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Amazon compared readers back in the day with the Kindle. Don't you remember the pictures on the beach where the iPad reader couldn't see the print well, but the reader with the gray scale Kindle read hers very easily.
Then the Fire came and of course it is LCD too so that ad doesn't work, but the cost factor comes even more into play since the Fire has color also.
Amazon isn't saying that the Kindle or the Fire will do everything an iPad will do but as far as reading, and media consumption a $80 dollar or $200 device will compare very favorably with the $499 iPad under certain conditions. These conditions are those that many "readers" experience.
I find it particularly entertaining that Amazon has been able to attack (and that is what it is) Apple on the size and weight of the iPad. Apple always likes to say it has the thinnest, and the lightest, and the easiest to use device, but the 9.7" iPad isn't that among readers. You can't hold it long in one hand unless you prop it up. You can hold a gray scale Kindle like a paperback book. The Fire is much more mobile (like the Kindle) with a 7" screen. Apple says that you need the 9.7" screen to gain the experience, the magic!!! Well some times you want a saucer and not a platter to eat your cake off of.
I think a lot of these technical writers and I have read many of them, not just the NYT one, resent that their prized (personal) iPad can be competed with by a "cheap" Amazon product. Right now there is a NYT front page commentary on how bad Amazon is for cutting the publishers out of the loop. In the past, there were bad articles about Amazon not paying taxes to support the heavy spending of Governments, and putting books stores out of business.
The NYT doesn't like Amazon in general.
Secondly, sometimes the important writers get complimentary devices to "test" and as long as their "results" are favorable to a particular company's devices, that stream of devices will be more likely to continue.
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