
Amazon shows off new 7-inch and 8.9 inch Kindle Fires - evo_9
http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2012/09/amazon-shows-off-new-kindle-fire-shipping-sept-14-for-159/
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jpxxx
I'm impressed with all of these. Amazon now has tablet pricing that smoothly
ranges from $69 -> $499, an outstanding value on 4G service, a quality e-mail
client story that includes ActiveSync, necessary touches like parental
controls, a substantial app library, all of the one-click content you can
handle, growing mindshare that isn't contaminated with the stink of 'Android',
and genuine technical superiority over the market monolith in a few areas.

This is going to be an extremely popular lineup.

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Achshar
I am not sure if Kindle can be considered a "tablet". There is no media
consumption possible on it except for text.

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loganfrederick
The Kindle Fire and its descendants are tablets with web browsing, app stores,
games, etc based off of Android.

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abhimishra
Yes, but $69 is for a regular e-ink Kindle. The tablets don't start until
$159.

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ConstantineXVI
I'm cautious on their $50/yr LTE. It's definitely being subsidized somehow (as
I seriously doubt AT&T is passing up $130/yr profit per customer, and not much
room for profit margins for Amazon in that $500), the question is how? Using
Silk to proxy all data? "Special Offers"?

EDIT: "Special Offers" confirmed, on all Kindles it seems. I won't be buying
such a thing. <http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008GFRDL0/>

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keltex
It's very low usage:

 _For 150MB of data access a month from AT &T, and 20 GB of cloud storage from
Amazon, it costs $50 a year._

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ConstantineXVI
It's 250MB[0], and that same allotment on the iPad through AT&T is $15/mo[1],
or $180/yr. Someone's making up the difference, or someone at AT&T is getting
a rather concerned phone call from Tim Cook about now.

EDIT: For what it's worth, VZ's lowest iPad package is $20/mo for 1GB. If
their costs were totally linear re: traffic (doubt it), the same package as
above could be $5/mo ($60/yr) before any subsidy, and $10 is much easier for
Amazon to make up than $130. It's entirely possible Amazon could have twisted
AT&T down to this level, but not without AT&T getting heat from Apple in the
process.

EDIT2: ...or the non-optional lockscreen ads may be helping Amazon's costs a
bit.

[0] [http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2012/09/kindle-
fires-4g-packa...](http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2012/09/kindle-
fires-4g-package-offers-250mb-of-data-a-month-for-50-a-year/)

[1]
[http://store.apple.com/us/buy/home/shop_ipad/family/ipad/new...](http://store.apple.com/us/buy/home/shop_ipad/family/ipad/new_ipad)

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wtvanhest
HDMI out is the most overlooked feature. It will be awesome to hit play, walk
to the kitchen, watch while cooking, then plug in to HD TV, sit down and
continue watching uniterrupted.

Not to mention for presentations, showing photos or video at a party etc.

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tesseractive
It's a nice feature, but in the long term, I expect AirPlay or a similar open
standard (?) is going to be more important. Why plug your tablet into a cable
if you don't have to?

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dusing
Agreed, once you use Airplay you wonder why you would ever plug a device into
a TV, seems archaic

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wtvanhest
Most Americans do not own Apple TV. I personally never will. That being said,
in a few years WiDi or something else will allow this to happen in other
devices.

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r00fus
It's not AirPlay - it's the concept of wireless "casting" the display to a
complaint device - which may in the future be the TV itself (as you mentioned
WiDi - though I think the first real competitor to AirPlay will come from
Google not Intel).

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guelo
Interesting that Android isn't mentioned at all. Is this tablet still based on
Gingerbread or has it added some Honeycomb or Jelly Bean APIs? The biggest
concern for app developers should be if Amazon is in the process of forking
Android.

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jpxxx
That's a developer discussion. Mentioning Android in a customer-facing
presentation turns Kindle Fire into an "Android tablet" which telegraphs the
message that it is techie crap they won't enjoy.

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guelo
Customers would want to know what apps the thing can run. Will it be stuck
running android's gingerbread apps forever while the rest of the android
ecosystem moves on?

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jpxxx
That's a good question but a non-question, since it 'officially' only runs
apps from the Amazon App Store.

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mtgx
I think the 9" one is the most interesting tablet out of the bunch, because
it's in the range of 9"-10", it has a "retina display" (just 9 PPI lower than
the iPad 3) - and it costs just $300! That's crazy, and although I'm not
interested in this specific tablet, because I'd rather have a full Android
one, it's awesome that they are going to push others to match their pricing
very soon for that size, too.

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eropple
While I'm fully aware it goes against why Amazon is selling them, the 8.9" one
is only interesting to me if I can blow away the Amazon OS and install stock
Android 4.1 on it. The Amazon software is a big value-subtraction to me.

(I'm not expecting it to be possible--though eventually XDA will probably get
it. Just that that's what I want out of my tablet and phone; it's why I use
Nexus devices for my Android stuff.)

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esolyt
This tablet can run Android apps already, as far as I know. The OS is based on
ICS.

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ktsmith
It can only install apps from the Amazon marketplace which is significantly
smaller than the play marketplace.

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jonknee
You can install regular ol' .apk files, so it's Google Play's issue and not
the Kindle Fire's.

<http://www.ubergizmo.com/2011/11/kindle-fire-sideload/>

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ktsmith
It's Android so of course you can side load apps. However it's a fork of
Android and so it's not eligible to get access to Google's app ecosystem. This
is a decision that Amazon made intentionally and knowing full well it would
limit their customers access to android offerings via Google. They don't want
their customers using third party marketplaces or video services as then
Amazon is cut out of the payments.

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jonknee
> They don't want their customers using third party marketplaces or video
> services as then Amazon is cut out of the payments

The integration into Amazon's ecosystem is a major selling feature, trying to
fully tie it into two ecosystems would be a mess.

You can use other video services though, Netflix works great. For music there
is Pandora and Spotify.

~~~
ktsmith
I don't see how this integration is a selling point, the price and the kindle
branding seem to be it's biggest selling points. Everyone knows that kindle is
synonymous with books at this point.

You can certainly use other services like Netflix, Hulu, Spotify or Pandora.
Amazon probably loves that those apps are available for their device. The
basic reason is that once you go looking for something not available on those
other services (which happens frequently) your only other real choice is
buying it from Amazon.

I have a fire, and it was immediately obvious within a few minutes it's
designed around consuming content from Amazon and spending more money with
them. While it would be absolutely a mess to fully support two app ecosystems
I think it's naive to think that Amazon would have supported any system that
didn't primarily direct funds back to them. They can sell these devices so
cheaply as it doesn't matter if they profit from hardware. They've designed
everything in such a way as to derive their revenue from sales of media.

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jonknee
> I don't see how this integration is a selling point, the price and the
> kindle branding seem to be it's biggest selling points. Everyone knows that
> kindle is synonymous with books at this point.

It's a selling point because it's easy and it's automatic. Similar to iOS. Out
of the box you're ready to go and if you buy something one place it shows up
in the other place too. If you're a Prime customer there is a ton of video
content waiting for you for free. It's a walled garden, but other than Apple
it's the most well done walled garden.

I'd prefer top of the line hardware with stock Android (mostly so I can test
stuff), but that's not the business they're in. They made that very clear with
Bezos stating they don't want to make money with selling their devices, they
want to make money when you use them.

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wtvanhest
Why doesn't it have the battery life listed at the bottom of Amazon.com's
description of the fire HD?

Every other tablet they have has it listed.

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ableal
Good catch. It's probably less than the 11h they announce for the 7" Fire HD.
Unless nearly all of the 6oz weight difference is in the battery.

Speaking of which, "Weight 20 ounces (575 grams)" is rightly not touted in an
otherwise very convincing siren call to those ready to enjoy the Amazon
garden.

(Product page at <http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008GFRDL0/> )

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wtvanhest
Even worse is the non optional ads "Special Offers"... WTF?

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sharms
I am definitely going to preorder the 8.9 inch model. It looks amazing, isn't
based on Tegra 3 and the screen looks awesome. It sets itself apart from the
Nexus 7 and iPad very well.

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bovik
How's _not_ being based on quad-core tegra3 is a plus? As for battery life,
the new Fire obviously doesn't have any hands-on reviews yet but nexus 7
battery life has been very solid according to all reviews.

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sharms
If they based it on tegra 3 it would be very hard to understand, as a
"techie", the differences between this and the collection of other tegra 3
products on the market. I think this helps set it apart from Google, rather
than the instant retort of "its just a rebranded nexus 7"

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bovik
That's a strange kind of argument for favoring something "as a techie".
Wouldn't you be more excited by the two extra cores (not to mention the
additional "phantom" core) that tegra 3 provides.

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ansonurpants
Do you guys think cyanogenmod could work on the LTE kindle with the cheap data
plan and everything?

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r00fus
Can these be bought outside the US? Looks like the data plan on the LTE model
at least is US-only.

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enraged_camel
I think the iPad Mini is an absolute certainty at this point.

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randallu
With a similar processor (though better GPU) and a much lower resolution
display...

