The Amazon Android tablet is officially available for pre-order. The 7-inch Android tablet by Amazon made its first public appearance in New York Wednesday. The Amazon tablet, or Kindle Fire will be released in US only on November 15, 2011.
Here’s a little bit more about the tablet. The Kindle Fire is a 7-inch Android based tablet, running Android 2.3 Gingerbread. Updates will be available from time to time by Amazon. The tablet will be available in an 8GB format with free cloud storage by Amazon. The Kindle Fire is small and portable like other Kindles making it easy to use and carry around. And that pretty much sums up the specs of the Kindle Fire.
So what is it about the Amazon tablet? Well, after all the hype, that Amazon got regarding a potential iPad killer with a super Android tablet, I must say that this is not really what we expected. Don’t get me wrong, the Kindle Fire surely is a great tablet, or shall I say, a Kindle that’s on Fire. Pretty much it. The Amazon tablet, is really just a super Kindle, with access to the Amazon Appstore, e-books, magazines, movies and songs.
Why is it not up to par with Apple’s iPad or any other Android tablet for instance? Well, I guess that for monetary reasons, Amazon wanted to produce an affordable tablet and because of this, they had to sacrifice some features.
– Camera feature is one of them, the Kindle Fire does not have a camera.
– The Kindle Fire is a two finger multitouch tablet.
– Only Amazon books and select magazines are available for now.
– Basic picture browsing is available, nothing fancy as the Kindle Fire has not been optimised for that.
– In terms of connectivity, there is only a USB port, no HDMI port or expansion card slot.
Is the Kindle Fire worth it? At $199, the Kindle Fire is absolutely worth it if you’re looking for a Kindle tablet. But if you’re hoping to get an iPad like tablet, then you should look at something that is marketed towards that. Basically, comparing the Kindle Fire to an iPad is like comparing an apple to a watermelon, you get the idea.
Still, nothing beats HP’s TouchPad fire sale and with Android getting ported on it, it should be awesome.
