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Amazon’s declared war on not just Google, but Apple too, with last night’s Kindle Fire tablet onslaught. In the UK though, we’re limited to just the updated Kindle Fire and the smaller Kindle Fire HD 7-inch; basically Nexus 7 challengers, matching or beating it on price. To do that, Amazon’s shoving adverts on your shiny new device — but does that bother you, and is a tablet for £159, or even just £129, too tempting to care about some poxy ads?
I have to say, I’m tempted by the Kindle Fire HD, but that Nexus 7, it’s such a slick experience. And ads, I’m not sure I could handle ads on my tablet. Hate ad-supported apps, so if it’s shoehorned directly into the OS and you can’t get rid of it, well, that’s a step to far for me.
If they had a proper US style Prime I may have been tempted but they haven’t so there is no incentive for me whatsoever – they offer nothing the Nexus doesn’t have apart from Lovefilm streaming which I would have to pay extra for.
Sam, why is it that Amazon has “Declared War” on anybody, simply by releasing a competing product? I know it makes for a nice, dramatic passage but aren’t there enough aggressive overtones in competition without bringing armed conflict into it.
As for Ads on the Fire, I’m sure some clever bod at XDA will figure out how to block them, or just install stock jellybean on the device.
Even if they’re built into the OS, all it’ll take is root access and AdFree!
I’m waiting to see what the offering from the windows 8 tablets is like.
If I was going to buy a 7″ inch tablet I’d get teh Nexus 7
How much is the bigger Amazon tablet and is that ad supported too?
I really haven’t met anyone who’s struggling to buy a tablet. I think tablets had always been a luxury. You don’t hear people go “If only I could afford a tablet..”. So making it too ridiculously cheap might work only in developing countries. Also, I’m yet to see anyone carrying more than one tablet. It’s a good offering, but I don’t know what the target demographic is.
If the ads are interactive, like a slide on the carousel, which doesn’t pop up, I think it’s digestible.Pop up ads are definitely a NO-NO.
I have met lots of people struggling to buy a tablet. They’re called students
Point taken.
But whatever happened to good ol’ students with laptops.
Same thing that happened to anyone else with laptops! It’s much easier to carry a tablet back and forth than a laptop.
Wait for the nice people on xda to root it and then install a custom rom. Sorted.
Already got an ipad, which I would still prefer because I’ve been on iphone for years. But if I was starting fresh I’d certainly have a lot to think about.
This is the first point the tablet market has looked anything but a one-horse race
LOL, have you seen the content that lovefilm have got? I’m surprised that the majority of it isn’t available on VHS as well.
Amazon have just started up a tech center in Farringdon in London and they are still recruiting a product manager for their player, so I’d imagine that side of things is still going to lag behind netflix for quite some time.
If the Kindle Fire is good value for money at £129 – £159 but keeps being banded as “good value for money”, then what is the Samsung Tab2 7.0 at £159 (after £30 cashback). In my opinion it offers all of the functions of the Kindle but with better graphics, relies less on rarely used features such as the book rewading-listening sync, and does’t have ad support. If you consider a purchase like the Samung with other hardware purchases, it can integrate with TV, Blu-ray stereo etc.
Yes the Kindle is a good price, but if you’re already paying more than £100, you can go a bit higher to buy something that doesn’t ad support, Don’t regret at £100+ purchase for a few extra quid