Kindle Fire – On Fire or A Flame Out?

No, I haven’t become the official Attensity blogger on consumer electronics, but I am a shopper and this season the extensive list of new consumer electronics products and advertising to go with them is kind of overwhelming.  Once I made the decision that we are going to attempt to read our books on a tablet versus in the warm and cozy real-book style, I started to look for the perfect reader.  I already read the Wall Street Journal every day on my husband’s iPad2 and so far it’s been a pretty good experience, but I find iTunes to be challenging to use across computers and it seems as if the new version is extra sensitive to piracy, making burning movies and songs that I have on DVD even harder to transfer and I fear making book download a pain too.

Anyway, Jane Lynch’s catchy and sometimes annoying commercial devotion to the Barnes and Noble Nook made me look at the two “book seller” products – the Nook and the Kindle.

This post mostly focuses on the Kindle.  With this latest version of the Kindle – the Kindle Fire, Amazon pushed it to the limits.  Some of my likes for the product: Android OS – giving us access to lots of games (unlike the Nook which has a proprietary OS), easy-as-pie access to the Amazon store (about the only thing usability wise that is simple) and the price.  One blogger noted that it is priced under cost, but that after the consumer purchases 3-4 full priced books Amazon makes their money back.  Some of my dislikes for the product: Usability (as I already alluded to) is challenging and there is pretty-much no privacy (if my husband or kid picks it up, they get access to exactly what I was looking at, even if I just finished surfing for a gift for them and forgot to close the browser).

While many reviewers have been negative to neutral (versus really positive) about the product, the general social view is neutral to positive.  There have been some complaints about the Kindle that have shown up in user forums that seem to be the root of the minor negative sentiment, but overall the primary discussion is focused on the software upgrade that Amazon announced after the initial product reviews came out online to improve some of the complaints about privacy/security. (see the word cloud below.)

When I do take a quick look at the negative comments, most of them seem to be from Apple lovers who got a Kindle as a gift and are grumpy about it or just want some of their Apple features included!

Those who are positive are excited to have received it as a gift and love the fact that they get access to all of the apps in the Android store.  That is what is attracting me to the device (versus say a Nook or Apple which requires me to use iTunes.)

So, I guess the jury is still out. While Apple has made one of the most elegant tablets in the market, it is expensive and so even though we have one, I have to share it with my husband. I think I am going to stick with my cozy book for now and wait for the elusive Kindle software upgrade to get the reader!

Photo Credit: All rights reserved by tawatchaifr