We’re making many millions of these, but I still recommend you pre-order today.”
- from the engadget live-blogging post
As predicted and been talked about almost endlessly since rumors of the new Kindle were heard, Amazon.com and their entire website and supporting infrastructure is now tailored to allow mobile devices (and especially the new Kindle Fire) to take full advantage.
It’s a lot technical details to swallow at once, but rest assured that it boils down to us being able to browse the Amazon.com website on our mobile devices faster and more intuitively.
Furthermore, everything is now ‘in the cloud’. Amazon.com Prime has included movies and TV shows for a year or 2, but now it’s also about music, books, magazines, etc and all tied into the mobile experience.
Bottom line: more ]
Suppose you are one of those people who still haven’t quite gotten into the whole online ordering fad? You like to give all your stuff a test drive before you buy. You like to play with the display model a bit to see if it fits you and your style before you commit your money.
This is where the Barnes and Noble nook has won out over the Kindle; because the Nook is universally known to be available for try and buy at your local Barnes and Noble booksellers storefront. The Kindle, traditionally, was only available online at Amazon.com.
Well, the good news is that you can now try out the Kindle before buying too – at your local Target, Best Buy, Staples and Radio Shack stores.
For a lot of you, this might be old news, but with the news that the Nook will now be available at Radio Shack, I thought it was timely enough to tell you that while everybody knows where to test-drive a Nook, some of [ more ]