11:45 AM
Kinsz
Amazon caused quite a sensation in the summertime of 2011 when they revealed the planned release of a new 7 inch tablet with an 8 hour battery life that would run on a customised version of Android and cost a bit less than $200. When the final specs were revealed the interest reached fever pitch as it was similar to the iPad 2 with a 1 GHz dual-core processor and 512 MB RAM. But tighter investigation and use of the Kindle Fire shows that far from being an iPad 2 killer, the Kindle Fire fulfills a totally different role.
The first thing you may notice when reading thru the Kindle Fire specs is the absence of some of the hardware which is commonplace even on smartphones nowadays. You will not find a camera, mike, GPS, compass or a 3G chip so what you can do with the Kindle Fire is rather restricted. Amazon has even cut off access to the Android Market-place so you can only download authorised programmes from the Kindle Store but before you balk at the concept, the Kindle Store has 16,000 apps available to download including all the most popular tools, utilities, office programs and games that you'll find on the Android Marketplace.
What Amazon has done is make a desirable hand-held tablet that leverages its massive media library to become the ultimate consumption device. The Kindle Fire is not engineered to be a creative tablet like the Samsung Galaxy or the Apple iPad 2, it's built to do one thing which is to make it as easy as feasible to access Amazon's database of films, TV shows, ebooks, programs and music. To that end, Amazon even sells the Fire at a total loss as it knows it will make up the price tag in the long term which goes some way towards explaining the phenomenal retail price.
So the Kindle Fire is a media consumption device then, what does that suggest? For a start, with Amazon Prime (you get a free month subscription when you buy the device - read more) you get unrestricted, unlimited access to over 100,000 films and TV shows. You can view them whenever you desire, as many times as you want. By using your WiFi connection the Fire will stream the content straight to your device.
You will also recieve access to Amazon's Cloud Storage. What this means is you can upload all of the media content that you already own like MP3's, movies and ebooks and then access it from anywhere using your Kindle Fire (presuming there is a Wi Fi connection). You don't have to lug around an external disc drive any more because everything is stored and is accessible from the Net.
Although the Kindle Fire is designed as a consumption device that doesn't suggest that you can't use it for some productivity purposes, for example you can very easily use it to manage your emails, you can view reports, spreadsheets and presentations using one of many office programmes that are downloadable and you can use it to update your web-based calendar.
The Android interface has been completely overhauled by Amazon and it appears to be pretty slick, though compared to the refinement of the iPad 2 interface the Kindle Fire isn't quite there yet. It's quite zippy to navigate around, but again, if you are used to the iPad 2 you'll see a lot of difference.
At only $200 for such a powerful gadget that gives you access to so much content the Kindle Fire is going to be one of the must have pieces of equipment for 2012.
The first thing you may notice when reading thru the Kindle Fire specs is the absence of some of the hardware which is commonplace even on smartphones nowadays. You will not find a camera, mike, GPS, compass or a 3G chip so what you can do with the Kindle Fire is rather restricted. Amazon has even cut off access to the Android Market-place so you can only download authorised programmes from the Kindle Store but before you balk at the concept, the Kindle Store has 16,000 apps available to download including all the most popular tools, utilities, office programs and games that you'll find on the Android Marketplace.
What Amazon has done is make a desirable hand-held tablet that leverages its massive media library to become the ultimate consumption device. The Kindle Fire is not engineered to be a creative tablet like the Samsung Galaxy or the Apple iPad 2, it's built to do one thing which is to make it as easy as feasible to access Amazon's database of films, TV shows, ebooks, programs and music. To that end, Amazon even sells the Fire at a total loss as it knows it will make up the price tag in the long term which goes some way towards explaining the phenomenal retail price.
So the Kindle Fire is a media consumption device then, what does that suggest? For a start, with Amazon Prime (you get a free month subscription when you buy the device - read more) you get unrestricted, unlimited access to over 100,000 films and TV shows. You can view them whenever you desire, as many times as you want. By using your WiFi connection the Fire will stream the content straight to your device.
You will also recieve access to Amazon's Cloud Storage. What this means is you can upload all of the media content that you already own like MP3's, movies and ebooks and then access it from anywhere using your Kindle Fire (presuming there is a Wi Fi connection). You don't have to lug around an external disc drive any more because everything is stored and is accessible from the Net.
Although the Kindle Fire is designed as a consumption device that doesn't suggest that you can't use it for some productivity purposes, for example you can very easily use it to manage your emails, you can view reports, spreadsheets and presentations using one of many office programmes that are downloadable and you can use it to update your web-based calendar.
The Android interface has been completely overhauled by Amazon and it appears to be pretty slick, though compared to the refinement of the iPad 2 interface the Kindle Fire isn't quite there yet. It's quite zippy to navigate around, but again, if you are used to the iPad 2 you'll see a lot of difference.
At only $200 for such a powerful gadget that gives you access to so much content the Kindle Fire is going to be one of the must have pieces of equipment for 2012.
About the Author:
Check out our website for more great articles on technology topics such as arduino books.
0 comments:
Post a Comment