From the beginning, Amazon's Kindle Fire was positioned as the budget tablet. Compared to the competition, rarely do the specs measure up. The one consistently redeeming virtue is the price. At $229 it retains some appeal despite its many drawbacks.
As expected, with the coming of the holiday season, so too comes Amazon's new shot at the brass ring. The 7-inch Kindle Fire HDX hit the market on October 18 followed by the larger 8.9-inch screen version in November. There are a couple interesting additions, such as the free Mayday feature, on this Android-based system.
If though you're looking for dramatic improvements in functions and capacity, you'll be disappointed. There's not a lot of enhancement with this third-generation model. Indeed, some might even think they're getting ripped off. The software here is based on Google's Android system, but absent all of Google's apps and services.
Instead, the new Kindle Fire owner has to download his or her apps from Amazon. (This includes, by the way, activating the Flash Player , which does not come activated, to the annoyance of many users.) The selection of apps is paltry in comparison to that available on the standard Android. We're talking around 85,000 apps compared to nearly a million for Android. Of course that also means you're missing a lot of stuff that many people value highly: e.g., Google Maps, Gmail, and YouTube.
And this brings us to another problematic matter, which can't be glossed over. Like its predecessor, this version of the Kindle Fire is calibrated to a relentlessly fevered sales pitch for Amazon products. You can't brush your mouse over anything without the Amazon hawker springing into action, pointing out some nifty similar Amazon product you should be buying.
Enough already. This kind of thing can be pretty particular to individual tastes. No doubt there are some people who value this constant sales job. Maybe they find it adds value. Personally, I find it annoying. But, then, much like watching commercial television, it is this bombardment of advertising that has the product in your hands for such a low price.
The good news is that the folks at Amazon have succeeded at reducing the rate of software bugs that caused so much trouble with previous models. It is much less glitchy. Also on the upside, it has an interesting design feature, which provides a "carousel" style view of apps, movies, books or whatever. These carousels provide a review of products or services that the Kindle user has recently accessed. There's a navigation bar at the bottom of the screen that provides access to the entire collection of content on the Kindle Fire.
Plus, we mustn't forget the feature that some will enjoy most of all: the Mayday button, with which a single press puts you in direct contact with a live service rep. This service guy or girl will introduce themselves, on a first name basis (of course), after popping up in a corner of your screen. This rep will be skilled and informed, able to deal with whatever problems you've encountered. In fact, should it prove a more efficacious solution, the representative can even take over direct control of the tablet. Those worried about corporate Big Brother may have pause at such a notion, but it can help resolve some issues much faster than trying to walk the owner through a series of involved steps. I certainly found this service impressive. And it represents a rare commitment to customer service.
Yet, for all that, there's a kind of paradox, here. After all, one of the main selling features of these tablets is their intuitive qualities. They're supposed to be very high on the user friendliness scale. So all the effort and expense put into this live rep feature almost leaves me wondering if the poignant "Mayday" is meant less to evoke the user calling out to the rep than Amazon calling out Mayday to the market. They surrender: as in, okay, this is the best we can do, here's the workaround our inability to come up with a tablet that actually fulfilled the promise of intuitive function. Sorry. I know, I'm a cynical old dog.
So, look, we have to conclude the same thing we have concluded on past versions. If you're sole interest is an unfailing loyalty to Amazon and its products, Kindle Fire may well be just what you need -- and there's certainly major improvements this time around. On the other hand, if your primary motivation is to save money on a tablet, you can do better .
As expected, with the coming of the holiday season, so too comes Amazon's new shot at the brass ring. The 7-inch Kindle Fire HDX hit the market on October 18 followed by the larger 8.9-inch screen version in November. There are a couple interesting additions, such as the free Mayday feature, on this Android-based system.
If though you're looking for dramatic improvements in functions and capacity, you'll be disappointed. There's not a lot of enhancement with this third-generation model. Indeed, some might even think they're getting ripped off. The software here is based on Google's Android system, but absent all of Google's apps and services.
Instead, the new Kindle Fire owner has to download his or her apps from Amazon. (This includes, by the way, activating the Flash Player , which does not come activated, to the annoyance of many users.) The selection of apps is paltry in comparison to that available on the standard Android. We're talking around 85,000 apps compared to nearly a million for Android. Of course that also means you're missing a lot of stuff that many people value highly: e.g., Google Maps, Gmail, and YouTube.
And this brings us to another problematic matter, which can't be glossed over. Like its predecessor, this version of the Kindle Fire is calibrated to a relentlessly fevered sales pitch for Amazon products. You can't brush your mouse over anything without the Amazon hawker springing into action, pointing out some nifty similar Amazon product you should be buying.
Enough already. This kind of thing can be pretty particular to individual tastes. No doubt there are some people who value this constant sales job. Maybe they find it adds value. Personally, I find it annoying. But, then, much like watching commercial television, it is this bombardment of advertising that has the product in your hands for such a low price.
The good news is that the folks at Amazon have succeeded at reducing the rate of software bugs that caused so much trouble with previous models. It is much less glitchy. Also on the upside, it has an interesting design feature, which provides a "carousel" style view of apps, movies, books or whatever. These carousels provide a review of products or services that the Kindle user has recently accessed. There's a navigation bar at the bottom of the screen that provides access to the entire collection of content on the Kindle Fire.
Plus, we mustn't forget the feature that some will enjoy most of all: the Mayday button, with which a single press puts you in direct contact with a live service rep. This service guy or girl will introduce themselves, on a first name basis (of course), after popping up in a corner of your screen. This rep will be skilled and informed, able to deal with whatever problems you've encountered. In fact, should it prove a more efficacious solution, the representative can even take over direct control of the tablet. Those worried about corporate Big Brother may have pause at such a notion, but it can help resolve some issues much faster than trying to walk the owner through a series of involved steps. I certainly found this service impressive. And it represents a rare commitment to customer service.
Yet, for all that, there's a kind of paradox, here. After all, one of the main selling features of these tablets is their intuitive qualities. They're supposed to be very high on the user friendliness scale. So all the effort and expense put into this live rep feature almost leaves me wondering if the poignant "Mayday" is meant less to evoke the user calling out to the rep than Amazon calling out Mayday to the market. They surrender: as in, okay, this is the best we can do, here's the workaround our inability to come up with a tablet that actually fulfilled the promise of intuitive function. Sorry. I know, I'm a cynical old dog.
So, look, we have to conclude the same thing we have concluded on past versions. If you're sole interest is an unfailing loyalty to Amazon and its products, Kindle Fire may well be just what you need -- and there's certainly major improvements this time around. On the other hand, if your primary motivation is to save money on a tablet, you can do better .
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To keep up on all the Kindle Fire updates, watch for Mishu Hull's valuable posts .
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