Amazon Kindle Fire PC Tablet compared with Apple iPAD 2 and BlackBerry Play Book

Launch of All-new Amazon Kindle Fire PC Tablet

Amazon's all new Kindle Fire PC tablet will be released in the international market on November 15, 2011. Amazon Kindle Fire is priced US$ 199 which may be about Rs.9,800 at today's conversion rate of US currency to the Indian rupees. This is the price which will compel many buyers and sellers to compare the features of the competitive products which are the forthcoming Amazon Kindle Fire and the existing Apple iPAD 2 priced US$499 for the base model and BlackBerry Play Book similarly priced at US$499. The price of Amazon Kindle Fire is certainly going to effect the sales of Apple iPAD 2 and BlackBerry Play Book once the Amazon Kindle Fire hits the market.

Amazon Kindle Fire PC Tablet – Features and Specifications

Let us have a glance first at the features and specifications of the Amazon Kindle Fire and then in the next two paragraphs we can proceed with to compare the same with the features of iPAD 2 and BlackBerry Play Book.

• Operating System (OS) : Android 2.3
• Applications: Amazon Kindle Fire will provide online easy access to the Amazon online stores providing millions of Android based apps such as movies, games, e-books, magazines, newspapers etc.
• Browser: Amazon Silk browser.
• Physical dimensions and weight: 7.5 x 4.7 x 0.45 inches.
• Weight: 0.91 lbs or 14.6 ounces.
• Display Size measured diagonally & Display Resolution: 7 inches with a display size of 1024 x 600.
• Processor & RAM: 1 GHz dual using TI OMAP processor and a 512 MB RAM.
• Storage capacity: 8 GB of storage capacity.
• Front & Rear Cameras: Not provided at all.
• Microphone and Audio/Speakers: No microphone but fitted with stereo jack and speakers.
• Wi-Fi Connectivity: 802.11 b/g/n
• 3G, Bluetooth and GPS: Not available.
• Battery life: 8 hours continuous reading and 7.5 hours with video play.
• Accelerometer, Magnometer / Compass, Gyroscope, Video out, Sensors: Not provided at all.
• USB: micro USB 2.0
• Colours: Available only in black colour.
• Price: Competitively priced at US $ 199.

Features of Amazon Kindle Fire and Apple iPAD2 compared with each other

It is obvious that the Amazon Kindle Fire has to compete with the Apple iPAD 2 in the market. It is therefore necessary that the features of the two products ought to be compared to strike a balance between the two. Amazon Kindle Fire will be mainly banking upon its low price and its online access of unspecified number of Android Applications at the Amazon Online Store. On the other hand Apple iPAD has to depend on its additional features and its iOS Apps on Apple's App Store providing 90000+ dedicated iPAD apps. One can have a glance of the comparative features of the two products as given below:

• Operating System (OS) : Apple iPAD operates on iOS 4.3.5 (as of 10/3/2011) whereas Amazon Kindle Fire runs on Android 2.3
• Applications: Apple iPAD is supported by iOS Apps on Apple's App Store which has about 90,000+dedicated iPAD applications including e-books, magazines, newspapers etc. Amazon Kindle Fire will provide online easy access to the Amazon online stores providing millions of Android based apps such as movies, games, e-books, magazines, newspapers etc.
• Browser: Apple iPAD2 supports Safari and other Webkit browsers whereas Amazon Kindle Fire has its own Amazon Silk browser.
• Physical dimensions and weight: The dimensions in inches of Apple iPAD 2 are 9.5 x 7.31 x 0.34 and the weight (in lbs) is 1.33 with Wi-Fi and 1.35 with GSM. Comparably, Amazon Kindle Fire measures 7.5 x 4.7 x 0.45 with a standard weight of 0.91 since it does not support the Wi-Fi and GSM features.
• Display Size measured diagonally & Display Resolution: Apple iPAD has advantage over the Amazon Kindle Fire with 9.7 inches touch screen whereas it is only 7 inches in Amazon Kindle Fire. The display resolution in the Apple iPAD 2 is also better than the Amazon Kindle Fire. It measures 1024 x 768 (LED bklight) in Apple iPAD 2 but it is only 1024 x 600 in Amazon Kindle Fire.
• Processor & RAM: Both have the same speed 1 GHz dual core processors. It is A5 in the Apple iPAD 2 and TI OMAP in the Amazon Kindle Fire. Both the products have the same 512 MB RAM.
• Storage capacity: Apple iPAD 2 is loaded with 16/32/64 GB of storage capacity whereas the Amazon Kindle Fire is at disadvantage with only 8 GB of storage capacity.
• Front & Rear Cameras: Apple iPAD 2 scores over Amazon Kindle Fire in this feature since it has both the front camera (0.3 MP) and the rear camera (0.7 MP). There is no camera flash. Amazon Kindle Fire is devoid of all these features.
• Microphone and Audio/Speakers: Apple iPAD 2 is provided with a microphone but there is none in the Amazon Kindle Fire. Apple iPAD 2 also has a mono speaker and stereo headphone whereas Amazon Kindle Fire is provided with stereo jack and speakers.
• Wi-Fi Connectivity: Both Apple iPAD 2 and Amazon Kindle Fire is provided with Wi-Fi connectivity. It is 802.11 a/b/g/n in iPAD 2 and 802.11 b/g/n in the Amazon Kindle Fire.
• 3G, Bluetooth and GPS: Apple iPAD 2 is provided with all the 3G (GSM & CDMA), Bluetooth and GPS facilities but there is none of these facilities available in the Amazon Kindle Fire.
• Battery life: Battery life is 10 hours in Apple iPAD2 and 8 hours in Amazon Kindle Fire.
• Accelerometer, Magnometer / Compass, Gyroscope, Video out, Sensors: All these features are available in the Apple iPAD 2 and not in the Amazon Kindle Fire.
• USB: Apple iPAD 2 has no USB support whereas the Amazon Kindle Fire has this support.
• Colours: Apple iPAD 2 is available in both the black and white colours whereas Amazon Kindle Fire comes only in black colour.
• Price: There is a substantial price differential between the Apple iPAD 2 and the Amazon Kindle Fire. Apple iPAD 2 is priced ranging from US$ 499 to 829 depending on the connectivity (Wi-Fi or 3G) and storage capacity whereas Amazon Kindle Fire is priced at a very cheap rate of US $ 199.

Features of Amazon Kindle Fire as compared to BlackBerry Play Book

When we talk about the features and specifications of the Amazon Kindle Fire, it does not differ much from Blackberry Play Book except the front and the back cameras which are not available in Amazon Kindle Fire but are an important feature of Blackberry Play Book.

• Both the Amazon Kindle Fire and BlackBerry Play Book have 7 inches touch screen with display of 1024x600.
• There is a slight difference in the weights of the two tabs. Amazon Kindle Fire weighs 0.2 more than its counter BlackBerry Play Book. The weight of Kindle Fire is 14.6 ounces and that of the Play Book is 14.4 ounces.
• Both use almost similar Android operating system (OS). Amazon Kindle Fires names it as Android with Amazon Silk browser and the BlackBerry Play Book names it BlackBerry Play Book Tablet OS (QNX) BlackBerry.
• Storage capacity of the Amazon Kindle Fire is 8 GB with free cloud storage which is half of the Storage capacity of 16 GB provided in the BlackBerry Play Book.
• As far as Wireless connectivity is concerned both the Amazon Kindly fire and BlackBerry Play Book have the same Wi-Fi features with no built-in 3 G.
• BlackBerry Play Book scores over Amazon Kindle Fire Tablet since it is fitted with both the front and the rear cameras which are not provided in the Amazon Kindle Fire.
• Battery life of Amazon Kindle Fire PC Tab is 8 hours of continued reading or 7.5 hours of video playback compared to the battery life rated at 10 hours for BlackBerry Play Book.
• Both Amazon Kindle Fire and the BlackBerry Play Book use the same Texas Instruments dual-core processor.
• Connectors used in the Amazon Kindle Fire PC Tab are micro USB 2.0 and it is micro USB and Micro HDMI in the BlackBerry Play Book.
• The international price of Amazon Kindle Fire is fixed at $199 whereas BlackBerry Play Book is priced $499 which is more than double the price of the Amazon Kindle Fire.
• Amazon Kindle Fire PC tab will be available in the market for sale from November 15, 2011 whereas the BlackBerry Play Book is already available for sale.

If we go by the comparable features of the Amazon Kindle fire with the Apple iPad 2 and the BlackBerry Play Book, Amazon Kindle Fire is likely to attract more buyers just because of a huge price differential even though both the iPAD 2 and the BlackBerry Play Book provide many additional features.

What made the manufacturer of Amazon Kindle Fire to price it low

Some experts have said that Amazon will be losing about $10 for every Kindle Fire sold in the market. But the strategy of the Amazon is to attract millions of consumers using credit cards who are now attracted by Apple to buy on line digital content like movies, games, e-books and other online goods. The manufacturers of the Amazon desire to bring out Amazon Kindle Fire not simply as a hardware concept but want to link it to the millions of digital data available at Amazon Online Store. So the company has thought of making good of the loss on the hardware with the sale of its software.