Can Amazon stand above the fray and make sense of the Android / tablet mess? - Page 10

counterpoint

http://techpinions.com/why-kindle-fire-reviews-are-all-over-the-place/4100

counter counterpoint

http://www.marco.org/2011/11/18/why-kindle-fire-reviews-are-all-over-the-place

I played around with a Fire today, and while I consider it worthy of  a $200 purchase, there are a few things that make me think the $250 Nook color is a better buy:

1) The lack of buttons, especially a volume rocker, makes navigating the Fire feel extra fiddly.  The settings button in the toolbar is quite small, and the volume slider itself is finicky.

2) As Marco pointed out, screen taps are rather dodgy -- I don't know if it's lag or just insensitivity, but I frequently had to tap a button two or three times for it to register.  My Galaxy Tab with a single core processor is much more responsive to taps than the dual core Fire is.

3) The carousel in the bookshelf is also dodgy.  It's actually a chore trying to make it stop on the program you want, and it seems to overshoot selections rather than stopping on a dime.  It needs to have more snap than it does.

4) Speaking of the bookshelf, don't use the Fire for anything you don't want people to see.  Turn on the power button and everything you've accessed recently is out in the open.  And the icons in the bookshelf are huge.  This is not the device for people who like their privacy.  I didn't look into it, but is there some sort of password protect on the home screen?

5) I'm not fond of the default keyboard, which is why the inability to use a 3rd party one is annoying.  Especially when Amazon sells them.  Apparently, you can install them, but you don't have access to the system settings where you can enable them.

Some of the good stuff:

1) There's a free email program in the market that let's you access gmail via imap.  Not as nice as push email, but it does the trick.

2) Other than the button tapping issue, the unit is snappier than I had expected.  

3) Amazon streaming is really fast and smooth, although the video quality wasn't the greatest.  I watched Arrested Development for a few minutes without any hiccups, and I noticed the buffer was filled in a matter of minutes.  Of course, you have to pony up $79 to continue to use the privilege after 30 days.

If you have no intention on doing any rooting or modding, the Fire wins over the Nook Tablet only because of the retail ecosystem Amazon has.  But if that doesn't turn you off, the Nook Tab's better screen and SD storage coupled with the bump in memory makes it worth the extra $50.  However, after having used the Galaxy Tab for a year, I have zero desire to jump into either device.  I just find the Galaxy Tab to be a more capable unit than the Fire, even with the lesser processor.  But that's just me -- one thing about the Fire is that they set you up with an e-reader, a streaming videoplayer, a comic reader, etc.  On the Galaxy Tab, you would have to download all of these apps on your own.  As an out of the box experience, the Fire has a big advantage for the casual user.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hanson 

3) The carousel in the bookshelf is also dodgy.  It's actually a chore trying to make it stop on the program you want, and it seems to overshoot selections rather than stopping on a dime.  It needs to have more snap than it does.

 

Seems a shame they're copying Apple's worst UI-demo feature (Coverflow). Maybe it works better with a limited number of books and movies. Terrible for browsing a music library.
 

I've only seen one product get coverflow right.. and that's mediabrowser (www.mediabrowser.tv) then again, it's designed as a 10' interface to be used by a remote control.   It juts never seems like the right thing for "up close"

Ars compares the Nook Tablet to the Fire. They sort of wimp out by not coming down on either side, but the way I read the article, they seem to lean toward the Nook Tablet. At least that's the one I'd choose based on their information.

To me, the clear winner here is the Kindle Fire.  It's a slam dunk.  $50 cheaper, larger and less expensive ecosystem with a better interface.  While you can point out a few advantages the Nook Tablet has here and there, Fire is clearly the better media consumption device in the overall scheme of things.  And for this price range, that's what you're paying for.

The biggest flaw for the Nook is the 1GB storage limitation for non-Nook content.  You pay $50 extra dollars to get a more tablet like experience and then you put up a roadblock like this?  No thanks.  Sure, you could buy a 16GB SD card for $20, but now it's $70 more than the Fire (which would almost pay for a year's worth of Prime).  Less free apps, higher prices for movie rentals -- it's just a money sucker.  If you're willing to spend all that money, just get an iPad for gosh sakes.

Yes, you can root both devices.  But if you want to root, don't even bother with the Fire.  If you want to root, the Nook is much closer to a tablet than the Fire is and is worth the extra money.  But apart from that crowd, I could not justify recommending anyone getting the Nook Tablet over the Kindle Fire.

Although that hook does let you secure it with a bicycle lock...

Personally I'm going to use it for my keys. Now to find a key locator app...

Amazon got one thing dead right: they walked in with an immense ecosphere and ability to support.   People have instant apps, guaranteed compatibility, and tie ins with a huge vendor.   The nook doesn't have that.   There isn't a monetary way to offset that.  It's why if you had a tablet and Apple's at near the same price point, Apple would "win" because their ecosphere is better.   That's all it takes.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hanson 

To me, the clear winner here is the Kindle Fire.  It's a slam dunk.  $50 cheaper, larger and less expensive ecosystem with a better interface.  While you can point out a few advantages the Nook Tablet has here and there, Fire is clearly the better media consumption device in the overall scheme of things.  And for this price range, that's what you're paying for.

 

The biggest flaw for the Nook is the 1GB storage limitation for non-Nook content.  You pay $50 extra dollars to get a more tablet like experience and then you put up a roadblock like this?  No thanks.  Sure, you could buy a 16GB SD card for $20, but now it's $70 more than the Fire (which would almost pay for a year's worth of Prime).  Less free apps, higher prices for movie rentals -- it's just a money sucker.  If you're willing to spend all that money, just get an iPad for gosh sakes.

 

Yes, you can root both devices.  But if you want to root, don't even bother with the Fire.  If you want to root, the Nook is much closer to a tablet than the Fire is and is worth the extra money.  But apart from that crowd, I could not justify recommending anyone getting the Nook Tablet over the Kindle Fire.

 

Although that hook does let you secure it with a bicycle lock...

I will wait for the reviews, but you could have two of these in lieu of one Fire:

$99 for an official Google ICS tablet

Probably gives you laughable performance, but hey, you never know.  Amazingly, it packs front and back cameras and HDMI out plus SD card support.  I was unclear how much onboard memory there is, so I would assume 1GB since that's the bare minimum for OS and Apps.

Mom bought one for granddad. Mom and dad played with it, then passed it on to a sister. Granddad will get it eventually :)

I spent 10 minutes with one at BestBuy this weekend. My quick thoughts are:

* It's nice. I wouldn't buy it for myself, but I could recommend others consider it at $199. (I'm with Marco Arment on this: I buy what I want or I don't buy. So it would be $499 iPad or bust for me. But others don't share that perspective. Just as I drive a Honda rather than a Lexus :)

* I didn't observe the terrible, non-responsiveness performance reported in some early reviews. (Though scrolling isn't iOS smooth.)

* I found the carousels and organizational system a bit confusing. I'm sure I'd get used to it.

* 7" LCD screen for books is a fair compromise between eInk and iPad. Not as good as the former, but better pixel density than the latter

* Magazines were terrible. Basically giant images that I had to scroll and zoom and slide and...blech

* Changing the volume made  Angry Birds relaunch every time. Seriously? 

* Videos didn't look that great. Maybe the compression was a bit low, but they were soft and unimpressive to me.

* Web browser is turned off on demo unit. Took me several tries to realize it wasn't crashing. Rather, it launches a 10-sec Flash-like video to say how awesome Silk is, then quits back to the Carousel. Terrible, terrible idea for a demo unit.

Hope to get some more time with it at home around Xmas.

References to Jakob Nielsen's usability study have been popping up in a lot of publications lately. He also has some interesting responses to criticism of the study.

I just hope this wasn't a bad choice for my granddad. Though, for $199, what other choice is there?

I will say this: the web is -much- faster on it today then when we first got them, which is proof that Silk's cacheing server is gaining more and more users who cache more material through it, speeding up all Fire users.   That's a big perk

Just in time for Christmas, when a large # of these will be received; so the first thing they will get is the update ;)

Ars continues to have either an anomalous experience or is just plain grumpy.

Spent some time with it, showing it to my granddad. My sister got one. And cousin's 8-yr old daughter got one. The consistent reaction has been ambivalence. Everyone likes a $199 tablet, but no one's especially impressed by the Fire. Nothing like the reaction to the iPad.

And the one-click purchase system is a problem. So my granddad can expose his credit card to accidental purchases and to theft...or he can not watch Netflix because you can't download a free app without being registered.

It's the best tablet you can buy for $199. It's also the only tablet...

Seems like it's a "you get what you pay for" scenario, at least at this point in time...

$139 for a refurb'ed Fire in Amazon's Gold Box.

And sold out.

Quote:

Originally Posted by DaveF 

 

It's the best tablet you can buy for $199. It's also the only tablet...

You can get the 8GB Nook Tablet for that price now (and essentially get a year's worth of B&N membership for free to go w/ that).   Not saying that's necessarily any better of course.

Maybe you should opt to selectively give the 16GB WiFi-only iPad 2 as a $400 present instead, eg. just for granddad perhaps.

BTW, I noticed that Discover got around to changing their promo rule for their online ShopDiscover portal to now allow the 5% cashback on iPad purchases from the online Apple Store.  Too bad I already bought it for my wife -- granted, I wouldn't be too keen on the wait for order fulfillment at this point.   But maybe someone else can benefit from the cashback bonus...

_Man_