Quote:
Originally Posted by DMcCunney
I was speaking specifically of a device to be rooted to turn into a general purpose tablet.
|
There's no need to root the Fire. It's as 'general purpose' a tablet as any, just as it ships. There isn't any one device that has every feature that everyone wants.
If there is something specific YOU want that cannot be done on the Fire without rooting, that's YOUR purpose, not "general purpose."
Quote:
|
It The deal breaker for me was no Fire slot for an external SD card.
|
No SD slot on the Nexus or the iPad either. That's an important feature for some, absolutely meaningless for others. It's presence or absence does not effect how 'general purpose' it is or how much of a 'real computer' it may or not be.
Quote:
|
Fire assumes your content will be stored on Amazon's cloud and you will be connected and access it from there, so you won't need a lot of internal storage. That assumption is not valid for me. I am normally not connected, and use locally stored programs and data.
|
Fire is optimized for Amazon's cloud like iPad is optimized for Apple's and Nexus is optimized for Google's. Even if you don't use the cloud services all of those devices fit some large groups "real" "general purpose" needs. If it doesn't fit yours, that's fine, but your needs do not define "general purpose" or "real computer" or any such similar broad generalization.
Quote:
|
Root it, and you probably can install the Google services
|
You can. Nice to know. I never bothered, nor do many folks. The fire does what many folks want a tablet to do just fine without it.
Quote:
|
For many folks the Fire is an appropriate solution. I'm not one of them.
|
Nor am I.
Quote:
|
Which is the point of the device. It's a content consumption device for content Amazon will sell you, and its purpose is to drive you to buy that content from Amazon.
|
Just as the iPad is designed to make you buy Apple content and the Nexus is designed to make you buy Google content: By optimizing the experience of doing so.
Amazon went one step further and made the hardware particularly affordable to do so. That a REAL "general purpose" factor in my book. If I can't afford it, I can't get anything done with it!
ApK