Amazon To Cut $50 Off The Fire, Release A 10.1-inch Model And New $199 7-inch

[Anabran]

"If it does what you want, and the price is right, there's nothing "foolish" about buying it. Not everybody always wants the "latest and greatest". Don't you think it's just a little rude to classify all those who are buying Kindle Fire's as "fools"?"

I agree with this completely
Intelligent Consumers(not sheep) should make buying decisions based on their current needs and current ability to pay the current price for the item being sold..period.

This notion of being afraid to buy 7 month old
Device out of fear of not having the latest iteration is the kind of foolishness that makes people spend their money unnecessarily over a few new bullet points on a "new feature" list.

When the version they have is providing more than all of the functionality they actually need.

I am NOT a "Brand Loyalist" banking on Amazon to keep me on the cutting edge

For me personally, if I really needed a camera,input Mic, HMDI& an additional SD car slot I would have never bought the kindle fire in the first place.

I would have gotten one of the samsung offerings.

If I wanted a big 10 inch device that was not that much more portable than my cumbersome 13 inch Macbook I would have gotten an Ipad from the start.

But I like carrying my Comic books, Sci fi novels, Religious books ,3D video games ,professional animation Demo reel,professional Illustration portfolio Digital Sketchpad web& email access and occasion movie,

All in a Device that fits easily in the thigh pocket of my knee length "cargo shorts".

But to each their own

[Jessica Lares]

So am I a fool for not wanting to buy the iPad now?

I REALLY want an iPad. The big problem for me is that it costs too much for so little space. I can buy a $1,200 MacBook Pro with a 500GB hard drive, yet to buy an iPad with 64GB and 4G LTE, it costs me $830.

Another thing is that the iPads are released TWO months before the next iOS version is announced. So if you bought the original iPad, you got 8 weeks worth of iOS 3, and two years of iOS 4 and 5, and you're not getting iOS 6. If you got it as a Christmas present, you would have only gotten two years worth of updates for a device that cost you $500.

I can deal with having to buy a new iPod every two years, but I am not spending $800 over and over again to do the same with the iPad. You easily get stuck with a machine that cannot run all the latest apps because developers want to use new APIs and then there's the new developers altogether.

At least when they stop making OS X compatible with my machine, I can just use it to run Windows. Or even Ubuntu.

Android is so much better for that reason (and that's coming from an Apple diehard). People might be stuck on Gingerbread, but you don't have the compatibility issues that iOS users have. 2.3 development is going to be around for at least five more years and heavily supported.

Buying a Kindle Fire now is not such a bad idea. It is not an underpowered device, the real issue is that it doesn't have properly written drivers. Heck, I bought Kinectimals the other day and it plays beautifully on it compared to my Samsung Galaxy S2 Skyrocket. So does pretty much every other app. I even use Foursquare to check into places while my phone sits in my pocket. Having a tablet that does both phone and tablet apps very nicely is great. No Android device really benefits from those nice graphic chips inside them.

And honestly, if Amazon DOESN'T give us the new updates, then someone will just build us a ROM with them at XDA. The funny thing is that for even being the cheapest tablet, the Kindle Fire has the best ICS support because the drivers have been rewritten from scratch, and we have the sources direct from the chipmaker.

[Anabran]

"Android is so much better for that reason (and that's coming from an Apple diehard). People might be stuck on Gingerbread, but you don't have the compatibility issues that iOS users have. 2.3 development is going to be around for at least five more years and heavily supported."

Agreed Also I have an older 13"Macbook that I never upgraded from 10.4.11 "tiger"
I am given to understand you need the latest version of Itunes
( that I cant install) to properly interface with and load content onto your ipad unless you under take some cumbersome work arounds.

"Having a tablet that does both phone and tablet apps very nicely is great. No Android device really benefits from those nice graphic chips inside them."

Yes I am Smoothly running the 3D game "shadowgun" that is recommended only for the Tegra Class Devices and 98% of my Apps are actually Android phone apps that scale up perfectly on my KF, it is the best of both worlds.

What I like most about the KF is that one can use it as intended as a dedicated amazon brand using only content from amazon.

Or one can Run an alternative launcher ,as I do and side load native android apps, Book readers video players and essentially have a true "android user experience" without rooting but still have complete access to the amazon eco system of videos,Books etc.

Or one can Go the Rooted path and install a completely different ROM like ICS.

This kind of versatility makes the current kindle fire a Great value IMHO despite all speculative the vapor coming from that same blogosphere that swore we would see a 7 inch Ipad by now.

[geoffwood]

Originally Posted by Jessica Lares

So am I a fool for not wanting to buy the iPad now?

I REALLY want an iPad. The big problem for me is that it costs too much for so little space. I can buy a $1,200 MacBook Pro with a 500GB hard drive, yet to buy an iPad with 64GB and 4G LTE, it costs me $830.

Another thing is that the iPads are released TWO months before the next iOS version is announced. So if you bought the original iPad, you got 8 weeks worth of iOS 3, and two years of iOS 4 and 5, and you're not getting iOS 6. If you got it as a Christmas present, you would have only gotten two years worth of updates for a device that cost you $500.

I can deal with having to buy a new iPod every two years, but I am not spending $800 over and over again to do the same with the iPad. You easily get stuck with a machine that cannot run all the latest apps because developers want to use new APIs and then there's the new developers altogether.

At least when they stop making OS X compatible with my machine, I can just use it to run Windows. Or even Ubuntu.

Android is so much better for that reason (and that's coming from an Apple diehard). People might be stuck on Gingerbread, but you don't have the compatibility issues that iOS users have. 2.3 development is going to be around for at least five more years and heavily supported.

Buying a Kindle Fire now is not such a bad idea. It is not an underpowered device, the real issue is that it doesn't have properly written drivers. Heck, I bought Kinectimals the other day and it plays beautifully on it compared to my Samsung Galaxy S2 Skyrocket. So does pretty much every other app. I even use Foursquare to check into places while my phone sits in my pocket. Having a tablet that does both phone and tablet apps very nicely is great. No Android device really benefits from those nice graphic chips inside them.

And honestly, if Amazon DOESN'T give us the new updates, then someone will just build us a ROM with them at XDA. The funny thing is that for even being the cheapest tablet, the Kindle Fire has the best ICS support because the drivers have been rewritten from scratch, and we have the sources direct from the chipmaker.

That's an interesting spin on things. Apple is seen negatively because they release regular OS updates and provide n upgrade path for the prior two generations of hardware. With Android, the vast majority of devices running Gingerbread will never see Ice Cream Sandwich let alone Jelly Bean and that is a positive? The odds of any Gingerbread development happening in 5 years are close to zero. It will soon be two generations behind and in 5 years it will be 6 or 7 generations behind. No sensible developer will be supporting it.

It seems that Google is getting frustrated with the fragmentation in the Android market, hence they are now again directly selling Nexus phones and soon Nexus tablets, devoid of any branding and skins and therefore actually able to be upgraded promptly when a new OS is released. The fact that the vast majority of Android devices are still running Gingerbread when ICE has been out for a year and Jelly bean is imminent does nothing to help Google compete with Apple.

[covfam]

I love all the thing that kindle fire does right but some of the things it does less than stellar bugs me a little, first i absolutly HATE they screen responsiveness, it does not come close to being as responsive as my 1st generation samsung galaxy tab, or my samsung galaxy s2 phone or my wifes Asus transformer tf300. next id like a better screen/resolution. IF the new Kindle fire 2 fixes those id love it. but if they dont and keep producing a budget tablet then ill find someone else that makes a better media consumption device because idont just want an EREADER i would like a good media consumption device at a 7 inch form factor. dont get me wrong i dont want an $800 ipad but there are plenty of quality 10 inch tablets out there for $399-$499 and if i could get a 7 incher made as well as those id jump on it.

[geoffwood]

I had a Fire for a few days. Didn't like it stock, so I rooted it and installed ICS. It was a reasonable tablet, but the lack of a GPS and therefore all the location based services was a deal killer. I returned it. For now I have a couple of true e-Readers and an iPad, but I'm still looking for that one device that does it all well enough be it Android, Apple or a Windows 8 tablet.

[stanleystarrh]

so this is a hoax?

[booklover6]

Not a hoax, an unsubstantiated rumor. I wish Amazon would make an announcement, already!