Amazon Tablet May Cost Hundreds Less Than iPad

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by OtterBooks

Having used both (rooted), I think the NC is a good value for what you use it for, but wouldn't say it gets 100% of the iPad experience. The iPad provides a combo of hardware, content and interface that is just leagues above the NC.

Well, thinking about it now, the iPad is flawed:

• no flash
• no expandable memory
• wrong aspect ratio for watching videos

So I guess I need to retract my statement. For my purposes, the Nook Color is actually better than the iPad.

[boswd]

Originally Posted by OtterBooks

Wild Guess Time:

The big allure of Amazon's tablet could be free stuff included with it: Included Amazon Prime membership, steep discounts on content (or not so steep), maybe even free wireless.

well actuallty amazon's eco system is IMHO better than apple's .

kindle ebookstore is better than iBooks

Amazon video on demand is better than iTunes videos

Amazon Mp3 vs iTunes will be a matter of opinion but being able to buy music on any device without having it to be aac+ and transferring it between devices with ease to me put's it over the edge.

and if it does come with DLNA, then that blows Apples's sharing out of the water, seeing how you can share your media on multiple devices from multiple manufacturers as oppsosed to only sharing between iDevices thru apple tv.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by boswd

kindle ebookstore is better than iBooks

Doesn't take much to be better then iBooks.

[GreenMonkey]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

Well, thinking about it now, the iPad is flawed:

• no flash
• no expandable memory
• wrong aspect ratio for watching videos

So I guess I need to retract my statement. For my purposes, the Nook Color is actually better than the iPad.

That's how I feel (OK, I don't care about 'black bars'/aspect ratio). Ipad people seem to think that the iPad is everything anyone could want in a tablet, and an Android tablet is inferior...but fail to understand that iPads lack quite a few things that some of us want.

Or that anything smaller than an iPad isn't as good because the image isn't as big.

For me, I would never own a tablet without an SD or microSD slot for expandability, for example. It's a must-have for me.

And I really don't like 10" size tablets. Way too big. I consider them a portability fail - they're barely more portable than my 12.1" laptop (which is, coincidently, a pre-iPad tablet convertible). The iPad is a carry-around item, or maybe for women, it could fit in a very large purse, for men, maybe a laptop bag or something.

My Nook Color pops into my cargo pants pocket, or my winter jacket pocket, so 70% of the time it's totally pocketable for me.

I have no real interest in a 10" tablet. 7" 16:9 (maybe up to closer to 8") is max for me, because it's pocketable.

For me, I basically want a 7" Toshiba Thrive with a stylus. That's what will eventually replace my NC.

[molman]

Curious if people think Amazon will change the interface on their rumoured device much? I haven't personally used Android a lot when compared to iOS, and not on a tablet at all. With regards to iOS I see usability brought up a lot, but I don't actually think it is all that grand from a UI point of view. The whole page of icons is very Palm-esk, and a little clunky. I like Windows Phone conceptually, but not sure that the whole modality play really works in practise. Will be interesting to see if Amazon does much on this element of their product, or if it will just be about replacing some icons with Amazon services.

[stonetools]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

1- you don't know that.

2- I can, because they're unimportant to me.

The Amazon tablet will not succeed because it meets the need of the some individual geek who can hack devices into doing things that he wants it to do, but on whether it can meet the needs and desires of the broad masses of consumers. You may not understand this, but I am certain that Mr. Bezos does.
Flash? Sucks on mobile devices. Again, geeks are willing to put up with that, just to say, " My device runs Flash!". Rest of world? YAWN. Advantage Apple there.
SD cards? Not a big selling device for the average consumers. Again,geeks like stuff like SD cards, removeable batteries, etc, because they like tinkering with devices, "customizing" them, etc. That's nice and all, but consumers for example, have overwhelmingly selected the ebook reader that DOESN"T have SD cards or removeable batteries. Ditto for smartphones. The bestselling smartphone DOES'NT have those features.
I'm sure , TM, that you speak for the geeky sort of consumer that thinks that a hacked Android tablet is as good as/ better than an iPad for your own reasons. But Amazon would be looking to the NINE MILLION people who bought Ipads last quarter and will shape their tablet offering with them in mind, not the few hundred thousand who hacked the NC into a general purpose tablet that (for the time being) can run some Google Market apps and has access to less content than the Ipad.

[kartu]

Regarding apps argument, I've heared that while Apple has 500 000 apps, Google had "only" 300 000. (it was a while ago and I wouldn't be surprised if numbers changed to say 1.2 million vs 0.9 million)

So Apple has 499'000 and Google has "only" 299'000 apps average Joe would never see. Cool.

Exactly which apps make one platform vastly superior to the other?

Originally Posted by stonetools

Flash? Sucks

Having a choice sucks, right. I can continue:

"having access to your own stuff? Sucks. You should only do it in the way allowed by some corporation and only using itunes"

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by stonetools

But Amazon would be looking to the NINE MILLION people who bought Ipads last quarter and will shape their tablet offering with them in mind,

Why on earth would they market their new product to the same demographic that already owns an iPad?

Surely they'll be looking to market it to the MILLIONS AND MILLIONS of people who haven't yet taken the tablet plunge.

[stonetools]

Originally Posted by boswd

well actuallty amazon's eco system is IMHO better than apple's .

kindle ebookstore is better than iBooks

Amazon video on demand is better than iTunes videos

Amazon Mp3 vs iTunes will be a matter of opinion but being able to buy music on any device without having it to be aac+ and transferring it between devices with ease to me put's it over the edge.

and if it does come with DLNA, then that blows Apples's sharing out of the water, seeing how you can share your media on multiple devices from multiple manufacturers as oppsosed to only sharing between iDevices thru apple tv.

I think the Amazon ecosystem is certainly comparable in many respects, but I think it would be stretching it to call it better. The Ios app store is streets ahead of Amazon's right now, for example. I think most would concede the Itunes has a wider selection of movies, TV shows, and music. Amazon doesn't have podcasts as a seperate offering. (I'm a big consumer of podcasts). Kindle beats Ibooks, but then you have to consider magazine content . Apple is way ahead there.
Then there is the matter of interface. Apple has Itunes which organizes all this content in one easy to use program. Amazon doesn't have anything like that.

[Sil_liS]

Originally Posted by stonetools

Flash? Sucks on mobile devices. Again, geeks are willing to put up with that, just to say, " My device runs Flash!". Rest of world? YAWN. Advantage Apple there.

What replaces Flash on the ipad? I think that 8 in 10 websites I visit have something with flash in them.

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by stonetools

I'm sure , TM, that you speak for the geeky sort of consumer that thinks that a hacked Android tablet is as good as/ better than an iPad for your own reasons.

It's not "thinks it is"; it most definitely is better for my needs.

The ONLY reason I hacked my NC was to gain access to an app store. If Amazon releases a tablet locked into their environment, I wouldn't have to hack it because they already have a large app store.

[OtterBooks]

Originally Posted by GreenMonkey

7" 16:9 (maybe up to closer to 8") is max for me, because it's pocketable.

You have some big pockets.

[djulian]

Originally Posted by stonetools

The Amazon tablet will not succeed because it meets the need of the some individual geek who can hack devices into doing things that he wants it to do, but on whether it can meet the needs and desires of the broad masses of consumers.

This seems fair to say. I think they'll be looking to produce something with broad appeal.

Originally Posted by stonetools

Flash? Sucks on mobile devices.

I may be wrong on this, but I think the reason that Apple users are convinced that Flash isn't able to run well is because Apple specifically restricts Flash from accessing and being accelerated by the hardware. It has to run in a software-only environment, and that limits its quality.

[stonetools]

Originally Posted by Sil_liS

What replaces Flash on the ipad? I think that 8 in 10 websites I visit have something with flash in them.

Actually, there are options for those who want to run Flash on Ipads.
FLASH IPAD OPTIONS


However, Flash just simply does not run well on mobile devices. Mr. Jobs was right on that.
Lots of websites are moving to HTML 5.0 as an option or HTML 5.0 only.

Personally, I haven't missed Flash that much on the Ipad. Most consumers can apparently live withouit Flash on their tablets. Again, the geeky sort want to have Flash run on their devices, even if its a buggy, battery-sucking b***ch of an option. Go figure.

[kjk]

Originally Posted by djulian

Apple specifically restricts Flash from accessing and being accelerated by the hardware. It has to run in a software-only environment, and that limits its quality.

Flash is hardware accelerated in Mac OS X.