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.

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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.”

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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: