Amazon has announced their new Kindle tablet – the Amazon Kindle Fire (Get it? Kindle…Fire…), and while it may not be an iPad killer, the Amazon tablet very well may be some serious competition for the iPad. In addition to being able to access all of Amazon’s catalogues – books, music, movies, and more – on the tablet, you can access Amazon’s Android app store (the Kindle Fire runs a modified Android under the hood), you can subscribe to magazines, you can check email, and you can browse the web using Amazon’s snappy new web browser, Amazon Silk (not sure what silk has to do with fire), and, you can run Flash with the Kindle Silk browser – which the iPad can’t (or rather won’t) do. All this for only $199!
So what can’t you do with the Kindle Fire? Well, for one, you can’t access email or the web if you aren’t near a wifi hotspot – because the Kindle Fire doesn’t have 3G, only wifi. (But, of course, it does have Whispernet, and on the Kindle Fire you can get streaming Amazon movies over Whispernet as well as your books and music.) But to do anything off the Amazon network you’ll need access to wifi.
Another thing that you can’t do with the Kindle Fire is access the Android Market, where all the Android apps are. This is because although the Kindle Fire is running Android under the hood, you do not have free and unfettered access to the full Android. You can access the Amazon app store for Android, which does have lots of nice apps, but somehow it’s not quite the same. Of course, it’s only a matter of time before someone figures out how to jailbreak it and unleash full Android on it, much like they have with the Barnes & Noble Nook Color.
You also can’t take picture with the Kindle Fire, because it doesn’t have a camera.
But all that said, at $199, with a gorgeous (and durable) 7″ display, 8 GB of internal storage and free cloud storage for all of your Amazon content, and web browsing and email, it’s one heck of a buy.
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And just in time for Christmas. The Amazon Kindle Fire is due out November 15th, and they are taking pre-orders right now. Says Amazon:
“Pre-order now to reserve your place in line Our all-new Kindle Fire will be released on November 15, 2011. Orders are prioritized on a first come, first served basis.”
You can Read more about and pre-order the Amazon Kindle Fire here
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