Opinion: The Massive Difference Between a $200 Kindle Fire and a $500 Tablet

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Bottom line: Even the The Kyros™ MID8127 is a better deal. Selling for $180 or less, fully capable of running honeycomb, and thusly unlocking the full android market.
 
I took a quick poll of everyone I know who uses a tablet- and I think the distribution is pretty typical:
4 who just use it for an in-car distraction for the kids, with a MiFi so they all share one internet connection bill ( that is an acer A500, two archos units and a HP Touchpad). two that use it for the Apple ecosystem, and dont really need it - and in fact have a backup tablet for when they actually need to do something kind of funny to see them carrying two tablets. (as a side note, the two who are carrying extra tablets got them from me, Acer W500 units) and four real estate persons who I got Acer w500's for because the web sites and apps they need do not work on Android or iOS. incidentally the two apple persons are also in real estate. If it looks like i am pushing the Acer, it is because it is the first windows tablet that had enough of the right stuff all working at the same time that I found, and I try to standardize to keep my support calls simpler.
I am not counting Kindles, as I dont know anyone with the newer ones yet and the normal kindle is an e-reader, not a tablet. (i know you can somewhat browse with it, but not really)
and
 
[citation][nom]culgor[/nom]The Fire is a great device for consuming Amazon content, which there is plenty of.[/citation]
That's the bottom line. Gruener manages to throw a useless ipad comparison in there, like this tablet was ever meant to be an ipad replacement. Typical fanboi.
Even so, Amazon offers their content on the Fire for less than half of the price of an ipad 1, which had the same goal with Apple content. That is impressive feat for Amazon. Next gen tablet will have more and more of what other consumers will want in it.
 
i don't expect a fire to be an ipad replacement, but it will definitely take away alot of ipad share,, if the fire or the nook tablet were made available in Canada, I'd be buying 2 for my kids (3 if my youngest was a little older) they use my Ipad all the time to do what? watch netflix,,,, something the fire & nook will be able to do just fine and when the kids get a bit older, it will let them do some reading and cruzing of the internet,,,
anyone that has kids and an ipad knows exactly how tough it is to get the ipad to themselves.. ipad is just a touch too expensive for each kid to own and the alternatives are still a bit too pricy too.
 
Maybe I'm just stupid, but I'm still trying to figure out what place a tablet pc has in my life when I don't travel or commute a lot, or have children. I have 3 computers at home, a couple at work, and a smartphone, so where does the tablet fit in?
 
Count me out until tablets are at least packing a ULV Core i series / ULV core 2 series or something with some balls, and a real OS. There's no reason they can't. A ULV core i3 has a MAX TDP of 17W (with an integrated GPU). That's absolute max. Idle or under partial load, it's in the 5w-10w range. Perfectly within the realm of a tablet. Currently, all tablets feel like giant cell phones to me.


 
[citation][nom]thrasher32[/nom]Maybe I'm just stupid, but I'm still trying to figure out what place a tablet pc has in my life when I don't travel or commute a lot, or have children. I have 3 computers at home, a couple at work, and a smartphone, so where does the tablet fit in?[/citation]
I didn't have alot of use for a tablet either before,, when i bought my ipad i still wasn't sure how much it would actually be used,, but my wife took to it real fast, and I warmed up to it a bit after i had some time with some of the apps that let me leech my media from my PC over the network... I love my desktop and it is hooked up to my TV,, but sometimes you just want to sit back in a comfy chair and cruze the internet or listen to a little music or something and not have to be in any certain room--- a smartphone is a bit different, but not as nice to watch/read from a small screen,, not trying to sell you on it,, just saying I wasn't really sure where a tablet fit in for me either till I had one.
 
they are out there. just not really common. the AMD APU in the W500 is not all that ball-sey as you say, but I have found little that it can not handle. running 32gb SSD plus 32gbSD with 2gb RAM, pretty dang useful.

[citation][nom]mavroxur[/nom]Count me out until tablets are at least packing a ULV Core i series / ULV core 2 series or something with some balls, and a real OS. There's no reason they can't. A ULV core i3 has a MAX TDP of 17W (with an integrated GPU). That's absolute max. Idle or under partial load, it's in the 5w-10w range. Perfectly within the realm of a tablet. Currently, all tablets feel like giant cell phones to me.[/citation]
 
let's not forget what you can get for $200 .. the author seems as if that's a drop in the bucket to him. $200 can buy you .. about ten dinners. It can pretty easily buy the groceries for a family of four for a week. $200 wins you ~6 tanks of gas -- that might be pushing 3 months of transportation for some people. Speaking of transportation, that $200 can buy you a round trip flight to Puerto Rico during discounts season.

I find myself in that same position sometimes .. do I want to buy a toy like an iPad, that Ill use some and really enjoy -- or a vacation to Spain, that Ill remember forever?
 
I know several people who have iPads, Playbooks, and the like. Pretty much all say that, after the newness wore off, they rarely use their pads. The iPad users tell me that the only thing they use them for is email and entertainment, and even that mostly only when they travel. That is the question that has been on most of our minds, is it not? What are the things really for?

In my mind, a tablet is a useful for casual browsing, playing games, basic email, and content consumption. I am not insinuating that these thoughts apply to everyone, just that to me this is what a tablet would be useful for. Based on that, the Fire would easily meet my needs. No camera? I don't care, as I would not use that anyway. No usb or card slot? Once again, not an issue for me. Tied to Amazon? I am fine with that, as Amazon provides a fine ecosystem to be tied into. 7" screen size? I actually prefer that size, as the iPad and other 10" models are too big to easily carry or hold in one hand. Perhaps that is why there are so many iPads sitting in desk drawers rarely being used as surveys have shown. Finally, no 3G/4G is more than fine for me, as I don't need/want another contract and there is wifi pretty much everywhere I go anymore.

To each his own, but for $199 Amazon has finally produced a tablet that tempts me off of the sidelines.
 
[citation][nom]robisinho[/nom]let's not forget what you can get for $200 .. the author seems as if that's a drop in the bucket to him. $200 can buy you .. about ten dinners. It can pretty easily buy the groceries for a family of four for a week. $200 wins you ~6 tanks of gas -- that might be pushing 3 months of transportation for some people. Speaking of transportation, that $200 can buy you a round trip flight to Puerto Rico during discounts season.I find myself in that same position sometimes .. do I want to buy a toy like an iPad, that Ill use some and really enjoy -- or a vacation to Spain, that Ill remember forever?[/citation]
where the hell do you live? 200 bux gets me 2 and a half tanks of gas (2 1/2 weeks of transportation) and maybe 8 meals at McDonald's,, wouldn't call em dinners,, I don't know anywhere I can fly from here for under 200,, and that would be 1-way,,

PS I live in Winnipeg
 
Puke of an article

"I can’t recall a non-Apple product for which we have been waiting as anxiously as we have for the Kindle Fire."

I can't ever recall "anxiously waiting" for any craPlle's product, and I am sure most of this site's readers would agree. % would go higher as you go back in time. Having said that, speak for yourself there Wolfgang, that sentence should be "I can’t recall a non-Apple product for which I have been waiting as anxiously as I have for the Kindle Fire." Looks like either Wolfgang is a fan, or Toms is being paid by craPlle. Sorry, Toms is long gone, it is now "Best of media".
 
This is another "i"advertisement by the Tomshardware in house living troll.

most of us don't care about mini pads nor "maxi pads", but good for you and your pads.

pun-intended.

now lets fo back to the real articles about real hardware pronto before this becomes itomspads.com
 
[citation][nom]house70[/nom]That's the bottom line. Gruener manages to throw a useless ipad comparison in there, like this tablet was ever meant to be an ipad replacement. Typical fanboi.Even so, Amazon offers their content on the Fire for less than half of the price of an ipad 1, which had the same goal with Apple content. That is impressive feat for Amazon. Next gen tablet will have more and more of what other consumers will want in it.[/citation]

But you are very defensive with your comment also as it definitely wont harm anyone to do some side by side comparison and have an opinion here and there. What this article brings in is to expect what you pay for as the Kindle Fire is a fair device it is not a real Kindle tablet for optimal reading and not the best also for entertainment as it lacks more advanced features now regular on most expensive tablets. So it all comes at what do you really want to do with your tablet and how much do you want to pay. The Fire is good.

With enough time the Kindle Fire may get more advanced features but so it will any other device.
 
[quotation]"I can’t recall a non-Apple product for which I have been waiting as anxiously as I have for the Kindle Fire."[/quotation]

Since I cannot recall ever waiting for any Apple's product, let alone anxiously, I fixed it for you Wolfgang. Now it sounds more like the fanboy you really are. I think most readers would agree, and next time speak for yourself.
 
What people don't realize about the Kindle Fire is the resolution is not very good for reading...Which is one of the primary uses of a tablet... You have to constantly zoom or double-tap to read magazines, comics and kids books...and regular books will give you a headache after a while. Stick to the e-Ink Kindle for heavy reading...go for a larger tablet for everything else.
 
[citation][nom]thrasher32[/nom]Maybe I'm just stupid, but I'm still trying to figure out what place a tablet pc has in my life when I don't travel or commute a lot, or have children. I have 3 computers at home, a couple at work, and a smartphone, so where does the tablet fit in?[/citation]
Tablets aren't for everyone. Right now in my life, a tablet would be a complete waste of money for me. Sounds like you're in the same boat. Either way, I'm waiting for the craze to die down, tablets to mature, and maybe I'll be in the market when the battery life lasts 24 hours or more.
 
This editorial could have been one paragraph: the Fire is not a $200.00 cheaper iPad replacement. Golly gee. But where the editor has failed Amazon has done their homework very wisely. 1. The cheaper price enables cheaper admission for more people. Where as the iPad is a niche item mostly for gleeful Apple loyalists travelers trying to quietly show their prizes, the Fire makes tablet use and ownership far more palatable for practical buyers. Fire "intrudes" on the iPad country club. And the brilliance of Amazon is that the device is intricately linked to one of the most powerful retail and larger media presences in the U.S. The iPad has to have app support and a certain amount of self developed interest to make it useful. For $200.00 -and Amazon Prime- there's books galore, movies, and a retail shopping capability experience no other can compare to. Would your typical tablet owner shop Home Depot items on it? No. Techie types and hard core readers will buy a Fire and instantly gain and appreciate it's baseline value. And seriously, how many people find much use for a tablet's camera?

Amazon: win
Editor: 0 for paragraphs of stating the obvious that won't matter to Fire buyers anyway.
 
I dunno. I have an HP Touchpad that I bought during the fire sale. The main thing I use it for is reading comics. 95% of my time on it goes to that. I do some light browsing, play the odd game, and that's pretty much it. Oh it makes a decent calender.

But whoever says tablets are going to replace desktops is an idiot. Tablets will never be as customizable, powerful, or practical as a killer desktop.
 
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