Holiday Gifts For Dad

Holiday Gifts For Dad. (Credit) Fickr

If you are wondering about what to your dad this year consider this one word; practicality. As fathers they need five basic things; sleep, food, comfort, practicality, and peace of mind. The new Kindle Fire Tablet will help him with the last three. He can use for so many ways in his day to day routine, and it's not a huge device at all. On top of that it is very affordable that's why it's at the top of the list of holiday gifts for dad. Check out what Laptop Mag says about

HOLIDAY GIFTS FOR DAD

This holiday season, the 7-inch Amazon Kindle Fire looks like the hottest tablet on the market, with Barnes & Noble’s Nook Tablet nipping at its heels. There’s only one problem: These devices are eReaders with benefits, and shouldn’t be considered tablets at all.

The Nook Tablet offers the best interactive eReading experience on the market, with a selection of more than 2.5 million books and amazing features such as Read and Record, which lets parents record themselves reading each page of a book so their kids can experience it even when they’re not around. The Kindle Fire isn’t as good of an eReader, but it combines more than 1 million books with access to the company’s extensive video and music stores.

Both devices have a powerful processor, a vibrant 7-inch screens, and long battery life. But having powerful hardware doesn’t make a device a tablet. Flexibility does, the flexibility to customize your experience for content creation and communications, not just media consumption.

Because Amazon and Barnes & Noble are focusing on promoting their respective devices’ ecosystem, the Nook and Kindle also have a slew of limitations that prevent them from providing the full tablet computing experience.

• App Selection: Neither tablet supports Google’s Android Market, opting instead to provide their own, smaller selections of custom-approved apps. Amazon claims to have thousands of apps for the Kindle, but strangely doesn’t even make all the apps in its own Android apps store available for its tablet. Barnes & Noble has only 1,000 apps with a few really glaring omissions—Raging Thunder is the only hardcore game. Yes, you can easily side-load apps on the Kindle Fire, and there’s an unsupported hack for doing it on the Nook, but most users don’t want to resort to that.
• Task Switching: Though both tablets have enough processing power to run several apps at the same time and an Android OS that supports true multitasking, their custom UIs make it way too difficult to switch between programs.
  On newer versions of Android, there’s a Recent Apps button at the bottom of every screen that lets you see thumbnails of all running programs and choose between them without leaving the app you’re in. On older versions of Android, you can switch between the most recent six apps—open or closed—by long-pressing the home button. In BlackBerry’s good-looking—but rarely used—PlayBook OS, you can swipe up from any page to see a list of window-like cards for every open app.
  To switch tasks on the Kindle Fire, you have to hit the software-based home button, which isn’t always visible (the keyboard covers over it, for example), go back to the home screen, and then flip through the dizzying carousel interface until you see the icon for the app you left. The Nook is a bit better because it has a physical home button and its home screen has lots of shortcuts instead of the carousel, but you still have to go home to get anywhere.
• Little Room for Customization: A true tablet is like Burger King; it lets you have it your way. With regular Android, you can rearrange your shortcuts on your various home screens, change your wallpaper, and add a slew of widgets. You can also install third-party app launchers such as ADW, an app that allows you to choose from any of 150 custom themes. The Kindle Fire offers none of these conveniences. In its defense, the Nook does allow you to change its wallpaper and to add shortcuts to its three home screens. However, you can’t drag these shortcuts around, can’t add widgets, and can’t install a launcher.
• No Alternate Keyboards/Keyboard Docks: Most serious tablet users have a virtual keyboard they prefer to the stock Android keyboard. All real Android tablets support the install of third-party keyboards, and many even come with alternate keyboard options such as Swype. There’s no way to switch keyboards on either the Fire or the Nook, and neither one offers a keyboard dock for serious data entry.
• Lame E-mail Clients: Neither eReading tablet comes with Google’s Gmail app, and their built-in e-mail apps offer the minimum functionality you’d expect. Neither the Fire or Nook Tablet supports Exchange natively, though you can download TouchDown, which adds Exchange features.
• No Third-Party Browsers Allowed: There’s a reason why neither Amazon nor Barnes & Noble offers Firefox, Opera, Dolphin, or any of the host of superior third-party browsers available in the Android Market. They want you to focus on store-bought content, not on surfing the web. The Fire’s Silk Browser was supposed to revolutionize mobile browsing by using the power of the cloud, but on our tests, it was slow and crashed frequently. The Nook’s stripped-down browser is reasonably quick, but doesn’t offer tabs or any special features. At least the Fire offers tabs.
  Amazon offers no less than three different browsers in its general-purpose Android market, but it doesn’t make these available for the Fire. How come?
• No Cameras: If you’re one of those people who says, “I don’t plan to take photos with my tablet so I don’t need a camera on it,” I’m right there with you—up until the part where you say, “I don’t need a camera,” because cameras aren’t just for photography anymore. You need a back-facing camera to use augmented-reality apps such as Google Goggles to get information about objects, to scan QR codes or barcodes on products, to translate foreign text with Google Translate, and to scan receipts for work. Neither of these tablets offers a front-facing camera to make video calls, a concession likely made to get to such low prices.

• Few Chat/VoIP Options: You can’t get Gtalk going on either the Nook or the Kindle, and we couldn’t even find a working chat app for Nook. Forget about any kind of voice chat on the Kindle Fire, because it has no microphone. The Nook Tablet actually has a microphone, but at least for now you can’t get any VoIP apps in its app store. No Fring, ooVoo, Qik, or Skype here.
• Limited Storage: Barnes & Noble’s Nook has plenty of storage for things you buy from the Nook Store—about 12GB free for that. However, if you want to bring your own media files, you have a paltry 1GB free, though you can add a microSD card. When all is said and done, the Kindle Fire only has about 5GB and no microSD slot for expansion. Try fitting your extensive music collection, your giant powerpoints for work, or your HD home movies in that space! There’s a reason why the Fire relies so heavily on the cloud, but that only helps when you’re within Wi-Fi range.

There’s nothing wrong with accepting these trade-offs if your only goal is reading books and magazines, watching movies, listening to music, checking your favorite sites, and maybe a little casual gaming. But the minute you turn to content creation, you need a different class of device, one that justifiably costs more. The Kindle Fire and Nook Tablet are good values, but they’re not true tablets.

View the original article here

With the Kindle Fire being an Amazon product, and the availability of fresh content every day, I recommend the Kindle Fire. It's the perfect holiday gift for someone; clients, employees, coworkers, men, teachers, boyfriend, kids, women, mom, and dad. There's just so many things you can do with the Kindle Fire, with all of the apps and the freedom,; you can't beat it! 
Why go through the congested traffic, you buy the Kindle Fire Here

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Kindle Fire vs Ipad: Which Is Best?

Kindle Fire vs Ipad: Which Is Best?
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Holiday shoppers will definitely be checking out tablets this year and the number one question is Kindle Fire vs Ipad: Which Is Best? Shoppers are doing their due dilligence, checking what both are offering and of course the price tag. Lots of people already have one of the tablets, perhaps a neighbor, classmate, or relative, but you may not be sure if you should buy, here's what Bloomberg News suggests which is best.

Kindle Fire vs Ipad: Which Is Best?

Nov. 29 (Bloomberg) -- Samsung Electronics Co. and Lenovo Group Ltd. are joining Amazon.com Inc. in selling low-priced tablets this holiday season, stepping up efforts to grab sales from Apple Inc.’s market leading iPad.

More than two dozen devices, including Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus, Lenovo’s IdeaPad A1 and Barnes & Noble Inc.’s Nook Tablet, are selling at a 30 percent to 80 percent discount to the iPad, which starts at $499.

Manufacturers of these tablets are also adding features that previously had been only available on more expensive models, pitting the devices more directly against the iPad, as well as posing a challenge to e-readers and netbooks.

Their aim is to narrow Apple’s lead in a market that could reach $77.4 billion by 2015, up from $9.6 billion last year, according to researcher Gartner Inc. In the third quarter, Apple saw its dominant share of the tablet market slip as devices running on Google Inc.’s Android software gained ground.
“Customers will be price sensitive,” Charlie Wolf, an analyst at Needham & Co., said in an interview. “But there has to be functionality along with the low price to make these things sell. From the competitive perspective, all of them are inferior to the iPad. But some of these cheaper tablets will take share from the iPad.”

Sub-$400 IPad
To fend off the competition, Apple should offer the iPad at a lower price, analysts from Goldman Sachs said in a report this month.

“A sub-$400 iPad 2 with 8GB of capacity could further limit the competitive prospects of Android tablet vendors in 2012 and attract more cost-sensitive consumers,” the report said. It could also help Apple compete with lower-cost rivals whose devices now offer an array of features.

Samsung’s new $349 Galaxy Tab 7 can be used as a remote control for devices in the home. Lenovo added an always-on GPS capability to its $199 IdeaPad A1. Archos’s $349 10-inch G9 tablet has a built-in stand and a customized video store with full high-definition playback.

Amazon’s Kindle Fire, which comes with access to the company’s digital books and videos, could grab up to 20 percent of prospective iPad buyers during the Christmas quarter, Wolf said.

“Some consumers who would have bought an iPad will buy a Kindle,” Wolf said. “The iPad could lose a half a million in unit sales because of the Kindle.” Wolf expects Apple to sell 12.5 million iPads during the holiday quarter. Amazon will sell 5 million Kindle Fires this quarter, JPMorgan Chase & Co. said in a recent note.

Strong Start for IPad
Still, the iPad remains one of the top items on holiday shopping lists. Piper Jaffray Cos. analyst Gene Munster said yesterday that based on observations, Apple’s stores sold 14.8 iPads per hour on Black Friday, up 68 percent from last year.

In a separate report by Piper Jaffray, a survey of teens showed that 11 percent mentioned an Apple product at the top of their wish lists, up from 7 percent in 2008. Among Apple’s products, the iPhone and iPad were the most popular.

Personal computer makers, faced with slumping sales, have joined the tablet battle by offering devices at different sizes and prices. The average selling price of a tablet fell 10 percent in the past year, while the average price of a smartphone rose 20 percent, said Neil Mawston, director of global wireless at research firm Strategy Analytics Inc.

Android on the Rise
By dropping prices, Apple’s rivals have gained market share. Android-powered tablet computers accounted for 27 percent of global sales during the three-month period ending in September, jumping from 2.3 percent a year earlier, Strategy Analytics said in October. Samsung, the biggest seller of Android tablets, accounted for about 9 percent of the overall market. The iPad’s share fell to 67 percent from 96 percent.

“Customers and businesses love lower-cost devices,” Mawston said. “As prices come down, the entry-level market will grow.”

The shift to low-cost tablets could mean the death within a few years of computing categories such as netbooks and e- readers, Mawston said.

“At some point in 2012, the black-and-white e-reader is going to start to look a little bit dated,” he said. “And the tablet market is crushing the netbook market.”

Already, for every 10 tablets sold this year, researcher Canalys said five netbook or notebook computer sales are lost. Netbook sales will drop 13 percent this year, to 34 million units, Canalys said.
E-book reader sales are expected to rally through the holiday season, even amid pressure from tablets. E-reader shipments will reach 27 million units this year, more than double last year’s 12.8 million units shipped, according to researcher IDC.

Best of Both Devices
In the long term, manufacturers may develop hybrid devices that offer features of both a tablet and an e-reader, according to a report from Juniper Research. For example, a device could have a high-resolution screen for watching videos that is also designed to minimize eyestrain while reading books.
“Hybrid displays could signal the end for dedicated eReaders,” the report said.

More low-cost tablets will be unveiled at the Consumer Electronics Show in January. Many of them will use the latest update of Android, named Ice Cream Sandwich. That version of the software, the first to be designed for both phones and tablets, may encourage developers to write more applications for the platform and increase competition in the tablet market.

“There will be a price war,” said Frederic Balay, vice president of marketing for tablet maker Archos. “Hopefully, it won’t bastardize the price seriously.”

View the original article here

You've pondering Kindle Fire vs Ipad: Which Is Best? Now you have better information to help with that choice. Honestly it depends on if you want simply a content device or do you want a tablet computer? Get the Ipad 2 if you want a computer, where you can read, send, recieve, edit, or create documents. However, if you looking to mainly do reading and watching some videos, then the Kindle Fire Tablet is the best for you.

Why wait? Buy your Kindle Fire right now:

The Kindle Fire Reader Is Ready for You!

Kindle Fire Reader

You just got your new Kindle Fire Reader and naturally you will either read a book or buy one. You'll have so many selections and one author cover it exceptionally well. Read further

Today I purchased the new Kindle Fire editions of both V for Vendetta and Sandman, Vol.1. I've been anxious to see how the new KF8 format delivers when it comes to complex graphic novels, since my current project relies entirely on its ability to render full screen color images with overlaid text effectively if it's to be successful in the Kindle format.
At left is a shot of a full panel of Sandman in the Kindle Fire's native reader. Colors are clear and vivid as expected, but the 7" screen presents text that is much too small to read. The problem is exacerbated by the fact that both pinch and zoom and horizontal orientation have inexplicably been turned off for both the titles I downloaded, so that the only way to enlarge the text is via KF8's version of Panel View. This renders graphic novels much the same way the Fire handles magazines, which is to say not well. Pinch and zoom has reached the point of being virtually synonymous with "touchscreen," so that its absence here is truly perplexing. In addition, pages load at annoying slow speeds in the Kindle Fire's reader, so that I found myself constantly swiping twice to turn a page, thinking it hadn't registered my first motion.
A further peculiarity is that the Kindle reader's guided panel view (see at right) only zooms each panel by a percentage of the original (roughly 150% or so), rather than expanding to fill the available screen from edge to edge like all the current comic apps do (including Comixology's Kindle Fire app, which I'll get to in a minute). And as you can see it does so over a dimmed out view of the full page image. I can see artistic reasons for doing this, the main one being controlled and consistent resizing of the artwork: smaller panels zoomed to full screen width can pixelate and become fuzzy with extreme expansion. And this points out the other major reason for restricting zoom, which is that it allows the use of smaller, more compressed images in what is already an extremely large file for an ebook even at these smaller image sizes (Vendetta is 87.8 Mb and Sandman 79.4).

Panel View is accessed and exited via double tapping as normal, and as usual while in the guided panel view swiping moves the zoomed-in image sequentially from one pane to the next, while swiping in full page view moves from one page to the next, albeit very slowly here. There is no menu function for turning Panel View on and off as in other apps (although it isn't needed either), but more importantly, the context menu is exactly the same as that in any other book read on the Kindle Fire, except that both the search and font resizing/typeface functions are inactive here: only the "Go To" links are available, though not surprisingly the table of contents link is grayed out for both of these books.
In Comixology - and every other comic app I have installed on my iPad 2, including Marvel, DC, and Dark Horse - there are additional menu features available for their graphic novels that the Kindle reader doesn't have, such as choices for page transitions, letterboxing (blacking out the white space at the top and bottom), and showing full pages on entering and/or exiting a new or completed page, on top of which there is built in metadata and in-app storefronts and content management. You can also generally browse through a comic in grid view (though not always), seeing an overview of the page sequence in thumbnail form, a function which serves as the graphic novel equivalent of a table of contents.
Somewhat surprisingly, given the Kindle reader's shortcomings mentioned above, the Comixology app on the Kindle Fire functions exactly the same as it does on the iPad, with the ability to pinch-and-zoom any page or panel, as well as rotating the device orientation to auto-zoom the individual panels, and including all the context menu options. As seen in the image below, the currently selected panel automatically expands to fill the available space. And more importantly, it does all this with absolutely smooth and seamless transitions regardless of the level of zoom, showing that the Kindle reader's quirks are not a shortcoming of the device hardware but a flaw in the Kindle reader software and/or format code itself.
Of course, an app is an entirely different creature than an ebook reader, which by its very nature is a much more simplified affair, designed (until now) primarily to accommodate the most basic requirements of text-based files, whereas apps can be as complex as its programmers need it to be (and their creativity and budget allows). Whoever devised the guided panel view was in my mind a deviously clever genius, and I take my hat off to them and hope they somehow find their way into a job in ebook formatting and code development.
Meanwhile, the Kindle reader app for the Fire tablet is at least a step in the right direction, and no small one at that. Although it's clunky and awkward like an old Ford Model T when set beside the sleek and regal Speedster that is the modern comics app, it's still a good beginning. While e-reader screens have finally reached the point where full color illustrated books look good - and often even stunning - the reader software and format code have got a long way to go yet to catch up with the cutting edge. With any luck the capability is there in the new KF8 and ePub3 specs and only needs the proper implementation to bring out. But only time will tell.
Still, that being said, even a PDF viewed in the Kindle Fire's reader loads in lightning fast when compared to the KF8 comics I just bought. On top of which they also allow for both orientation and zoom, as you can see from these two images of the Ring Saga pdf test file that I sideloaded into the Kindle Fire's document folder. Viewing a page in vertical orientation shows the full page by default, whereas rotating horizontally auto-zooms the page to fit the screen width, allowing for scrolling down the page and easier reading of the embedded text at a larger size. Unfortunately, of course, none of more advanced features found in the comic apps are available when viewing PDFs, nor are any of the standard text functions active, such as highlighting, built-in dictionaries, and the like, which is a common failing of this format.
This is hardly an ideal situation for those of us attempting to create full color content. While the technology is finally beginning to reach the realm of possibility, we're not there yet. Still, it's a start. Even with its limitations, this is a major advance for the Kindle reader, from black and white text with grayscale images only weeks ago to full color guided view graphic novels today (albeit clunky ones). Bold steps are being taken, and a lot of brilliant minds are hard at work, focused on this very problem. Another two years down the road and this will all be academic, I suppose. But for now it's really a major pain in my posterior.

There are so many apps that you can choose and go through. So take your time and look deeply into the apps. There are a couple of books for your Kindle Fire Reader to enjoy. Which will be the first choice?

Kindle Fire Cell Phone

Kindle Fire Cell Phone Coming?

Soon the day may come that have to upgrade your cell phone and there's a great chance that what choices you have will include an Amazon phone! You heard me correct an amazon phone, if the speculation is true there may be a new Kindle Fire Cell Phone on the way as well. Amazon is shaping up to be a force to be reckoned with! Read further to see exactly how:

According to industry blog Digitimes, Eastern partner manufacturers are expecting an inventory glut in Android-powered tablets after the holiday--exacerbating what may already be an oversupply problem. Insiders are blaming the iPad and the Kindle Fire, and high consumer expectations for Windows 8 tablets arriving in 2012. This sounds like bad news for Google, but things could get worse if rumors of an Amazon smartphone prove true.

You may ponder that Google has dropped the ball for Android on tablets when you read Digitimes' words that "the inventory problem will appear to be significant after the 2011 year-end peak sales period, accoring to Taiwan-based supply chain makers." So many unbought Android tabs may be cluttering the shelves and warehouses in fact that waves of price cuts are predicted in the early New Year. That sounds attractive for potential Android tablet buyers, but it's as bad a sign for Google as HP's earlier price cuts for its then-doomed TouchPad were, and that price cuts for RIM's ailing PlayBook tablet are.

To blame are two tablets: the iPad, of course, and the new Kindle Fire. Changewave research has just published some statistics that underline how much of a hold these two devices have over the market. Among 3,000 interviewees of those who said they were planning to buy a tablet, 65% said they'd be buying an iPad, and 22% were plumping for the Fire--just 4% said they fancied a Galaxy Tab from Samsung, which is regarded as one of the most successful full-on Android tablets so far. The Fire, on the other hand, completely buries Google's Android UI beneath a custom Amazon user experience that's shaped around all the content that Amazon can supply--books, music, videos, and thanks to its own tightly curated app store, apps too. That all but cuts Google out of every revenue stream from the Fire.

Overall 130% boosts in tablet sales are predicted during the 2011 holiday buying window, and that's a huge success for Apple and Amazon too, which has seemingly bagged the number two tablet slot just weeks after the Fire's launch. Interestingly, Changewave's data suggests that the Fire isn't eating iPad market share--it's displacing other Android tablets, probably because it's clear the Fire isn't as full-featured a machine as Apple's, and yet it delivers a killer combo of low price, Amazon's powerful brand images, and excellent access to Amazon content.

What Google may have messed up on is delivering a rich, high-powered Android version for tablets--and delivering inconsistently for those it has already powered. Articles containing lines like "while there's no word yet in an Ice Cream Sandwich updates, you can bet that Sony's pushing for one" (referring to the latest tablet-friendly Android build, V5.0, in context of Sony's unusual and interesting S-series Android tablets) typify the problem. And with Microsoft's upcoming Windows 8 for tablets expected to allow millions of wannabe tablet users to work within the familiar Windows environment, Android tablets may have a tough sell in 2012.

Amazon Kindle Fire Cell Phone

Which leaves us looking at Amazon's Kindle Fire tablet. It's selling like hot cakes, and there are already rumors that another manufacturer, Foxconn (Apple's lead tablet and phone partner) is coming on stream with more 7-inch tablets early in 2012. That's a sign that Amazon isn't suffering inventory problems like other tablet makers. And as a different sign that Amazon has bigger plans, there are already swirling rumors that Amazon has plans to bring an 8.9-inch Fire to market in the second quarter of 2012. We can't know, but we can guess that Amazon is planning a similar low price for this machine (which is pitched more squarely against the iPad) and may also bump its internal specs to deal with criticisms about the sometimes jerky performance of the existing Fire.

All of this is fuel for the rumor fire that Amazon is planning, later in 2012, to take its mobile device experiment one stage further and into smartphones. It's a natural move, because as we've noted the Fire is all about delivering Amazon content to Amazon clients via its 100% Amazon-centric UI. And there's no reason this same model wouldn't work on a smartphone. Using its experience with the Fire and earlier Kindles, Amazon now knows how to produce high-grade hardware that's distinguished by its design and capabilities. Plus there's the almost unchallengable success of Whispersync to remember--a seamless and free way for users to get content for their Kindles, piggybacked on 3G cell phone signals. There's also news Amazon's bought a voice-recognition firm to rival Siri, possibly leveraging its own extensive cloud service servers for the back-end processing.

If Jeff Bezos' firm chose a mid-range specification for the chips, internal storage, screen, and other hardware of the Kindle phone, it could offer it at an extremely competitive price--along with a full-fledged ecosystem to deliver content and apps that even Google can't rival. Do we see a sniff of desperation in Google's recent moves to get into the MP3-vending game?

An Amazon smartphone like this, priced at a $100 to $199 range and leveraging Amazon's ecosystem and its cloud services and brand would immediately make a splash in the low-mid smartphone market because it'd be hard to find a rival to it among existing Android handsets (and even non-Android ones)--devices which offer only some of the seamless content access Amazon offers, and often a scrappy and unreliable access to apps on the Google app market. Amazon could even offer the phone for less than $100 because it's been suggested the firm is selling Fires at a loss, knowing it can recoup the money--and plenty extra--through ongoing sales from its store.

Such a phone would be a true innovation in the smartphone market that's become a little stagnant. Android phones have secured a big lead in sales, but Apple's share isn't slipping too fast at the moment--and merchants seem to be selling out of the iPhone 4S as soon as it arrives on its shelves. The entry of a rich-content Amazon phone would shake the market up dramatically, likely stealing big chunks of the low-price market, disrupt the cold war, and may thus even prompt Google and Apple to move ahead with more of their own innovations. That would only benefit consumers the world over.

View the original article here

When competition is fierce you have to choose your fights carefully. Apparently Amazon has said to itself that is ok to play second fiddle the ipad for now, but the rest of the android device bow down to us. That is when this Kindle Fire Cell Phone becomes a reality, and for a low end price it'll be a no-brainer for the consumer. I hope the competitors see that sharpe edge coming because the market is being cornered!

Kindle Fire vs Ipad 2-Which tablet is best for textbooks?

The Shopping Season is here and the competition is on and fierce, but what exactly are they competing on? The Kindle Fire vs Ipad 2 comparison will definitely make the sales people at your local big boy store feel like they're in the movie "Ground Hog's Day" with the constant repeating of the same explanation of the devices. So you can gather in a crowd and perhap here the explanation or you read below and get an understanding...btw you can buy your kindle fire now through link to the left, after you understand what it is and if it fits what you're looking for. If not you can buy an ipad 2 here for a good price. Check out this video for there performances in this video.

For the parent looking to buy a tablet for your child, perhaps you'll find this more helpful with deciding "should I buy kindle or ipad 2". This is from a mom trying to help her daughter who's in college and is about to study abroad. Check out the good advice Maggie gives:
Amazon and Barnes & Noble have made e-readers and now tablets so inexpensive that almost anyone can get them, even poor students. But are these tablets up to the task of replacing those big, heavy college textbooks?

In this edition of Ask Maggie, I try to answer that question. I help one mother who is considering getting either the Amazon Kindle Fire or the Nook Tablet for her college-student daughter so she can download digital textbooks. But it's still early days for e-textbooks. And I caution her to do some homework before she buys either of these tablets.

Also in this Ask Maggie, I answer a few other tablet-based questions. I explain whether magazine subscribers should expect to pay for an extra tablet-ready e-subscription. And I answer a couple basic questions about wireless network access and e-book compatibility for the Nook and Kindle e-readers.

Ask Maggie is an advice column that answers readers' wireless and broadband questions. The column now appears twice a week on CNET offering readers a double dosage of Ask Maggie's advice. If you have a question, I'd love to hear from you. Please send me an e-mail at maggie dot reardon at cbs dot com. And please put "Ask Maggie" in the subject header. You can also follow me on Facebook on my

Ask Maggie page.

An e-textbook conundrum

Dear Maggie,
I have a daughter in college and was wondering which tablet is better for textbooks. She already has a MacBook Pro laptop and an older iPod Touch. That said, I don't want to get her an iPad. So really it's between a Nook Tablet or a Kindle Fire. She plans on studying abroad next fall. And we thought an e-reader would save some room in her two suitcases, since she wouldn't have to pack them. What would you recommend?

Thank you!
Monique

Dear Monique,
This is a tricky question because not all e-textbooks are offered on all tablet or e-reader platforms. Many are offered only for PCs and not available on tablets at all. And some tablets/e-readers also don't support textbooks. For example, Barnes & Noble only offers textbooks for computers and not on any of the Nook devices or Nook apps.

The reason that textbooks aren't offered on the Nook or on the Nook app for iOS or Android devices is because textbooks need a bigger screen and more powerful hardware to handle all the graphics and content found in a big textbook, according to a Barnes & Noble customer service representative I spoke with.

That said, other tablet/e-reader platforms, such as Amazon Kindle do offer some e-textbooks on their devices. However, sometimes the way the content is rendered is not always ideal. As I researched the answer to your question, I found customers complaining on Amazon's forums about the text not being formatted right for the Kindle, so some diagrams may be hard to see and references to certain pages will be useless in the Kindle.

I know you're not interested in getting your daughter an iPad, but it may be something to consider. There are some textbooks offered through Apple's iBook catalog on iTunes. You can also buy books for the Amazon Kindle App for the iPad. And Google ebooks can also be accessed via an app for the iPad. There are also apps from sites, such as Chegg.com or CourseSmart.com, that can be used on the iPad (or an Android tablet) that lets you buy or rent textbooks. CNET Reviews Executive Editor David Carnoy said that he thinks the bigger screen of the iPad or other similarly sized tablets is much better for text books than the smaller Kindle Fire.

But before you go out and buy her a tablet, you need to do a little homework. First, find out out which textbooks your daughter needs. And then check Amazon, Google eBooks, Apple's iBooks, and the e-book rental sites, such as Chegg.com and CourseSmart.com to see if the books she needs are offered as e-books on any of these platforms. (Make sure you check out Barnes & Noble. I know I said that they don't offer any textbooks as e-books for the Nook or the Nook app, but some of the books that your daughter is required to read for her classes may not necessarily be textbooks. For example, The Scarlet Letter or a biography of Winston Churchill are not considered textbooks, but they could be required reading for certain college classes.)

Once you know which books, if any, are offered on which platforms, you can make a better decision in terms of the tablet you should get.
Personally, I think it's a little too soon to invest in a tablet solely for the purpose of accessing textbooks. And the reason I say this is that right now it seems very hit or miss in terms of which books are offered on which platforms and devices. I think if your daughter is really interested in getting the most out of an e-book, such as highlighting, book marking and taking notes in her e-book, she should just download whatever e-books she can for her classes onto her computer.
As I mentioned before, the Nook offers a free app that can be downloaded onto a Mac or PC to access textbooks. There are also the third-party textbook sites I mentioned earlier too that allow you to either buy or rent textbooks as e-books. Since your daughter already has a MacBook Pro, you won't even need to buy her a new device to access this stuff.

One other thing to keep in mind is that some online e-book stores, such as Barnes & Noble, will only allow you to purchase books while in the United States. So if your daughter is going to buy her e-textbooks from Barnes & Noble for her computer, make sure she buys the books before she leaves for her study abroad program. Amazon allows e-book purchases while traveling overseas so long as the credit card used for the account is based in the U.S. I'm not sure how all the other e-book textbook sites work, so check with those sites as well to make sure she can get them in electronic format even if she is out of the country.

I hope this information was helpful. And I wish your daughter luck in her study abroad program. It sounds like an exciting adventure!

Magazines on the Nook and double subscriptions?

Dear Maggie,
I'm writing regarding the Nook Tablet. I'm considering getting a Nook Tablet to read magazines. I already have several subscriptions to real, paper magazines. And I've noticed that some of the ones I subscribe to have Nook magazine versions. Is there anyway I can download the digital editions of these magazines without having to purchase a second digital subscription?
Thanks,
Casey

Dear Casey,
It is up to the publisher of the magazine as to whether print subscribers also get access to an electronic version of the publication. There are some magazines, such as Wired, that give print subscribers free access to the digital version. But other magazines may require you to buy a digital subscription in addition to a print subscription. Personally, I think that sucks, since many of the digital editions don't even store the entire magazine archives. And it really seems like publishers are double-dipping when they try to squeeze two subscriptions out of the same subscriber. The content for both the digital and print editions are usually the same.

Nook Tablet

But it's still very early days when it comes to tablet publishing for magazines, so the business models are still evolving. For example, The New Yorker says on its Web site that it charges a separate subscription fee for its print subscribers to also get the magazine on Amazon Kindle e-readers. But its digital edition, which can be accessed on a regular computer, is free to print subscribers. The iPad and Kindle versions of the magazine also appear to be free to print subscribers, according to the FAQ about tablets on its Web site. The magazine publisher also says that it will offer a Nook version of the magazine soon, which I assume will be free like the iPad and Kindle Fire versions.

My advice to you is that if you're interested in using your Nook Tablet to read magazines, you should check out Barnes & Noble's Web site and the Web sites of the magazines you want to read on the Nook to see if another subscription is required. If it is, I'd suggest canceling your print subscription to get the digital one, if you think you'd prefer that. Or you could just wait a little while and see if the publisher changes its policy. As I said before, things seem to be changing very quickly in this industry as magazine publishers figure out the best way to leverage the new tablet format. So even if your favorite magazines charge an additional subscription fee today, they may not in a few months.

Understanding e-book compatibility

Dear Maggie,
Can you read e-books from Amazon on the Nook Tablet or ones from Barnes & Noble on the Kindle Fire? I am reluctant to lock myself into one company, but I can't afford an iPad.
Thanks,
Mick

Dear Mick,
I double checked this information with my CNET Reviews colleague, Executive Editor John Falcone. He said Nook books can be read on Nooks and products with Nook apps, such as the iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch, and Android phones and tablets. Kindle books can be read on Kindles, as well as, devices with Kindle Apps, such as iPads, iPhones, iPod Touches, and Android devices. But Nooks cannot be read on Kindles; and Kindle books cannot be read on Nooks. So unfortunately for you, you'll have to make a choice. But just remember you aren't totally locked in because both the Kindle and the Nook allow you to read books from either the Amazon store or the Barnes & Noble store on other devices, such iOS and Android tablets as well as smartphones. I hope this helps and good luck!

No 3G for the Nook Tablet

Dear Maggie,
Can I use the Nook Tablet anywhere the way I use my Kindle 3? I want the same kind of access I have with Kindle 3, but I want a better browser. Will the Nook Tablet meet these requirements.
Thanks,
Danny

Dear Danny,
Your Kindle 3 has a 3G wireless radio in it. The Nook Tablet does not have a 3G radio. It is Wi-Fi only, so you won't be able to download anything or use the browser if you are not in a Wi-Fi hotspot. That said, you can still store media on your Nook Tablet, so if you're not near Wi-Fi you can access content you've already downloaded. I hope this advice was helpful. And good luck!

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We are looking to help buyers make informed decisions when deciding between the kindle fire vs ipad 2. We'll provide more info on the Kinde Fire and how to's for it. So now that you have choosen which device to buy, let us why in the comments. Thanks for reading.

Kindle Fire Tablet vs. Netflix

vs.

The Kindle Fire Tablet is making all kind of noise since its' release and that was just last week folks. We are like attendees at major boxing match where the kindle fire tablet vs netflix where where will we view our movies at now? Will be on the kindle through amazon, or through a netflix app on the kindle? The answer to that question, as with many questions comes to how is it going to cost you?

Amazon Prime offers a lot of bang for your 80 bucks. But is it really the best value?
(Credit: Screenshot by Rick Broida)

To my thinking, the most interesting aspect of Amazon.com's new Kindle Fire tablet is not the hardware, nor even the price. It's Amazon Prime, the $79-per-year service that delivers, among other things, video and e-book content to the device.

That $79 outlay may seem like a lot, but let's crunch the numbers a bit. For starters, that breaks down to $6.58 per month, less than what you'd pay Netflix for its video-streaming service. Of course, the latter's $7.99 monthly fee nets you considerably more content--but I'll come back to that.

Also included in your Prime membership: free e-book borrowing. This sounds a bit better than it is, as Amazon currently limits you to just one book per month. What's more, the Prime lending library has only about 5,000 titles, at least for now.

There's some decent stuff in there, including the "Hunger Games" trilogy, "The Hangman's Daughter," and "Water for Elephants." But overall I'd have to describe the selection as disappointing, as it contains mostly items I've already read or don't want to read. (Of course, that's just me.)

On the other hand, considering that the typical Kindle e-book costs $9.99, you're effectively getting $120 of books as part of your $80 Prime membership. And that's not including all the other stuff.
In addition to books and video, Prime gives you its original raison d'etre: free two-day shipping on virtually everything you buy. No limits. And if you need something overnight for a gift or whatever, you pay just $4.

Now, let's say you order just one item per month from Amazon, and your orders don't end up qualifying for free Super Saver (aka slow-boat) shipping. Even if you paid just $5 for standard shipping each time (an amount that could easily be much higher, depending on what you're buying), that's $60 per year.

Time to review. A Netflix streaming subscription costs $96 annually. Twelve e-books would cost you around $120, and shipping charges for everyday items could easily amount to $60, if not more. That's $276 per year--more than three times the price of an Amazon Prime membership. There's value here, people.

Of course, I'm presuming that you'll find enough reading, viewing, and shopping material to make it worthwhile. But even if you're only a light consumer of all three, you still stand to come out ahead.
That said, here's what Amazon needs to do to make Prime more of a slam-dunk. First, expand the lending library--significantly. There should be a minimum of 50,000 titles, not 5,000. Second, make the available titles easier to browse. At the moment, I can find no way to view just the lending-library books (on the Amazon Web site, anyway).

Third, keep building the video library--it's getting a little better all the time--but make it easier to browse. The current interface for perusing Prime-eligible video is embarrassingly bad, and annoyingly hard to find.

Finally, offer a monthly payment option. For someone who just plunked down $200 on a Kindle Fire, another $80 might be tough to swing. How about $6.99 per month, which you can still tout as "less than Netflix!" while offering unparalleled other services?

I think Amazon Prime has the potential to be a game changer. It's already an impressive value, and arguably a must-have for Kindle Fire owners. All that remains is for Amazon to beef up the content and improve the user experience.

What are your thoughts on Prime? Worth the money? Not quite ready for (sorry) prime time? Share your thoughts in the comments.

Your one-stop shopping center for the latest prices, deals, and comparisons on all your must-have products at rock-bottom prices.

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The gloves are off folks! The Kindle Fire Tablet vs Nexflix battle will come to a viewing device near you. With the above stats and facts being understood, people will start heading toward the Kindle Fire/Amazon road. What will you do?

Kindle Fire Hack-9 Step Defense

When you have new technology, media hype, a great price, and money to spare you have a storm on your hands. Now when you have that kind of technology storm, you also have the criminally intelligent or the bored wiz kid looking for a "rush", booming with amazing know how and pimples, either way these two are a serious threat to you the consumer. The Kindle Fire hit the market last week with a storm, and now the criminally intelligent and the amazing pipmled wiz kid are in competition do something few know about, the Kindle Fire Hack, trust it's not good for you or your kindle. Don't worry you have a few smart people on your side too. Today those smart people give you your 9 step defense. Read further...

Amazon's Android-powered Kindle Fire e-reader/tablet has arrived, which means only one thing: Eager Android enthusiasts everywhere will buy one and hack it so they can get superuser access, or "root" it. Root your Kindle Fire, and you can potentially install a custom Android ROM that lets you use your Kindle Fire as a full-featured tablet, install and use Android apps that require root privileges to add features and access your Kindle's system guts, and more. (You can even add support for the complete Android Market, but that's a separate guide.)

Credit for this specific Kindle Fire root method goes to Android Forums user "death2all110." In order to perform it, you'll need the Android SDK and a special root app called SuperOneClick. Don't worry, though--we'll show you how to do it from scratch.

Step 1: Turn on your Kindle Fire and tap the top bar, near the battery and Wi-Fi icons; press More... from the drop-down menu, then Device, and tap Allow Installation of Applications to On.

Step 2: Download the Android SDK from the Android Developer site. Get the version with an installer app (installer_r15-windows.exe).

Step 3: Download the Java Development Kit (version 7, at the time of this writing). Make sure to download the appropriate version of the Java Development Kit for your PC--I'm on a 32-bit Windows 7 PC, so I downloaded the Windows x86 version.

Step 4: Install the Java Development Kit. Make sure you do this before you install the Android SDK. All you need to do is to open the installer file you downloaded (mine was called jdk-7u1-windows-i586.exe) and click through the installer wizard.

Step 5: Install the Android SDK. Simply open installer_r15-windows.exe and follow the instructions. Once the Android SDK is finished installing, the SDK Manager app will automatically open with a list of software packages you can download. Go ahead and install all the prechecked packages, but make sure that the Google USB Driver package (listed under Extras) is checked. You'll need this file to let your PC communicate with the Kindle Fire. Wait for SDK Manager to download install and all the packages, and don't panic if it asks you for permission to kill a server or process. Just click OK until it's all done with the install process.

Selecting packages to install in the Android SDK Manager.

Step 6: Now that you have the SDK installed, you'll have to make two quick modifications to it before you can root the Kindle Fire. First, open up your User Account folder in Windows (C:\Users\(Your Account Name), find the new ".android" directory, and find a file called adb_usb.ini. Open it up in Notepad, add a new line at the bottom of the document, and type 0x1949. Make sure that string is on its own line in the document, save it, and close it. Next, go to wherever you installed the Android SDK itself (probably C:\Program Files\Android\android-sdk), and navigate to the \extra\google\usb_driver\ directory. Find the file called android_winusb.inf and open it in Notepad. There, you'll want to take the following lines and paste them immediately underneath the [Google.NTx86] and [GoogleNTamd64] headings in the document:

;Kindle Fire
%SingleAdbInterface% = USB_Install, USB\VID_1949&PID_0006
%CompositeAdbInterface% = USB_Install, USB\VID_1949&PID_0006&MI_01

Editing android_winusb.inf.

Save the file and exit Notepad. If Notepad doesn't let you overwrite android_winusb.inf when you're saving it, save the edited version to your desktop, and then drag the edited version over to the usb_driver directory to replace the old version with your edited version. Windows may ask you for Administrator permission to replace android_winusb.inf--don't worry, it's fine.

Step 7: Plug your Kindle into your PC. You'll need a micro-USB cable to do this, which the Fire doesn't ship with, so you'll have to buy that cable if you don't already have one that you use with your phone or camera. Windows will probably automatically attempt to install a driver for it, fail, and then mount it as a normal storage device. That's fine, though we may have to change something there later.

Step 8: Now that your PC and Kindle are connected, we're going to open up the Android SDK to make sure it recognizes the Kindle. Open up Command Prompt in Windows (Start Menu, All Programs, Accessories, Command Prompt) and navigate to wherever you installed the Android SDK.

Don't remember your DOS commands? That's okay--just open up the Command Prompt and type cd followed by the file path to the platform-tools directory (for example: cd C:\Program Files\Android\android-sdk\platform-tools\). Once you're there, type adb kill-server, press Enter, type adb devices, and then press Enter again. You should see the Command Prompt return with "List of devices attached" and a string of numbers followed by "device"--that means the Android SDK recognizes the Kindle is attached, and you're ready to proceed to the next step.

Checking to see if the Android SDK can locate the Kindle Fire via USB.

However, if you don't have any devices listed, it probably means that Windows isn't using your Android SDK USB driver to communicate with your Kindle Fire. Go to Control Panel in Windows, open Device Manager, and scroll down the list of devices until you find your Kindle listed. Right-click the listing and select Update, then click Browse my computer for driver software, Browse, and navigate to the directory that holds the file you edited earlier called android_winusb.inf--probably C:\Program Files\Android\android-sdk\extras\google\usb_driver. Click Next; Windows should now switch over to the Android SDK USB driver for your Kindle. Go back to the Command Prompt; type adb kill-server, press Enter, then type adb devices, and press Enter again. You should see something show up under the list of attached devices.

Step 9: Now you're ready to root your Kindle. All you have to do is download SuperOneClick (and Microsoft's NET 2.0 Framework, if you don't already have it installed), install both apps, open up SuperOneClick, and click Root.

SuperOneClick in action.

Let SuperOneClick do its thing--the entire process takes a few minutes--and when it's done, go back to the Command Prompt, type adb kill-server, and press Enter. Then, just to be sure, click on the Safely Remove Hardware and Eject Media icon in the Windows Notification Area (usually a picture of a plug with a green checkmark on it), eject the Kindle, and unplug it. Congratulations--you have root access!

 

So now you can tell the super smart/criminally intelligent to go to hell in 9 easy steps. Next someone someone tries to do a Kindle Fire Hack, just look for the person with a look of utter disgust on their face because they assumed that you didn't protect your Kindle from them. All we ask is that you don't laugh them too loudly, you may hurt their feeling. ;-)

Kindle Fire Tablet Review-Part 2

Here's part 2 of the most complete Kindle Fire Tablet Review. In this part The Silk Bowser is covered. Then Shopping aspect is covered as it relates to Books, Music, and Movies. After that Apps and Games are covered, followed by the final Verdict. 

Silk Browser

Aside from the price tag, one of the main talking points spawned from Amazon's announcement was the new, and revolutionary Silk browser, which promised a different approach to loading web-pages, meaning you'd get to your favourite content faster.

Here's how it works in theory. You see, Amazon isn't just the world's biggest retailer, it also owns most of the internet. It's servers host an astonishing amount of the web's content.

It's massive EC2 Cloud-based computers are hence able to do a huge amount of the heavy lifting when it comes to loading web content.

Those servers will store a lot of the information about websites in a cache, meaning the Kindle Fire itself has to do less of the work the next time it brings up that page. The browser will determine the best division of labour necessary to load the page in the fastest way.

The Silk's loading method isn't without controversy. As a lot of the information is handled by Amazon's own servers, there are privacy issues at stake. It means Amazon has a record of every site you've visited, exposing your browsing habits. There's a price to pay for that extra speed.

But how does it work in practice? Well, on pages we loaded regularly, like TechRadar.com, the back-end loading functionality was able to predict regular content like the banner heads, while the rest of the content follows almost instantly. It's a very fluid experience.

In terms of the look and usability of the Silk browser, it's definitely more likable than the default Android smartphone and tablet browser, but not as smooth or intuitive as Safari for iOS 5.

We found that scrolling around web-pages was a simple task, and double-tapping to zoom-in on certain areas worked well, as did pinch to zoom. This didn't cause any negative effects on the resolution of text or images, but when video is present, any zooming can be very jerky.

Silk is flash enabled, meaning you'll have no problem using those sites still heavily reliant on Adobe's gaming and video platform, despite Adobe's vow to kill Flash on mobile devices. As they tend to, Flash banners do not always render in the correct place.

However how much you enjoy enjoy Silk will greatly depend on how you cope with the 7-inch screen as opposed to 8.9, 9.7 and 10.1 inch displays offered by rivals.

If you're using in portrait mode you'll not see the full width of the many pages, while landscape displays minimal information above the fold.

We had no problems with reading web articles on the 7-inch screen as text re-renders to fit your environment a la the Android browser.

The entire reason for the Kindle Fire's existence is to lock you into an Amazon-controlled ecosystem where you can equip the device with hordes of books, magazines, apps (more on that later), movies and music.

How else do you think it can afford to lose a reported £6 on every device it sells?

As we mentioned above, the user interface completely revolves around pointing you to those stores, so how does the experience play out?

When you enter each of the portals, you'll be greeted with a screen showing the content you've already placed on the device and also the files you have stored on Amazon's Cloud Player.

To access new music, for example, you'll hit the Store tab, which is easy to navigate and offers MP3 previews of every track. Once you make a purchase, you have the option of storing on your device, or keeping it on your Cloud Player. You can also upload your own tracks to your Cloud Player account.

The cloud solution is one way you can circumnavigate the paltry 8GB of storage on the device as you'll be able to access all of your music and video over Wi-Fi.

It's not much help if there's no Wi-Fi available, as this device has no 3G connectivity, but there's always the option to physically download anything you have stored to the device for long journeys. And of course it saves the battery if you're not streaming all your content.

In terms of accessing movies and TV shows, Amazon is keen for you to sign up for its Amazon Prime Instant Videos service, which is free in the US for subscribers to the Prime 2-day free delivery service which costs $79 (Kindle Fire buyers get 30 days free).

For that you'll get free and unlimited streaming of thousands of movies and TV shows, but don't expect the latest blockbusters.

The newest releases, along with the latest TV shows, are available to rent for 48 hours (twice as long as iTunes) for the same $3.99-$4.99 price. Like iTunes, those files can be temporarily downloaded to your device for offline viewing. As soon as we have more info on the UK features in this area, we'll update the review.

It's the first tablet ecosystem that can compete with iTunes on an absolute level playing field. It doesn't quite possess the same nuances, like podcasts and iTunes U, but the essential stuff is there in abundance.

The Newsstand tab is very similar to its namesake in iOS 5. It features a huge array of magazines and newspapers which Amazon was smart enough to tie in prior to the Kindle Fire's launch. There's Vanity Fair, Wired, Cosmopolitan, GQ and The Economist as well as 'papers like The New York Times. These can also be stored on the cloud, rather than on the device, saving vital space.

Magazines read well, but the fluidity and panache we experienced on the iPad isn't present here. In terms of books, well it's a Kindle Reader...

The selection of 750,000 books is second to none and the purchasing interface transfers well onto the new medium. However, the reading experience isn't as pretty as on the iBooks app for iOS, we missed the true-to-life turning of the page when flicking through the book.

Members of the Amazon Prime service now also get the opportunity to rent one book a month from the store, absolutely free. Again, that service isn't yet available for UK readers.

 

As we mentioned earlier, although Android pumps the blood around its veins, the Kindle Fire doesn't really feel like an Android device. Nowhere is this more evident than in the app store department.

The presence of Amazon's own Android appstore means there's no Google-supported Android Market on this device. What that means is a dramatic reduction in the officially available applications for an ecosystem already struggling to keep up with Apple's 140,000-strong offering of iPad optimised apps.

Amazon went out and penned deals with a host of the main players in this arena, which means Angry Birds, Words With Friends, Plants vs Zombies, Dead Space and Scrabble are all present and accounted for, while the company is continuing to offer a free Premium app every day. Once again your apps can be stored on the cloud to download as you see fit.

The gaming experience on the device is relatively pleasing. It feels like using a large phone, rather than a tablet device as the extra screen real estate on devices like the PlayStation-certified Sony S1 and iPad 2 do enhance the experience, but anyone who has played video games on an Android phone will know what to expect. The multitouch-enabled touchscreen helps in this department.

In terms of streaming media there's the all-important (and newly revamped) Netflix, Hulu+, Pandora and Rdio apps, but no Spotify as of yet.

In terms of social networking, the built in Facebook icon simply links to the mobile site and there's no sign of an official Twitter client. There are third-party alternatives like Seismic, FriendCaster and Uber Social, though.

While the Amazon Appstore is well-stocked and will offer enough to get by on, no Google support means no official YouTube app, no Google+, no Maps, no Gmail, no Earth, no Voice (there's no microphone), no Translate and no Navigation (there's no GPS anyway).

These are top shelf apps that bolster the Android platform and Amazon has alienated them. Without them the device feels a little bare. You feel it really needs a YouTube app at bare minimum.

There is a way to circumnavigate this problem and root (or jailbreak) the device in order to load any app (or APK) you would like to, but this method is for seasoned tinkerers only and will void the warranty on your device.

The Amazon Kindle Fire is a completely new kind of tablet device, erring away from the "we can make an iPad too" attitude that has seen the tech world so-far fail to replicate Apple's success.

There were always going to be compromises, but Amazon has struck a very fine balance balance between the essential functionality and the price point. It's up to users to decide whether they are sacrifices they're willing to make. On the whole, we feel that Amazon has got it right.

We liked

The 7-inch form factor is executed far more successfully than the BlackBerry PlayBook, or indeed the earlier Galaxy Tab, as it retains the comforting feel of the much loved Kindle reader. The device feels solid, yet comfortable in the hand, sturdy but never cumbersome.

There's an awful lot about this device that spectacularly defies the bargain basement price point. The build is one of those things, while the refreshing user interface, display, touchscreen and built-in eco-system of content are better than they have any right to be at this price.

The buying experience was perfect and the ability to keep everything in the cloud does its best to negate the paltry 8GB hard-drive. We were also really impressed with the first iteration of the Silk browser, which is likely to get better.

We disliked

Because of the price point we were able to go a little easier on some of the Kindle Fire's limitations, of which there is a laundry list.

The decision to omit things like a front-facing camera, a microphone, 3G data connectivity, Bluetooth, GPS, the Android Market, greater internal storage (and the option of external storage) were made to keep costs to a minimum.

Regardless, these are things that we've come to expect on all mobile devices and they are invariably missed.

The software is largely great, but needs some kinks ironing, while the battery life disappointed somewhat. The lack of native Google-built apps is a problem and the privacy issues that arise with using the Silk browser is something to keep an eye on.

Verdict

The Amazon Kindle Fire represents astonishingly good value for money; perhaps the best gadget bargain of this era.

The company has unquestionably succeeded in doing what it set out to; to produce a brilliant media consumption device that doesn't break the bank. It's a solid tablet perfectly tailored to its aim of pushing you to buy digital content from Amazon.

It isn't an all-singing, all-dancing device that ticks all the boxes, neither does it attempt to be. It's is an enjoyable device to use and defies its price point in almost all areas.

However, because of the limitations we've mentioned above, this can't be considered an iPad Killer. The iPad does absolutely everything better and so it should at double the price. This, however, is an entirely different proposition to any other tablet on the market and can't be judged on the same merits.

People who want an iPad will still buy one. However, due to the sheer number of Fires that will sell, it will be the first device that can truly compete in terms of popularity and uptake.

Rather than hurting Apple, it is more likely to damage the other Android tablet-makers seeking £400 of your hard-earned for their latest offering. It was already difficult for Motorola, LG and and co to justify their prices, now it's nigh-on impossible.

They will have to cut their own prices and develop ways to combat Amazon's content-buying platform. This means more choice and better deals for everyone.

The Amazon Kindle Fire is here and the tablet landscape can never be the same again. Now all we need is for Amazon to confirm a UK launch date and price and all this excitement will finally be actionable.

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The Kindle Fire Tablet Review will give you an indepth look at the new tablet. You can now decide whether it is for you or not. So now that you have the entire Report, what are your thoughts.