Kindle Fire

knewsom

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Jul 10, 2008
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La Mancha, CA
http://www.amazon.com/

$199??? Wow, that's cheap, and I like the size too. I don't need cameras or microphones in a tablet... I mostly want one for reading and web-browsing. If it had 3G, I'd be very interested.

Curious what you guys think. Not a replacement for an iPad, certainly, but looks like a pretty good device.
 

ukoffroad

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Jan 13, 2010
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Lynchburg, Va
Saw a bit about that on the news this morning. I am in the same boat, we have a laptop and a desktop but for sub $200 it could be great for trips and such. I did not any of the details.
 

mbs13

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Mar 23, 2008
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Chicagoland
I heard they were taking a hit on the hardware as they were expecting to make all the profit on the streaming services, ebooks, apps, etc.
 

hilltoppersx

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Jun 29, 2010
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i would wait on the fire. they rushed this one out in time for the holiday season to compete with the nook 2 color that will be coming out shortly. There will be a 10" fire coming in the Q1 of 2012 that will be the first quad-core processor tablet on the market.
 

adriatic04

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Mar 22, 2007
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cleveland, oh
You think all you will do is read. Then you get on a flight and sit next to someone with an iPad and they read, play games, have the paper, email, photos, and listen to music.
 

knewsom

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Jul 10, 2008
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La Mancha, CA
adriatic04 said:
You think all you will do is read. Then you get on a flight and sit next to someone with an iPad and they read, play games, have the paper, email, photos, and listen to music.

That's the thing - this has all that, and basically infinite storage thanks to Amazon's free cloud storage for Amazon content. Pretty wicked.
 

hilltoppersx

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Jun 29, 2010
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nothing is perfect yet... the kindle is the best e reader out there hands down. obviously the screen on the fire will not be as easily read nor will it be half as good on battery life. it's running android but will run amazon app store i wish it had both the android market place and the amazon app store. i have both on my samsung charge and the amazon app store can't compete. there is wifi everywhere around me and my job so the 3g doesnt bother met although i could see if i lived somewhere else in the country that wasn't as populated it might bother me.

im still waiting. because for me tablets are still just a tech toy. they don't serve a particular purpose for me as my 4g smartphone can do pretty much anything a tablet can. and i can carry my phone in my pocket.
 

mbs13

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Mar 23, 2008
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Chicagoland
Who knows what the best deal will be out these once the Fire hits the market and RIM decides to further slash cost on the Playbook.

Im still following the Twitter feeds to Touchpad and its still crazy for the scraps that are supposedly coming from that sell-off. I expect eBay will get FLOODED with all types of tablets once the bottom falls out from everything non-Ipad.
 

rovercanus

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Apr 24, 2004
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hilltoppersx said:
im still waiting. because for me tablets are still just a tech toy. they don't serve a particular purpose for me as my 4g smartphone can do pretty much anything a tablet can. and i can carry my phone in my pocket.
Tablets have been out for a long time and are a lot more than toys.
The windows os tablets are the same as a laptop without the key board.
That said, I see your point, I really don't see the point of a Droid based tablet with a 7" screen. It's no good as a computer, and it's not a phone. All it does is run apps.
 

LR Max

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May 1, 2004
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Hotlanta, GA
I'm going to look at this one heavily. A tablet is in my future as I travel for work. On the airplanes I look over and see a guy watching the movie he wants to watch while the rest of us are stuck with some friggen chick flick on a crapped out monitor bolted to the ceiling.

Also having Netflix and hooking it into the hotel TV would be HUGE for me. It seems like all hotels have flat screens with HDMI input. Even the TV in the old hotel in France (didn't use it but if it was raining, probably would've!).
 

hilltoppersx

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rovercanus said:
Tablets have been out for a long time and are a lot more than toys.
The windows os tablets are the same as a laptop without the key board.
That said, I see your point, I really don't see the point of a Droid based tablet with a 7" screen. It's no good as a computer, and it's not a phone. All it does is run apps.

that's why I said for me. For what I do it is still a toy. A windows laptop without a keyboard and mouse is useless because i do graphic design. again, movies, music, books, gps, email, camera, it's all on my Android phone.

As for netflix. Don't get your hopes up. They block output on most HDMI devices because they don't want people ripping the video to a DVD.
 

rovercanus

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Apr 24, 2004
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hilltoppersx said:
that's why I said for me. For what I do it is still a toy. A windows laptop without a keyboard and mouse is useless because i do graphic design. again, movies, music, books, gps, email, camera, it's all on my Android phone.

As for netflix. Don't get your hopes up. They block output on most HDMI devices because they don't want people ripping the video to a DVD.
I just use a USB keyboard when I need it which isn't often. Same with a mouse.
I'll agree, I think the new Droid tablets are little more than toys Are this point.
 

Buddy

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Nov 6, 2006
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Central NC
My biggest concern with the Kindle Fire would be that you are limited to Amazon content only. So just like the regular kindle you are limited to what Amazon has to offer.

So even though they are cheap and sound really cool for the money. They are not open platform and don't look like they will allow you to run other vendors content.
 

chris snell

Administrator
Staff member
Aug 15, 2005
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knewsom said:
http://www.amazon.com/

$199??? Wow, that's cheap, and I like the size too. I don't need cameras or microphones in a tablet... I mostly want one for reading and web-browsing. If it had 3G, I'd be very interested..

It's not cheap at all. You're selling your privacy to them. When you use the Amazon-provided browser, it routes all of the HTTP traffic through proxies in their compute cloud. This allows Amazon to optimize the HTTP streams; instead of sending many objects individually to the browser like how a normal browser works, Amazon packages all of the objects (text, images, javascript, CSS, etc) into a bundle and ships that to your Fire. The end result is that browsing speed is boosted but Amazon now sees every interaction you have with the Web. They know what sites you visited and what you submitted when you filled out a form somewhere. DWeb posts? They can see and analyze exactly what you post This collected data, when stored and analyzed, is invaluable. They act as an intermediary, cutting Google and other data miners completely out of the loop since those guys can no longer easily determine your physical location (your traffic appears to come from the Amazon cloud). They've essentially taken a Google product (Android) and turned it against them. Amazing...and scary.
 
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knewsom

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Jul 10, 2008
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La Mancha, CA
chris snell said:
DWeb posts? They can see and analyze exactly what you post

You mean like Kennith? ;)

chris snell said:
This collected data, when stored and analyzed, is invaluable. They act as an intermediary, cutting Google and other data miners completely out of the loop since those guys can no longer easily determine your physical location (your traffic appears to come from the Amazon cloud). They've essentially taken a Google product (Android) and turned it against them. Amazing...and scary.

So instead of Google knowing my every move, Amazon does? Not sure how this is worse. Obviously I don't like the notion of either of them having so much access to personal information.
 

LR Max

Well-known member
May 1, 2004
1,190
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Hotlanta, GA
Buddy said:
My biggest concern with the Kindle Fire would be that you are limited to Amazon content only. So just like the regular kindle you are limited to what Amazon has to offer.

So even though they are cheap and sound really cool for the money. They are not open platform and don't look like they will allow you to run other vendors content.

True but they ARE Amazon. They've got A LOT of stuff.
 

Mike_Rupp

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Mar 26, 2004
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Mercer Island, WA
chris snell said:
It's not cheap at all. You're selling your privacy to them. When you use the Amazon-provided browser, it routes all of the HTTP traffic through proxies in their compute cloud. This allows Amazon to optimize the HTTP streams; instead of sending many objects individually to the browser like how a normal browser works, Amazon packages all of the objects (text, images, javascript, CSS, etc) into a bundle and ships that to your Fire. The end result is that browsing speed is boosted but Amazon now sees every interaction you have with the Web. They know what sites you visited and what you submitted when you filled out a form somewhere. DWeb posts? They can see and analyze exactly what you post This collected data, when stored and analyzed, is invaluable. They act as an intermediary, cutting Google and other data miners completely out of the loop since those guys can no longer easily determine your physical location (your traffic appears to come from the Amazon cloud). They've essentially taken a Google product (Android) and turned it against them. Amazing...and scary.


Is this any different than Facebook? Wasn't there an article recently that said that FB collects data on your computer's browsing history even when logged out of FB? Then, the little douchebag Zuckerburg had the stones to say he didn't realize that FB did that?

The simple fact is that the players on the net want to gather your history and use it in a way to sell you more stuff.