Can Amazon stand above the fray and make sense of the Android / tablet mess? (1 Viewer)

[DaveF]

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.

 

[Citizen87645]

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.

 

[DaveF]

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

 

[mattCR]

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

 

[Sam Posten]

Anyone update yet? Mine is in NJ waiting for me to get home...
http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/12/20/amazon-makes-the-fire-less-balky/?pagewanted=all

 

[mattCR]

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

 

[Citizen87645]

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

 

[DaveF]

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...

 

[Citizen87645]

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

 

[Citizen87645]

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

 

[DaveF]

And sold out.

 

[ManW_TheUncool]

Originally Posted by DaveF /t/311127/can-amazon-stand-above-the-fray-and-make-sense-of-the-android-tablet-mess/270#post_3882973

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).

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_

 

[Sam Posten]

Round 2 could potentially hit this week:
http://techcrunch.com/2012/08/12/barnes-and-noble-cuts-nook-tablet-prices-as-new-kindle-rumors-surface/

 

[Hanson]

Now that Amazon has released Instant Video for the iPad, the Android version shouldn't be too far behind. And once that happens, I see zero reason to buy any Kindle over the Nexus 7. I currently find no reason to buy the Nook at all.

 

[Sam Posten]

Well... I think Jellybean is more important than AIV, but I'm with you. Who could argue that buying a September 2011 Fire would be a better choice than an August 2012 Nexus 7?
Do you agree that Nexus7 > Fire > EVERY other Android 7"er? Or would you rather have an ICS Galaxy Tab over the fire?
What will be interesting to see is if you change your stance once we actually see what the Fire2 (or whatever Amazon calls this rev) is official.

 

[Hanson]

The only redeeming feature of the Kindle Fire was the price. As a tablet experience, my first gen 7" Galaxy Tab is better than the Fire. Note that a Google Android device allows you access to both Google Play and Amazon Market. The Fire only grants you the smaller Amazon Market. The Galaxy Tab is faster and smoother than the Fire, has more than 8GB storage, and plays most codecs out of the box with SRS Surround. The Fire can only really stream. Plus, all of the Google Play apps I purchased for my Evo moved to my Galaxy Tab. You would have to rebuy all of those apps for the Fire.

I don't see what Amazon can do with the Fire 2 that would trump the Nexus 7. 1080p screen? Nope. SD card support? Not likely. 32GB internal memory? Not it's purpose, so I can't see it happening. None of the internals can surpass the Nexus 7. FF Camera? Got that covered. Shitty rear camera? Could be a marketing point, but it's really useless.

Right now, the Nexus 7 is the king of the hill because of everything. But I'd rather have any ICS Samsung tablet over the Fire. The Nook Tablet is better than the Fire. The Fire is actually closer to a janky Chinese knockoff than any Google Android tablet in the market.

 

[Sam Posten]

Um dude? You can sideload apps easy enough on the Fire and with all the hoops you have jumped through to get your stuff running you MUST know you can sideload Google Play on Fire, right?
http://www.tested.com/news/feature/3179-how-to-sideload-android-apps-on-the-amazon-kindle-fire-in-3-steps/
It would be trivially easy for Amazon to allow both Play and Amazon Store out of the box on Fire 2 and even on Fire 1 via an OS update.
Anyway, on Fire2 we will see. Amazon seems to be in this in this for the long haul. It took a year for other tablets to touch them on price and while we don't have numbers I find it hard to believe that any single tablet is nearly in the same ballpark sales numbers wise as Fire 1. And even if they are NONE of them have the ARPU that the fire does because none of them act as a feeder to the behemoth of sales that is Amazon retail. Yes yes, it all comes back to those finicky profits for me =p

 

[Hanson]

You can sideload the apps after ripping the apk out of the backup, but you can't install Google Play itself without rooting. Although, Sam, I'm quite surprised that you of all people are advocating this :-O

Note, however, that because of the kernel or hardware or whatnot, there are a lot of GP apps that won't install or crash on the Fire. More so than on the Nexus 7. Also, GP is a Google property and cannot be installed without licensing it from Google. Fat chance the Fire will ever get official GP support.

In any case, Amazon is not Apple -- I can't really see them offering anything other than specs bumps. Maybe they'll toss in free Amazon streaming (without the shipping breaks you get with a full Prime membership), but like I said, the Fire was pretty cruddy next a year old Galaxy Tab that they were trying to liquidate at $399. The Nexus 7 will be $199 when the Fire 2 is released. And who knows -- maybe they'll bump the storage in the base model from 8GB to 16GB in response.

 

[Sam Posten]

I don't think you are giving Amazon enough credit. These guys are not playing the Android "throw stuff out there and see what sticks as far as features go, because we can't differentiate on the either the real hardware capabilities or the OS" game. They took what they needed from Android and have the potential to keep iterating against that EXACTLY the way Apple did with BSD and NextStep. And because they are going in that direction they can build things that no other 3rd party OEM has an incentive to go in.
I'm not expecting miracles and unicorns but I think that Amazon will surprise us with round 2. The cool thing is we will get to see just how that vision evolves very soon.
Will they go to high density displays?
Will they focus on sunlight readable displays?
Will they move to reduce costs significantly?
Will they produce multiple form factors?
Will they bundle in more Prime membership benefits that nobody else can match?
Will then integrate free VOIP OS-deep in a way that neither Android or Apple can because of their carrier commitments?
Will they do something completely out of left field that we aren't even considering?
Or will it be a lame evolutionary refresh with a bit more storage a bit more battery life and a bit brighter screen?
I would bet against the latter if i could.

 

[mattCR]

I'm betting, with how wide the rollout is on the new Prime client, and the rate Amazon is moving to cut deals, we see a whole different level of Prime, which will be it's own thing. I'm betting we see a 7" that's 1280x800, and a 8.9" that's 1920x1080.. and part of that fits with the new PrimeHD offerings they are pushing; I'm also betting, based on the blowout offers I'm seeing on KindleDX that this thing ships in the next two weeks. Both versions. Just my thought, but I'd bet dollars to donuts they want to beat Apple to the punch before Sept 12, and so they will have this thing in the market, selling before then