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Amazon's Kindle Fire from the start has been situated as the budget tablet. Its specs rarely are found to measure up to those of its competitors, but the price, the current edition offered at $229, is so appealing it has managed to leverage a spot in the market.
When the holiday season comes in sight, we naturally expect a new splash from electronics producers and Amazon hasn't let us down there. There are some redesigned features, including the operating system, which is pretty much Android Light. Also, some people are going to quite dig the brand new Mayday feature. As discussed below, this new feature provides free, single button access to a live service rep.
If though you're looking for dramatic improvements in functions and capacity, you'll be disappointed. There's not a lot of enhancement with this third-generation model. Indeed, some might even think they're getting ripped off. The software here is based on Google's Android system, but absent all of Google's apps and services.
Instead, the new Kindle Fire owner has to download his or her apps from Amazon. (This includes, by the way, activating the Flash Player , which does not come activated, to the annoyance of many users.) The selection of apps is paltry in comparison to that available on the standard Android. We're talking around 85,000 apps compared to nearly a million for Android. Of course that also means you're missing a lot of stuff that many people value highly: e.g., Google Maps, Gmail, and YouTube.
Sorry to seem to be piling on, but another unhappy aspect of the Kindle Fire HDX follows in the wake of this paltry assortment of apps. As with the earlier versions, you are constantly being up-sold. Holding the mouse over any product or service brings your friendly Amazon salesman leaping into action, drawing your attention to some similar Amazon good you might like to buy.
Admittedly this might be a matter of taste. Some people might quite like this relentless sales pitch. Especially given how skimpy the come-with goods are. For me, it's just too annoying. The catch here of course is that the marketing model is much like commercial television; this onslaught of sales pitches is the price you pay for the low sticker cost.
The good news is that the folks at Amazon have succeeded at reducing the rate of software bugs that caused so much trouble with previous models. It is much less glitchy. Also on the upside, it has an interesting design feature, which provides a "carousel" style view of apps, movies, books or whatever. These carousels provide a review of products or services that the Kindle user has recently accessed. There's a navigation bar at the bottom of the screen that provides access to the entire collection of content on the Kindle Fire.
Plus, we mustn't forget the feature that some will enjoy most of all: the Mayday button, with which a single press puts you in direct contact with a live service rep. This service guy or girl will introduce themselves, on a first name basis (of course), after popping up in a corner of your screen. This rep will be skilled and informed, able to deal with whatever problems you've encountered. In fact, should it prove a more efficacious solution, the representative can even take over direct control of the tablet. Those worried about corporate Big Brother may have pause at such a notion, but it can help resolve some issues much faster than trying to walk the owner through a series of involved steps. I certainly found this service impressive. And it represents a rare commitment to customer service.
Yet, for all that, there's a kind of paradox, here. After all, one of the main selling features of these tablets is their intuitive qualities. They're supposed to be very high on the user friendliness scale. So all the effort and expense put into this live rep feature almost leaves me wondering if the poignant "Mayday" is meant less to evoke the user calling out to the rep than Amazon calling out Mayday to the market. They surrender: as in, okay, this is the best we can do, here's the workaround our inability to come up with a tablet that actually fulfilled the promise of intuitive function. Sorry. I know, I'm a cynical old dog.
So, look, we have to conclude the same thing we have concluded on past versions. If you're sole interest is an unfailing loyalty to Amazon and its products, Kindle Fire may well be just what you need -- and there's certainly major improvements this time around. On the other hand, if your primary motivation is to save money on a tablet, you can do better .
When the holiday season comes in sight, we naturally expect a new splash from electronics producers and Amazon hasn't let us down there. There are some redesigned features, including the operating system, which is pretty much Android Light. Also, some people are going to quite dig the brand new Mayday feature. As discussed below, this new feature provides free, single button access to a live service rep.
If though you're looking for dramatic improvements in functions and capacity, you'll be disappointed. There's not a lot of enhancement with this third-generation model. Indeed, some might even think they're getting ripped off. The software here is based on Google's Android system, but absent all of Google's apps and services.
Instead, the new Kindle Fire owner has to download his or her apps from Amazon. (This includes, by the way, activating the Flash Player , which does not come activated, to the annoyance of many users.) The selection of apps is paltry in comparison to that available on the standard Android. We're talking around 85,000 apps compared to nearly a million for Android. Of course that also means you're missing a lot of stuff that many people value highly: e.g., Google Maps, Gmail, and YouTube.
Sorry to seem to be piling on, but another unhappy aspect of the Kindle Fire HDX follows in the wake of this paltry assortment of apps. As with the earlier versions, you are constantly being up-sold. Holding the mouse over any product or service brings your friendly Amazon salesman leaping into action, drawing your attention to some similar Amazon good you might like to buy.
Admittedly this might be a matter of taste. Some people might quite like this relentless sales pitch. Especially given how skimpy the come-with goods are. For me, it's just too annoying. The catch here of course is that the marketing model is much like commercial television; this onslaught of sales pitches is the price you pay for the low sticker cost.
The good news is that the folks at Amazon have succeeded at reducing the rate of software bugs that caused so much trouble with previous models. It is much less glitchy. Also on the upside, it has an interesting design feature, which provides a "carousel" style view of apps, movies, books or whatever. These carousels provide a review of products or services that the Kindle user has recently accessed. There's a navigation bar at the bottom of the screen that provides access to the entire collection of content on the Kindle Fire.
Plus, we mustn't forget the feature that some will enjoy most of all: the Mayday button, with which a single press puts you in direct contact with a live service rep. This service guy or girl will introduce themselves, on a first name basis (of course), after popping up in a corner of your screen. This rep will be skilled and informed, able to deal with whatever problems you've encountered. In fact, should it prove a more efficacious solution, the representative can even take over direct control of the tablet. Those worried about corporate Big Brother may have pause at such a notion, but it can help resolve some issues much faster than trying to walk the owner through a series of involved steps. I certainly found this service impressive. And it represents a rare commitment to customer service.
Yet, for all that, there's a kind of paradox, here. After all, one of the main selling features of these tablets is their intuitive qualities. They're supposed to be very high on the user friendliness scale. So all the effort and expense put into this live rep feature almost leaves me wondering if the poignant "Mayday" is meant less to evoke the user calling out to the rep than Amazon calling out Mayday to the market. They surrender: as in, okay, this is the best we can do, here's the workaround our inability to come up with a tablet that actually fulfilled the promise of intuitive function. Sorry. I know, I'm a cynical old dog.
So, look, we have to conclude the same thing we have concluded on past versions. If you're sole interest is an unfailing loyalty to Amazon and its products, Kindle Fire may well be just what you need -- and there's certainly major improvements this time around. On the other hand, if your primary motivation is to save money on a tablet, you can do better .
About the Author:
Mishu Hull writes on electronics at a range of blog sites. For more valuable information about the product discussed here, see Kindle Fire Updates .
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