Along with several models of Kindle, Amazon also launched Kindle Fire today, an Android tablet that is meant to be an iPad competitor and with a price tag of only $199, we believe it has quite some chances.
September seems to be a prolific month for new products. A few weeks ago Samsung showcased its new range of mobile products and now it is Amazon’s turn. Kindle Fire does not have some of the features that iPad 2 has, but it comes at a very affordable price, which makes it very appealing for many people.
Most of use think of black and white e-ink screens when we hear about Kindle. Still, this tablet has a 7″ IPS color display protected by Gorilla glass. As mentioned, the display is not based on e-ink, but on glowing LEDs. There are no physical buttons, so everything is touch-based. With a weight of only 14.6 oz. or 413 grams, Kindle Fire seems to be quite a light companion.
Kindle Fire It seems to feature no 3G connection, but it comes with Wi-Fi, meaning that you can still get connected to the Internet. Also, it does not have any cameras or microphones, so if you intend to buy an Android tablet for video conferences, you might want to consider other options.
The devices comes with a special version of Android OS and features 8GB of internal memory. This may not seem to much, but considering that most of the services used on Kindle Fire are in the cloud, internal memory does not matter that much. As all Android tablets, Kindle Fire will support multitasking, and from the demonstration at today’s Amazon conference, switching between tasks seems to be blazing fast. Some of the apps that will come preloaded on the tablet include Twitter, Facebook, Pandora and Netflix. Also, Kindle Fire includes support for Amazon Whispersync, which implies synchronization across all your Kindle devices when reading a book and when watching a movie or TV show.
Amazon also developed a special web browser for its tablet. Amazon Silk is not “yet another browser”, as most people would come to think. What sets Amazon Silk apart from the other web browsers is the capability to discern between what can be executed locally and what in the cloud. The AWS (Amazon Web Services) Cloud plays an important role here, as it is able to expand the potential of the device.
Kindle Fire will be shipped on November 15, 2011, but the ones who want this device can place their orders now on Amazon.
If you liked this post, please check the Samsung Note and the Pressly tablet app.
