Amazon introduces 2013 FIRE tablets

[booklover6]

Originally Posted by Blossom

I'm getting the HDX 7 version. I just need to wait for better covers. I do not like Amazon's idea of a cover.

That's the one I want. It will be slightly short (same width) and lighter than my Nook HD! I never liked how wide my current HD7 is.

[Jessica Lares]

Slanted control buttons. Ugh.

Hate the new Amazon branding on the back too. If I wanted to advertise that I was using something I'd bought on Amazon, I'd just cut the box they ship it in into a case.

Overall, the first generation of HDs were way better.

[mewmartigan]

The new tablets sure look nice but I am happy with my current Fire HD.


The thing I am most excited about in this announcement is that Prime videos will now be available to download instead of being streaming only.

[booklover6]

Originally Posted by Jessica Lares

Overall, the first generation of HDs were way better.

Not to me. The 1st HD7 is so wide, I can't stand it. I like the beveled sides, the smaller footprint, the lighter weight, the faster processor.

I don't like that they still have the carousel! And no wall paper!

ETA: I just noticed at The Digital Reader, Nate mentions the Carousel is now optional! Oh yes, I want the HDX. I will be selling my HD7 ASAP.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by mewmartigan

The new tablets sure look nice but I am happy with my current Fire HD.


The thing I am most excited about in this announcement is that Prime videos will now be available to download instead of being streaming only.

Agreed on both counts.
The lighter weight and added reading time would be nice but my needs are covered already. More so if they bring some of the HDX software features to the HD.

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

And, BTW, the tablets are not over spec'd -- there is no such thing as too much RAM, CPU-power, or GPU-power, for *gaming*.

What Amazon is doing is focusing on customer usage profiles (note the plural) and adding features to tickle the fancy of the corporate types, the gamers, the family buyer... Buyers they actually have a chance to persuade. Android purist and iOS fans they never had a chance with so there is no reason to even bother. They have a product and they will sell it to those that want it.

But it's now $30 more expensive than last year's model. For their customer base, it's uncalled for.

[Prestidigitweeze]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

The Business features are for their Government contracts and for the educational space. I expect their corporate units will ship with Mayday hardwired to a separate call center.

They might be for gov/ed in part, but Amazon's inclusion of business features for everyone -- and Office Suite -- and comments in the WSJ article that "more and more people are bringing their Kindle Fires to the office," suggest that the point is to make the KF a functional business device for users who aren't involved with such contracts or in "the educational space."

As for the "purity" of the OS, note that Amazon is calling it FireOS, not Android. It is now its own separate entity. Parse the descriptions and you'll see they aren't even claiming full Android compatibility, merely that it can run "most" Android apps.

Yes, I know that, FJ; the idea of the KF's OS being separate is exactly what I've been talking about. The difference between Samsung and Amazon is that Touchwiz is an easily disabled GUI overlay, not a significant change to the OS. HTC goes further than Samsung.

The fact Amazon's saying the KFs will run most but not all apps might suggest Amazon's working up its own suite of proprietary apps.

The problem with the KF is not that it deviates a little from standard Android. The problem is that it wants to diverge significantly, which makes Amazon's approach very different from Samsung's.

Amazon is doing the same thing Samsung is doing, only more extensively in de-Googling their system.

I disagree. Samsung is offering multiple options and their so-called user enhancements are easily removed.

Simple rule of thumb: if you want Android, buy Nexus. If you want an appliance and don't care what the plumbing is like, then maybe the Fire's will do.

That's a funny line, but is anyone unfamiliar with the gist of your point -- at this point? Whom are you talking to?

And, BTW, the tablets are not over spec'd -- there is no such thing as too much RAM, CPU-power, or GPU-power, for *gaming*.

I never mentioned gaming, supposedly excessive specs or anything along those lines. Again, to whom are you speaking?

What Amazon is doing is focusing on customer usage profiles (note the plural) and adding features to tickle the fancy of the corporate types. . . .

Which, again, shows they're becoming interested in business/entertainment convergence. To say how far they are or are not willing to go is to attribute motives that haven't been articulated to people we don't actually know.

In the NBCNEWS piece above, Bezos reiterates that they make their money when people use their gadgets not when they buy them. And that they are indifferent to upgrade sales. . . .

Yes, that's the conventional way to view Amazon: On the basis of their approach so far. What you might be underestimating is Amazon's reach when they decide (as they seem to have done) to embrace the corporate world's non-entertainment activities. For all we know, selling content could also mean selling productivity software.

The FIRE tablets are appliances, not computers. They are closer to Smart TVs than PCs.

Did you miss the post above in which I used the exact same TV metaphor you're now regurgitating back to me?

And that is the way their customers need it.

I don't know about you, but I don't consider myself a god who can inhabit the minds of all of Amazon's customers. I'm an Amazon customer who has enough trouble inhabiting his own mind. Discorporation is so tempting!

There's plenty of generic android tablets out there for those looking for purity. Amazon is looking for content and service consumers, not mobile computing users.

Not according to the WSJ, and not if they're making a point of including Office Suite on every Kindle Fire.

[OtterBooks]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

The Business features are for their Government contracts and for the educational space. I expect their corporate units will ship with Mayday hardwired to a separate call center.

I'm gonna have to agree with Prestid, and here's why (emphasis mine): "As employees increasingly bring their own devices to work, the new Kindle Fire tablets can be easily integrated into the workplace with the new enterprise features.."

[edit: written before I saw the post above; sorry for redundancy]Murthi specifically refers to the consumer models used in the workplace, not special corporate units. You don't put VPN and Kerberos support on a device made purely for content consumption. That said, there could be special software provided to enterprise that alters the interface/functionality, and their ultimate goal could still be content consumption by employees.

Originally Posted by Jessica Lares

Slanted control buttons. Ugh.

Hate the new Amazon branding on the back too. If I wanted to advertise that I was using something I'd bought on Amazon, I'd just cut the box they ship it in into a case.

I'm actually quite impressed that they did not put any logos on the front, which is an annoyingly common thing with tablets that upsets the view-able aesthetics far more than anything on the back.

Originally Posted by fjtorres

And, BTW, the tablets are not over spec'd -- there is no such thing as too much RAM, CPU-power, or GPU-power, for *gaming*.

Agreed. These mobile processors are not powerful. In fact they can barely provide a smooth interface as it is, much less keep up with increasingly robust and demanding software. The only reason they aren't far, far more powerful than they are is that they're handicapped due to heat and energy limitations.

imo, the resolution increase was absolutely beneficial to text for news/magazines, one of the device's major uses.

[HansTWN]

Originally Posted by Prestidigitweeze

Hans:

With all due respect (which, contrary to standard sarcastic internet usage, means you're actually due my respect), I think you're wrong this once. See the article to which I linked before.

Here It Is Again

If I'm missing the point, then The Wall Street Journal has missed the point entirely and were misled by Amazon's Vice President of Enterprise and Education, Raghu Murthi. They were also misled by Caroline Brant, Learning Solutions Director at ROI Training, Inc.

Whatever the reason, Amazon has decided to venture into the world of dynamic content creation this time, and to sell tablets for not only media consumption but business use. Up until now, I'd have characterized the KF as an interactive TV designed to cloud-broadcast Amazon-purchased media. If this and other articles are to be believed, that's no longer the only reason to buy one.

Now this is additional information supporting your view, of course. Which doesn't necessarily mean Amazon want the Fire to be a general use tablet for consumers. Perhaps the business options will push sales figures to a point where a decent ROI on the hardware alone is possible. My personal thinking is, however, that for businesses, the new full Windows tablets seem to be a much better option still.

[tubemonkey]

Power adapters are now included in the box. That partially explains the $30 price increase.

[AnemicOak]

I wonder if the HDX nomenclature will cause any problems from WalMart since it's a trademark of their Vudu service.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by Prestidigitweeze

don't consider myself a god who can inhabit the minds of all of Amazon's customers (except perhaps my own).

Bezos does.
Look, Amazon only does things they think will bring them money.
(Duh, right?)
And, having *spent* money on something, they will look to monetize the investment in as many ways as possible. (That is how they got into hosted web services business, after all.)
Their moves always make sense in hindsight but not always in the same way as they would for other companies. They are hardly the first or last tablet platform to come with an onboard office suite. That does not mean they are going corporate in any big way and if the WSJ wants to read it that way they can. Won't make it true. Palm used to sell thousands of PDAs to corporations. For a year or two. It never amounted to much on either side.

Selling platforms to the corporate world is a very hard thing and just putting a couple of apps on a piece of consumer hardware does not make for a corporate product. The State Dept contract Amazon negotiated? That was for a literacy outreach program, not any real line of business mission.

Amazon has done a few things that are useful and necessary to get into corporate sales but those things are not yet sufficient to gain them corporate credibility. In fact, with corporate evaluation and testing cycles running as long as they do, the HDX line will be on clearance by the time any volume contract can be put in place. Amazon plays a long game and they clearly have corporate in mind but the whole Kindle business model for the next year or three is still ebooks, media, and games. That's where the money comes in.

Now, in three years they might partner with a big computing services contractor like Boeing to sell a few thousand HDX3's to a few sites but the glass house gang is not going to be preordering Kindle tablets by the thousands next week. At a minimum they're going to wait on ZDNet and the other corporate media to see if they even need to start thinking of Amazon in the corporate hardware space.

They might get a few onesie, twosie "corporate" sales but the Amazon tablets are still very much consumer appliances.

Originally Posted by Blossom

This is why I waited on buying a Kindle fire or Nexus to see if the new Fire matched the Nexus 7 in display. It looks to me like it does.

But aren't they about the same price, and with the new Nexus 7 you don't get the awful Fire interface and limitations.

[pl001]

Originally Posted by Prestidigitweeze

The problem with the KF is not that it deviates a little from standard Android. The problem is that it wants to diverge significantly, which makes Amazon's approach very different from Samsung's.

Actually, Samsung is going a step further and developing their own OS, Tizun, which is not based on Android at all.

Whether or not Tizun will be able to rival Android remains to be seen. However I don't think there is any doubt about their intentions. OEMs are no longer content to just sell hardware.

[eSheri]

Originally Posted by Julius Caesar

With 2560x1600 resolution, people forget that there is no content sold by Amazon or by anyone at such high resolution. Current Amazon HD content is limited to 720p, a far cry from 2560x1600, and it must be stretched to fill up the whole screen.
And no press conference this time. Not for the Kindle Fire and not for the Kindle Paperwhite. Perhaps Amazon itself doesn't think it's worth a press conference since the upgrade is evolutionary and not revolutionary.

Oh puh-leeze! Could it be because the new KFs can sell on their own??.... I'm upgrading! Press conference or not! Any one else upgrading??... Blossom??... TubeMonkey??...