
Amazon unveils a trio of new Kindle Fire tablets  - healsdata
http://reviews.cnet.com/tablets/amazon-kindle-fire-hdx/4505-3126_7-35828167.html
======
alanctgardner2
So far I've seen a few comments criticizing Mayday, because of claims that "it
should just work, like Apple". In fact, Apple offers free "setup" service at
an Apple Store when you buy your device, and 90 days of unlimited phone
support once you leave the store[1]. Plus the free Genius Bar appointments,
even after you're well out of your warranty period.

Mayday is really fascinating, because it seems like Amazon's attempt to adapt
the Genius Bar to their business model. You can argue that having enough tech
support people to cover the feature might get expensive, but I could see it
having a 'ring-back' notification, where you ask for help, and then your
tablet will notify you when a support person is ready. Compared to the cost of
having a bunch of flagship retail stores (staffed by a bunch of greater than
minimum wage "Geniuses", governed by whatever local labour laws apply), I
guess we'll have to wait and see which approach proves more cost effective.

1\.
[http://www.apple.com/retail/personalsetup/](http://www.apple.com/retail/personalsetup/)

~~~
jzwinck
Of course it should have a ring-back feature. Not only is it a good idea for
reducing customer wait times and frustrations, it is a feature Amazon already
implemented several years ago for their regular customer service.

Around 2010 I placed an order and quickly realized I had made some stupid
mistake--I think I had left some of my items in the wish list or so. I clicked
through the support option on Amazon.com and it asked me for my phone number.
I entered it, and the site gave me some clue about how long I'd wait (only a
few minutes). Before long, the phone rang, and the person on the other end
immediately resolved my issue, corrected it with a level of calm reassurance I
hadn't experienced since something with LSI RAID support in 2007 (a higher-
margin business with real critical stuff on the line, not my BS shopping cart
mishap!).

Before that little episode (which lasted all of ten minutes), I liked Amazon.
Afterward, I rarely considered buying elsewhere.

~~~
bostonpete
Agreed -- I had a similar experience with my wife's original Kindle Fire. I
got a prompt callback from someone who knew what they were talking about (not
just someone obviously walking through a script and telling me to do things I
already said I had done). When it turned out to be a problem with the device,
they made it stupidly easy to replace the device.

I'd much rather deal with good phone support with little hassle than have to
trek to a mall to get to a store where I can talk to an expert. Sure the face-
to-face support is probably more comforting to some, but many people in that
camp probably wouldn't feel comfortable buying such a device online to begin
with.

~~~
alanctgardner2
I think the video chat component of this is to assuage the 'face-to-face
support is more comforting' crowd. If my mum can get the callback, see the
person, talk to them, and have the steps explained, it'll vastly reduce the
number of service calls I get ;)

------
_lex
I'm confused about the mayday feature - is it free, and is it included on the
$139 device? I can easily see my parents burning through $139 in tech support
over a single weekend, just to get things setup. I can also see lonely people
calling just to see someone and talk, and presenting fake issues that they
need help with. Finally, I can see mayday leading to the sort of technological
illiteracy that you see in a household when one person is responsible for all
IT support - the other person winds up barely able to log into their own
accounts because someone else always solves their problems for them.

~~~
Tyrannosaurs
My guess would be that Amazon are counting on them then buying movies, apps
and books to make up for it.

This feels like a response to poor user engagement and given that on-going
purchases are a big part of Amazon's aim for these devices that would be a
problem for them.

Remember too that this could / should be a one off cost to Amazon for each
Fire user. When / if your parents like the tablet and upgrade in the future,
you'd hope that they then had enough familiarity not to need it again.

~~~
_lex
I dunno - my parents would never stop using such a service - it's easier than
googling your problem, and they find new tech problems on a weekly basis, and
they aren't great at pattern matching to solve those new problems. God help
them if the device auto updates into software that looks any different....

I agree that it's a response to poor engagement, but if that's the case, I
think they're trying to solve a usability problem by throwing people at it.
Apple's biggest selling point for the last 4 years was "It doesn't come with a
manual because it's so simple". Amazon seems to have given up on simple, and
on manuals - their equivalent phrase would be "it's so complex that we've
hired people to help you use it, 24/7".

I think that although this service is a small step forward for currently
confused users, it's likely a huge leap backwards, because it'll leave those
people confused forever, and dependent on the "amazon lady" to use their
tablet for them. On the surface, this seems too ridiculously obvious, so I
have to imagine that they've got an awesome game plan that is yet to be
revealed.

~~~
Tyrannosaurs
Thinking about it a little more, Bezos has said that the Amazon process
overall is about massive scale and when you're dealing with massive scale you
remove every minor pain point because at massive scale even small pain
multiples up to have a significant hit.

Thinking about it with that in mind, this could be Amazon using Mayday as a
way of learning where people have pain so they can remove it in future
versions.

Perhaps it should be seen as the largest usability study in history?

------
eclipxe
Congrats to the dev team(s)!

~~~
ok_craig
I think this is a sentiment we don't see enough around here.

~~~
what_ever
And I think it's better that way. If you care enough to congratulate the team,
do it somewhere it's more personal than a HN thread.

------
thekingshorses
WOW Amazon supports webapp!
[https://developer.amazon.com/sdk/webapps.html](https://developer.amazon.com/sdk/webapps.html)

Amazon's web app runtime is built on the open-source Chromium project. It is
GPU-accelerated and optimized for fluid performance on Kindle Fire.

With the web app runtime, your web apps can achieve fluidity and speed
approaching that of native apps.

~~~
simonh
Let me guess, you write press releases and add copy for a living? If not, you
really should, you've got a real talent there.

~~~
koralatov
A talent for writing comments that read like brazen astroturfing? The first
time I read it, that's what I thought it was. I'm still not sure that it _isn
't_.

~~~
TazeTSchnitzel
I think those were just copied from the page.

------
jamesmiller5
Is it just me or does the announcement time seem strangely late at night?
Wouldn't a company normally announce something like this during business
hours, assuming a US target market?

~~~
devindotcom
Midnight embargoes are common, I deal with them all the time. Problem is
sometimes the PR people just say "12 midnight on Tuesday," with no indication
of whether that means at the very first second of tuesday or the very last
one. I know there are commonplace understandings on this score, but not
everyone is on the same page.

Occasionally to be extra clear they'll set the embargo for 12:01 AM or what
have you. It makes more sense to have it be at 7AM New York time, but no one
listens to _me_.

------
diziet
The most interesting feature is Kindle Mayday. It connects you with a support
technician -- live. I wonder how that will work out.

[http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57604502-93/amazon-adds-
may...](http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57604502-93/amazon-adds-mayday-
button-tech-support-to-new-kindle-fire-hdx-tablets/)

~~~
ericd
Yeah, I think this is an extremely good idea. I'm sort of surprised that no
one's done it before on a tablet/phone.

------
perlpimp
Product line is too confusing as per kindle, seems a bit contrived. For
example 8.9 version retina-like display resolution yearns to be model "hey we
can do iPad too".

I can see these things being sold at Walmarts/K-marts etc to family dads that
often go out of town by car on frequent business trips. I'd totally replace
pay per view with this thing.

Material quality looks sketchy too. That garish reflective plastic at the back
at the top of the beveled edge. I think the design looked very cool on
paper...

I love my kindle paperwhite, ipad and iphone5.

Kindle fire can be another device I can toss into my backpack when travelling
but I am already thinking of replacing my iPad with iPad mini and get rid of
to reduce overall travel weight.

my 2c.

~~~
lmm
I've found that now I have a big phone (or small tablet) I don't use my
kindle. You can cover the range with something like that (what I really want
is a 6" phone/tablet, but it seems no-one's making those, so the choice is
either a 5" big phone or a 7" tablet-that-makes-phone-calls like that ASUS
thing) and a light 11" "ultrabook", which means one or two fewer devices to
lug around.

~~~
sampo
Galaxy Note II has a 5.55" screen, it rounds to 6, right? And Galaxy Note 3
has 5.7". Close enough?

And then there seems to be Galaxy Mega with 6.3" and 5.8" screens.

~~~
lmm
What I have now is a Note II; I think of it as 5" \- as a European I don't
really have an instinct for inches, so maybe it's "really 6"". But either way
it feels like there's a big size gap between something like this and then the
nexus 7/asus fonepad/etc., where really I want something that's halfway
between those.

------
r00fus
Does anyone know what Android release Fire OS 3.0 is based off of?

The angular back looks stark and painful, though I like the recessed camera.

The casting feature is a bit lost - me and most of my friends don't have PS3s
(some have Wii's others 360s, one has a PS3). Plus, if you have a PS3, doesn't
it already come with Amazon Video?

What's with the dig about "owning the living room" at the end? Amazon is doing
great with their tablet line, features like PlayTime and others look really
cool to an iOS family like mine. Why does everything have to "dominate" in
order to be a good product?

~~~
chuinard
According to [https://developer.amazon.com/post/Tx3AXKIA2U3GDY/Amazon-
Anno...](https://developer.amazon.com/post/Tx3AXKIA2U3GDY/Amazon-Announces-
new-Kindle-Fire-Tablets-and-Fire-OS-3-0.html) it is based off Android 4.2.2
(API 17).

~~~
wging
Looks like
[https://developer.amazon.com/sdk/fire/specifications.html](https://developer.amazon.com/sdk/fire/specifications.html)
has been updated as well.

~~~
hrjet
Why do they never mention full specs on that page! Some of the Kindle devices
don't have a compass and/or GPS.

This leads to endless frustration with app users.

------
quanticle
Not that surprising, really. Ever since the new Nexus 7 was introduced, the
Kindle Fire has looked weak. This, at least, brings the Fire on par with the
2013 N7.

The real surprise, though, is the dog that didn't bark. Where's Apple in all
this? The iPad Mini is still basically a shrunk down iPad 2. Do they still
think that the 7" tablet market isn't worth pursuing wholeheartedly?

~~~
jonah
Apple's seemingly lagging a few months behind:

[http://appleinsider.com/articles/13/09/18/pictures-claim-
to-...](http://appleinsider.com/articles/13/09/18/pictures-claim-to-show-
apples-space-gray-second-generation-ipad-mini-shell)

The rumors (hopes?) are the iPad Mini 2 will get a higher resolution screen.

~~~
nakedrobot2
Retina iPad Mini is coming by Christmas. It would be ridiculous (or the sign
of a serious sourcing issue with the LCD's) if this were not the case.

------
ScottWhigham
So the August 2013 Nexus 7 has a quad core 1.5g Snapdragon S4 Pro but the
October 2013 Kindle HDX 7 has a quad core 2.2g Snapdragon 800. I'm not up to
snuff on mobile processors but, according to what I'm seeing on the web, it
seems there's no real difference other than clock speed going on here [0].
What else is going on in the Nexus 7 that makes it a "good buy" relative to
the Kindle HDX models now? Other than "I have already bought a lot of Android
apps so I don't want to switch", what's the compelling reason to buy a Nexus
tablet now?

[1] [http://cpuboss.com/cpus/Qualcomm-
Snapdragon-S4-Pro-%28APQ806...](http://cpuboss.com/cpus/Qualcomm-
Snapdragon-S4-Pro-%28APQ8064%29-vs-Qualcomm-Snapdragon-800)

~~~
dcre
This was just my experience, but after using stock Android on a phone and a
tablet for about a year, I found the Kindle Fire HD basically unusable when I
tried it out. I couldn't get it to do anything I wanted. It felt like a
thoroughly crippled OS to me. You can only use Amazon's tiny app store (you
can get around this but it's not very secure).

And as other commenters have pointed out, the Nexus 7 seems thinner too.

------
LAMike
No way they are turning a profit on a $139 tablet... I wonder if I can use it
for a Rasberry Pi display?

~~~
nakedrobot2
Or you could... you know, just buy an LCD for fifty bucks.
[http://www.aliexpress.com/wholesale?SearchText=8+lcd&catId=0...](http://www.aliexpress.com/wholesale?SearchText=8+lcd&catId=0&initiative_id=SB_20130924231548)

------
mseebach
In the last version, the Fire tablets didn't come with Google Play or any of
the Google Android apps.

What is the Amazon app store like? Is it worth it to forego the primary
Android app ecosystem?

[Edit: I meant as a user, not an app dev]

~~~
chuinard
I earn about 25% as much in Amazon vs. Google Play. Still a decent chunk. I
think these tablets are being marketed well by Amazon and not all consumers
even understand this fact, so if you have a good showing in the Amazon
Appstore it can be successful.

In addition, the Nook Store from B&N earns about 25% of what Amazon earns.

------
saturdaysaint
The smaller one doesn't look to compare too well to the Nexus 7 - it costs the
same, is marginally heavier and has ads. I guess if you need a lot of support
to use a tablet...?

The big 8.9" model, on the other hand, is impressive - .84 pounds is extremely
light for a screen of that size and resolution. I'm almost skeptical that
they're claiming 12 hour battery life on top of that. Did they achieve some
kind of battery breakthrough?

------
the_watcher
Is there a good place to showroom these things? I'm very close to getting an
iPad (we'll see what the new one looks like), since my 1st gen Kindle Fire is
dying and I've already ordered the new Paperwhite (my dad has one, and it
really seems like they have perfected that device for its limited purpose).
This model looks pretty intriguing though.

~~~
Yhippa
I believe Best Buy had them in-store in the past. I'd check there.

------
Ecio78
Does anybody know if the new Kindle 7" or the new Nexus 7 are ok for reading
books with diagrams/images (i.e. IT manuals)?

I tried quickly my bro's Samsung Galaxy Tab 10" and even though it's 10" I
think the resolution is not enough to have a full page readable on the
screen..

------
vinhboy
Why hasn't amazon release their own appletv/chromecast?

Makes perfect sense since they have Amazon Instant Video.

~~~
serge2k
Wish they would, I started using AIV to get new shows without downloading.
Partly since usenet indexing was sketchy for a while, but it's also convenient
and cheap, and since I'm in the states now I can actually get content.

Very glad these are finally out. Not sure I can justify to myself getting the
8.9 (have a nexus), but maybe a 7". I really do love the screen on the 8.9
though.

------
nakovet
Looking at the price of a tablet of camera, amazing processor, good storage,
HD display I wonder how pricey is the e-ink technology, some Kindle Readers
are more expensive than their tablet brothers.

------
TorKlingberg
It is interesting that most tablet makers are global, while Amazon is very US
focused (plus UK and Japan I think).

------
WalterBright
The high res display is a big deal for me.

