On Sept. 6, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos stood in front of a packed house and fired his latest shot across the bow of Apple’s battleship. It was approximately one year to the day since Amazon surprised the industry with the announcement of the Kindle Fire, a low-cost tablet that had the benefit of Amazon’s vaunted collection of content and applications. With its $199 price tag, the Kindle Fire was an immediate hit, quickly establishing Amazon as a player in the consumer electronics space.
Fast forward one year, and Amazon is not only introducing a new version of the Kindle Fire, but three other tablets meant to further establish the company as a viable competitor to Apple’s iPad family and Google’s foray into the tablet space, Nexus 7.
The first announcement came in the form of a new Kindle Fire featuring a beefed-up processor but much the same in terms of quality and performance. What was more intriguing was Amazon’s next announcement: a new family of tablets called the Kindle Fire HD. With the creation of the Kindle Fire HD, Amazon is taking the Apple iPad head-on, not only with the introduction of a 7-inch tablet, but also an 8.9-inch model that will rival the 10.1-inch iPad.
The Kindle Fire HD features a 1,920 x 1,200 high-resolution display, dual speakers, a front-facing HD camera, and HDMI out capability. The Kindle Fire HD is also the first tablet to be released featuring MIMO technology. Amazon claims MIMO, with its dual-bands (2.4GHz and 5GHz) makes the tablet 41 percent more efficient at WiFi connectivity.
Amazon didn’t stop there, however. The company rolled out an LTE version of the Kindle Fire HD, a move that was not that surprising considering that many tablets have already made the move to the faster 4G network. The corresponding data plan from AT&T gives consumers 32GB of cloud storage and 250MB of data per month for $50… per year. Such an offering is unprecedented by any network carrier, and it remains to be seen what effect this will have on other manufacturers and the agreements they make with cellular providers in the US.
The LTE model will be released in November. So, for now, we’ll take a closer look inside the Kindle Fire HD 7-inch tablet.
Click on the image below to start the slideshow.
A look at the minimalist packaging that is the Amazon Kindle Fire HD.
My wife has an iPad and I have an Android tablet. Side by side the Apple looks sleeker, and has a much better display. Without question, the Apple packaging and appearance is superior to anything else on the market, but that is where Apple has always put most of their engineering effort. I'm tempted to bash the Apple for all the problems we've had with the tablet, but I know that there are followers so loyal that their allegiance borders on religion. We found that the Android tablet is far easier to use and much less restrictive when adding new software or features. All and all, the Android was less quirky, with fewer, "what the heck is it doing?", and "how do I do this?"
The new tablets are great, but I really miss my little Toshiba Pocket PC. The size, power, and feature set was really perfect. I wish that platform had been expanded.
@Nancy: Agreed that Apple has great marketing, but so do a lot of companies and then again, there's a lot of great brands that don't have the same follow-through in terms of blue-chip marketing. I think the bottom line with the devotion to Apple products is the overall user experience when using the technology. It's seamless, it's effortless, and to me, it can't be beat. While many technology products are indeed commodities and thus trapped in the price play, Apple gear provides a wholly different experience and it's not just about feel-good or feel-proud commercials. (That, of course, IMHO)
You know, Beth, you make some really valid points and it makes me want to go out and try Apple products. When I reflect back on my technology choices, I think it amounts to "dancing with the one that brung you" in that I started out with PCs and as a poor student I could never really afford to go with the more expensive stuff. In Dallas we had what was known as the first Saturday sidewalk sale in downtown and we would get up at the crack of dawn to get the best deals. I bought my first 286 motherboard for $75 there and built my own computer. That was just not being done with Mac boards back then so my natural inclination has always been towards PCs. Macs have such a great following and I have always heard how superior they are especially regarding graphics applications but I just never needed that much power in those areas. Also, it just seemed to me that back in the day there was a lot more software being coded for PCs. Of course all of that has changed but I am still stuck in that old mindset...or at least my pocketbook is. I completely agree with you and have always been a fan of paying more for a quality product but I am also a fan of simplicity and have just not needed to make any changes - I still prefer the feel of a real book in my hands rather than an E-book. Maybe when this lap top dies I'll take another look...
@Nancy: Nancy, you raise some valid points as well about pricing and particularly about the software available for the Mac. In earlier days, there was a lack of real business software for the Mac, especially as it pertains to serious engineering tools--CAD and CAE, for example. I think some of that has changed--there are versions of Autodesk tools for the Mac and obviously the slew of new design tool apps are optimized for Apple's iOS mobile platform. Yet there isn't the same deep pool of tried and true engineering software for the Apple platform so that would definitely be a game changer for using the Mac as a professional engineering workstation, despite its killer graphics capabilities. Still, I'd cajole you into taking a new model for a test drive when it's time to buy your next computer!
The more I think about it Beth, the more intrigued I am by such brand loyalty to Apple - I will definitely give one a test drive when it's time to make another technology purchase. My boys are always bragging on the Macs they get to use in their media arts classes at school.
Tekochip, if you are comparing the price also Apple is superior. For Apple, the user has only limited choices in selection, but if we are opting for any Android based tablets, the choices are wide open from different companies with different features and functionalities. The prices are also too less and in most of the cases, that’s too half of an IPad.
I watched my wife's iphone fly across the room this morning because it wasn't doing something that it was supposed to do. I can report first hand that they fly very well too.
The company has a loyal following and when you have that level of devotion the consumers diminish the disadvantages and magnify the advantages. As an example; I watched my sister, a very loyal Apple fan, spend over an hour reloading the Operating System back into her phone because she needed the latest version. A feature had stopped working when Apple upgraded iTunes, and now she couldn't access features that were in the cloud.
My son had an iPod and eventually switched to a Creative device because of all issues with iTunes and syncing. My son has a very extensive music library of around 60Meg, and the constant library corruption was costing him hours of use in re-syncing with iTunes. In contrast, Creative has a simple drag and drop interface which doesn't require the cloud to listen to a CD that you already own, and the library never became corrupted.
Certainly, another issue is iTunes itself. Everything runs through iTunes, even if you don't want to download music you MUST have an iTunes or Apple Store account to run the device. I find this Big Brother philosophy rather ironic since Apple was famous for their 1984 commercial depicting a group of cult followers mindlessly following a leader until someone shatters the video image with a hammer. Apple tells people in their advertising that owning an Apple product expounds creativity and personal freedom, but the truth is that owning an Apple product forces the user to register every aspect of product use through Apple's corporation.
Apple is much like religion and politics, so I really don't intend to sound harsh or injure the party loyal. As an Engineer, an Apple product is just a black box and there are very many black boxes to chose from.
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