Kindle Fire android tablet launched by Amazon on November 2011 has soon become one of most popular gadget and the sales figure of more than 4 million units sold in Q4 2011 speaks for itself. This equates to around 14.3 percent of the tablet market share for Amazon thereby securing its place on the second spot behind Apple's iPad which owes the lion's share of around 57% in the market selling almost 15.4 million units. The 7-inch Amazon Kindle Fire remained the closest competitor to the iPad and priced at just $199 it took all the excitement of the tablet admirers to the fever pitch. It's not just about the low cost of this Kindle Fire but it also leaps high on features and build quality at the given price.
While Apple's iPad priced at around $500 and above still continues to roar, Kindle Fire has made it's way in satisfying all those people who couldn't afford the expensive luxury in the likes of iPad by offering itself not only in a surprisingly affordable price range but also having all the features and capabilities that a $199 priced tablet should boast. If we are to talk about its technical specification, this best selling product from Amazon comes along with a 7-inch display, 8GB of built-in storage space, Wi-Fi connectivity, longer battery life, USB 2.0 & 3.5 mm stereo audio jack support and Free cloud storage to list out a few of the important technical details of the device. Be it for reading your favorite books & magazines or watching a blockbuster movie, playing games or listening to music - the Kindle Fire is all capable of to stun you with its capabilities and strong features.
It comes on board with a customized Android Honeycomb operating system which gets rid of the native software that Amazon product generally comes along. The aesthetics looks good and strongly built and it was often compared with the Blackberry Playbook which looks alike to some extent. You won't find any unnecessary keys or buttons and this tablet just reflects a very minimalist appearance with only a USB port, headphone jack and the power button in place. There are downsides too with this setup as some important usability aspects are compromised such as absence of screen locking switch and dedicated volume keys. In addition, you will also be missing out other communication functionality like microphone, GPS and Bluetooth support. There is also no camera on both front and rear side and it also lacks the Android Market and external memory support.
Well, the absence of some of the important features can be taken for granted as it will be a bit illogical to expect all the high-end features to be included for a price as low as this. Moreover, Amazon simply wanted to put Kindle Fire as a Multimedia device rather than for any communication purpose. On the better side, it does feature some good hardware build and includes a 1GHz dual-core Texas Instruments OMAP processor & 512MB RAM.
The best experience while using this device was that of the vibrant and colorful touch display which is built with IPA offering a screen resolution of 1024 x 600 pixels. The visual output is vivid, detailed & crisp and can be said to be even better than that of the iPad but ofcourse nowhere equal to the retina display. The Gorilla Glass screen provides multi-touch support and has a very good touch response. The user interface is neat and the customized Android 2.3 Gingerbread operating system is fast and straight-forward. Occasional lagging do occur while playing big videos or launching an app but overall it runs just fine and nothing bad to report here. However, the speakers are not very impressive and didn't work out great as we had expected. The battery life is good and can give you active usage time of around 6hours only eventhough the standard backup time is mentioned to be 8hours.
There is no Google Android Market support with Kindle Fire and you have to rely on the Amazons own app store for android which too covers some branded apps and games. Popular titles like Angry Birds, Dead Space, Fruit Ninja, Plant vs Zombie etc can be found and downloaded. Various social apps also exists which can be used to access the Facebook or Twitter services but we didn't find any dedicated official app for the same. The built-in Silk browser is fast on loading webpages and it optimizes the content to fit the screen perfectly. Since it is a flashed based browser, it worked well for even heavy graphic websites which relies on flash media a lot. You can buy songs and movies, books, magazines and all other stuffs to your device or otherwise chose to store them on the cloud. The Kindle Fire Cloud Reader helps you read all the archived books from the cloud without locally storing them which is also same for the Kindle Fire Cloud Player for music.
There are a few accessories that are available for the Kindle Fire and needs to be purchased separately. These includes Kindle Fire Case that are available in leather and Zip Sleeve, Screen Protectors, Skin, headphones and power adapters. However, external Kindle Fire Keyboards may not be available and there is no way to connect them. There may be other third-party accessories available too for using with the Amazon Kindle Fire.
The above title might have surprised you and you may be wondering whether it is just a typo or something else. It surprised us too when we heard about Kindle Fire 2 and that it is in production to be rolled out somewhere near May 2012. This is not what we claim to inform but is rather a widely spread rumour that most of the high-profile authors have been featuring on their websites and blogs. However, it's just a rumour and nothing more can be expected until any details are unveiled regarding the claim. They did reveal few facts about it but all seemed just a story which can be deemed as just rumour and nothing else. So, for now there is no Kindle Fire 2 on the pipeline for release and even if it gets ready in the coming days, you probably will get to know about it even before the item hits the store. So, just enjoy the Amazon Kindle Fire which offers a great value for the money but don't expect to have all the premium features to be available at such low cost.
While Apple's iPad priced at around $500 and above still continues to roar, Kindle Fire has made it's way in satisfying all those people who couldn't afford the expensive luxury in the likes of iPad by offering itself not only in a surprisingly affordable price range but also having all the features and capabilities that a $199 priced tablet should boast. If we are to talk about its technical specification, this best selling product from Amazon comes along with a 7-inch display, 8GB of built-in storage space, Wi-Fi connectivity, longer battery life, USB 2.0 & 3.5 mm stereo audio jack support and Free cloud storage to list out a few of the important technical details of the device. Be it for reading your favorite books & magazines or watching a blockbuster movie, playing games or listening to music - the Kindle Fire is all capable of to stun you with its capabilities and strong features.
It comes on board with a customized Android Honeycomb operating system which gets rid of the native software that Amazon product generally comes along. The aesthetics looks good and strongly built and it was often compared with the Blackberry Playbook which looks alike to some extent. You won't find any unnecessary keys or buttons and this tablet just reflects a very minimalist appearance with only a USB port, headphone jack and the power button in place. There are downsides too with this setup as some important usability aspects are compromised such as absence of screen locking switch and dedicated volume keys. In addition, you will also be missing out other communication functionality like microphone, GPS and Bluetooth support. There is also no camera on both front and rear side and it also lacks the Android Market and external memory support.
Well, the absence of some of the important features can be taken for granted as it will be a bit illogical to expect all the high-end features to be included for a price as low as this. Moreover, Amazon simply wanted to put Kindle Fire as a Multimedia device rather than for any communication purpose. On the better side, it does feature some good hardware build and includes a 1GHz dual-core Texas Instruments OMAP processor & 512MB RAM.
The best experience while using this device was that of the vibrant and colorful touch display which is built with IPA offering a screen resolution of 1024 x 600 pixels. The visual output is vivid, detailed & crisp and can be said to be even better than that of the iPad but ofcourse nowhere equal to the retina display. The Gorilla Glass screen provides multi-touch support and has a very good touch response. The user interface is neat and the customized Android 2.3 Gingerbread operating system is fast and straight-forward. Occasional lagging do occur while playing big videos or launching an app but overall it runs just fine and nothing bad to report here. However, the speakers are not very impressive and didn't work out great as we had expected. The battery life is good and can give you active usage time of around 6hours only eventhough the standard backup time is mentioned to be 8hours.
Kindle Fire Apps and Games Download
There is no Google Android Market support with Kindle Fire and you have to rely on the Amazons own app store for android which too covers some branded apps and games. Popular titles like Angry Birds, Dead Space, Fruit Ninja, Plant vs Zombie etc can be found and downloaded. Various social apps also exists which can be used to access the Facebook or Twitter services but we didn't find any dedicated official app for the same. The built-in Silk browser is fast on loading webpages and it optimizes the content to fit the screen perfectly. Since it is a flashed based browser, it worked well for even heavy graphic websites which relies on flash media a lot. You can buy songs and movies, books, magazines and all other stuffs to your device or otherwise chose to store them on the cloud. The Kindle Fire Cloud Reader helps you read all the archived books from the cloud without locally storing them which is also same for the Kindle Fire Cloud Player for music.
Kindle Fire Accessories and Enhancements
There are a few accessories that are available for the Kindle Fire and needs to be purchased separately. These includes Kindle Fire Case that are available in leather and Zip Sleeve, Screen Protectors, Skin, headphones and power adapters. However, external Kindle Fire Keyboards may not be available and there is no way to connect them. There may be other third-party accessories available too for using with the Amazon Kindle Fire.
Kindle Fire 2 Features and Release Date
The above title might have surprised you and you may be wondering whether it is just a typo or something else. It surprised us too when we heard about Kindle Fire 2 and that it is in production to be rolled out somewhere near May 2012. This is not what we claim to inform but is rather a widely spread rumour that most of the high-profile authors have been featuring on their websites and blogs. However, it's just a rumour and nothing more can be expected until any details are unveiled regarding the claim. They did reveal few facts about it but all seemed just a story which can be deemed as just rumour and nothing else. So, for now there is no Kindle Fire 2 on the pipeline for release and even if it gets ready in the coming days, you probably will get to know about it even before the item hits the store. So, just enjoy the Amazon Kindle Fire which offers a great value for the money but don't expect to have all the premium features to be available at such low cost.
