Next to netbook and smart phones, tablets have become one of the ‘must have’ gadgets to have and there is good reason for it. Aside from extreme portability, tablets are also light – weight, battery efficient, and visually nice to look at.
The Kindle Fire by Amazon is hoping to achieve all this and hopeful appeal to a new market segment for tablets. With an estimated a quarter of a million units already pre sold, this could be the new iPad killer if Apple fail to deliver something innovative on their iPad 3. Compared to other tablets already out in the market, Kindle Fire was able to hold its fort and with lots of other tablets out there, one of the biggest advantages of Kindle Fire is its price. For app developers, the new market segment created by Kindle Fire will certainly make them a new niche to their tablet apps to.
But how does Kindle Fire matches against other tablets? By far, one of the leading brands to date is the iPad. It is well known that tablets running Android operating system come close with Apple’s iPad and Kindle Fire is also running on Android platform. Users will be able to access Android apps already in the market so there will be no issues on compatibility unless there are Kindle Fire app developers that will solely focus on this new app market.
The only difference between the leading iPad brands with Kindle Fire is its display. The iPad has a much larger ten inch display while the Kindle Fire only has seven inches. But there are rumors circulating around that Amazon might just release a ten inch version of Kindle Fire in time for the holiday season which will make the competition stiffer than it is today. When it comes to navigability, the Kindle Fire surprisingly offered an equally good navigation option and a stunning screen resolution for a tablet that only cost less than $200. But the Kindle Fire has one advantage when it comes to the ability to support flash video streaming capacity. Apple iPad does not support flash platform and a lot of games today including online videos require flash so it can be viewed or played.
Although Apple may still be the leading brand when it comes to cool and innovative features, one thing the company failed is to offer an affordable tablet which Kindle Fire compensated by offer their tablets at half the price of iPad. For consumers with no $500 to spend on tablets, the Kindle Fire offered the opportunity to average consumers to own tablets without breaking the bank. Pre – ordered at $199, Amazon attracts a new market segment including those who cannot afford to buy a more expensive iPad tablet.
Although the Kindle Fire may not be able to surpass some of the greatest features of iPad, everything will boil down to the quality of applications it can support. Currently using Android operating system, the Kindle Fire is expected to offer its market cool Kindle Fire apps in the weeks to come.
