“I’ve been putting [Amazon’s Kindle Fire] through its paces all day long,” Jeff Benjamin reports for iDownloadBlog. “It’s a decent first attempt by Amazon, and it has tons of potential, but it still suffers from the fact that it’s a first generation device.”
“How does the iPad 2 stack up to Amazon’s debut entry into the tablet race?” Benjamin wonders.
Benjamin reports, “In this video I compared three different areas: bootup times, web browsing, and Netflix streaming. Kindle Fire is really fast when it comes to Netflix streaming, though that could be due in part to Netflix’s new Android interface.”
MacDailyNews Note: Comparing the new Netflix app on the Kindle to the old Netfilx app on the iPad is a meaningless comparison.
“Overall, though, there’s absolutely no comparison between the two,” Benjamin reports. “The iPad 2 is just insanely more polished in all facets when compared to Amazon’s tablet. It really makes you appreciate all of the work that Apple goes through to get their hardware and software performing just right.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Tiny-screened, sluggish, clunky, unresponsive, re-taptastic, frustrating, jittery piece of crap topped with a severe case of AppLack™. We’d call Amazon’s Kindle Fire a “poor man’s iPad,” but we don’t want to insult iPad by mentioning it in the same sentence.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Readers “Fred Mertz” and “Dan K.” for the heads up.]
Related articles:
Mossberg reviews Amazon’s tiny-screen Kindle Fire: Frustrating, clunky, much less capable and versatile than iPad – November 16, 2011
Wired reviews Amazon’s tiny-screen Kindle Fire: Web browsing sucks, emotionally draining, makes reading a chore – November 14, 2011
NY Times’ Pogue reviews Amazon’s tiny-screen Kindle Fire: Sluggish, ornery, unpolished – November 14, 2011
The Verge reviews Amazon’s tiny-screen Kindle Fire: Uninspired, confusing, incredibly unoriginal – November 14, 2011
Engadget reviews Amazon’s tiny-screen Kindle Fire: Sluggish, clunky, too limiting and restricted – November 14, 2011
PC Magazine reviews Apple iOS 5: The best phone and tablet OS, Editors’ Choice – October 15, 2011
The Guardian reviews Apple iPad 2: Ahead of the pack – March 25, 2011
The Telegraph reviews Apple iPad 2: Does everything better; now’s the perfect time to join the iPad club – March 25, 2011
Computerworld reviews Apple’s iPad 2: ‘The Holy Grail of computing’ – March 16, 2011
Ars Technica reviews Apple iPad 2: Big performance gains in a slimmer package
Associated Press reviews Apple iPad 2: Apple pulls further ahead – March 10, 2011
PC Mag reviews Apple iPad 2: The tablet to get; Editors’ Choice – March 10, 2011
Associated Press reviews Apple iPad 2: Apple pulls further ahead – March 10, 2011
PC Mag reviews Apple iPad 2: The tablet to get; Editors’ Choice – March 10, 2011
Pogue reviews Apple iPad 2: Thinner, lighter, and faster transforms the experience – March 10, 2011
Baig reviews Apple iPad 2: Second to none – March 10, 2011
Did you notice how many times he tapped the Kindle where it either didn’t register, or it took so long to register that he tapped it again? Do that for a month and you’ll be ready to throw it out the window.
I see that you don’t fully understand how to run a successful company that Wall Street appreciates.
Rule 1. Never set the bar too high when selling consumer products, otherwise they’ll expect even more the next time around.
Rule 2. Keep the price cheap and build quality low. If the price is set low enough you easily maintain Rule 1.
Rule 3. Lose money on every hardware unit sold, add free content and make it up in volume to build market share.
Rule 4. Be sure Warren Buffet has a hefty stake in your company before attempting the first three rules.
Amazon meets all these requirements and that’s why whether the Kindle Fire is good or not or sells in high numbers or not, Amazon will continue to be the darling of Wall Street and easily outperform Apple.
As long as consumers pay a low enough price, in their minds they can easily justify all of the little nitpicks, scrolling glitches, slow tapping responses, etc. It’s all in the art of the deal. Wall Street knows that most consumers are morons and will happily settle for less than optimum user experience in order to purchase greater numbers of a so-so product at a low price. High-quality is an unnecessary evil. You watch when Amazon’s share price rockets after selling three million low-quality Fires and Apple share price sinks after selling 15 million high-quality iPads. Jeff Bezos is still smiling about raining on Apple’s iPad holiday parade.
Oh, and to all you Apple bulls, you might just end up on the Thanksgiving dinner table covered in gravy thanks to Jeff Bezos’ grand scheme of how to sell nearly worthless 7″ tablets. See you at $350.
Yap yap yap yap yap yap yap. Sounds like one of those incredibly annoying vile little dogs that stupid women carry around in bags that make lots of noise, snap at you and piss all over the place. Somebody please kick the revolting creature.
…”and that’s why whether the Kindle Fire is good or not or sells in high numbers or not, Amazon will continue to be the darling of Wall Street and easily outperform Apple.”
I’m not sure which Wall Street you’re referring to, but on the one in New York City (in America), AMZN and AAPL have been pretty much in sync for the past month, six months, year and five years. Only if you look at last 3 months can you possibly see AMZN pulling a bit ahead, since AAPL was somewhat higher than others three months ago, and Steve’s death seems to have depressed the stock a bit.
AAPL is performing incredibly well, considering that Apple is (in and out) the largest market cap in the world. To many investors, such companies don’t have much more room for aggressive growth, regardless of fundamentals.
Are you a member of the marketing staff of amazon? I wouldn’t wonder…
But: Your philosophies are old style marketing. Steve Jobs did it exactly the other way round:
In the first place, make a fascinating device as well as you ever can, so you would like to own it yourself.
After you succeeded, only then begin to think about marketing, and do it also as well as you ever can!
Third: Never ever think about consumers as morons, but make them feel being worthy to get the best device on the planet.
4. The best device on the planet is the one with the best and simplest UI and the most beautiful hardware-design.
Thats the way; Steve Jobs made up the almost bankrupt Apple to the company Nr. 1 of the world.
Read the bio of jobs, you can learn a lot of him!
Sorry if my English is not perfect, I am Swiss. By the way: We have 20% Mac-marketshare in Switzerland, thats world record!
That was painful to watch. I can already see the look on any kid’s face that is unlucky enough to get one for Christmas. Fire is the right name because that’s where it’s going to end up.
Wow. The side-by-side placement shows how much bigger the iPad screen looks, compared to Kindle Fire. This impression is exacerbated by the long-narrow screen on Kindle Fire versus the 4:3 screen on iPad.
Not bad for a first effort. There should be a 4 way comparison between the iPad, iPod touch, Nook Tablet and Kindle Fire. I suspect the iPod touch will be road kill amongst that lot – far too small screen. Apple needs to step up its game and bring out a 7″ tablet to replace the touch. Viewing videos on the touch is a pain on 3.5″ and would definitely be more pleasurable on 7″. Bring it on, Apple. Game on.
Really? Get rid of the touch? I’ll not be cramming a tweener device that size in my pocket when I head out the door… You comment is extremely short sighted.
There’s a reason why iPod touch sales are declining to the extent Apple didn’t bother refreshing the hardware inside. They’re increasingly seen as anachronistic in view of newer 7″ offerings from rivals. Whether you like it or nor sales trends do not lie. It’s you who should remove your rose tinted glasses and jump into the 21st century before it passes you by.
Ok, I’ve removed them… Nope, still looks the same. Thanks for playing 🙂
Comparing iPods with tablets???? That’s a new one!!
Btw iPods are declining because everyone is getting an iPhone which, incidentally, happens to have an iPod built in. Duh!
See my cooment below. And you win the dimwit of the year runner’s up prize which is a paid vacation to Libya.
The contrarian BLN has emerged. I say ‘bull’ to the iPod touch commentary by BLN. My kids are glued to their iPod touches, and it fits in a pocket.
Just plain BULL, BLN!
I love my iPod touch because it fits perfectly in my pants pocket. I even carry it in my shirt pocket. You can’t do that with a 7 incher
Ok make a 4″ iPod touch and sell that for $199 or $149. Then release a 7″ iPod touch Maxi that addresses the mini tablet market and sell that for $249. The development cost for CPU, iOS software and battery components will have been amortized to the iPhone and iPad so the incremental cost of releasing a 7″ tablet would be less than what Amazon spent to develop a first generation stand alone device. There’s money in them thar hills.
Sounds like you’ve got it all figured out… Let us know when you get your company up and running, I’m sure it will be very successful 😉
Agreed but I’ll probably get the Fire to play with. The iPad costs too much IMHO.
It’s an iPOD you halfwit, not a bloody tablet. There is no comparison. It does make a perfectly good ereader, as does the iPhone; I’ve got several hundred books on mine, but comparisons with a Kindle are fatuous. But then, that’s pretty much what we’ve come to expect from BLN.
In case a dimwit like you doesn’t get the point, I’ve put the iPod touch in there because it costs $199, the exact same price as a Kindle Fire. Given a choice between a 3.5″ and 7″ screen for the exact same price I know where I’d rather spend my money. And the 7″ device gives me less eye strain and has a bigger, more glorious screen. No contest, and you win the dimwit of the year award.
NO 7″.
The 7″ form factor has been nothing but a FAIL for one and all.
I <3 my iPod Touch. It fits in my pocket. It's freaky FAST. The picture is glorious. If I want something bigger, I want a real iPad and nothing in-between. 😀
Trust an appendage of Ballmer to get it wrong. 😛
Calling the “Fire” a poor man’s iPad is an insult–to poor people.
I don’t think it even stacks up well to the iPad 1…
Yeah I find it laughable that so many are saying it’s great for a version 1.0 product. The iPad was amazing when it was version 1.0. It was smooth and polished. There was no chunkiness on the iPad 1.
Oh yes the Kindle Fire would fustrate me and I was fustrated just watching the video. I would probably snap the Kindle in half. I already pound the keyboard on my Windows PC!
Yeah, this guy makes the excuse that it’s a “1.0” device. But the original iPad that came with iPhone OS 3 was a 1.0 device, and it was not full of “frustration.” It was more limited compared to the current iPad, but “limited” does not have to equal bad user experience. In fact, being more limited (as Kindle Fire is compared to iPad), if done right and thoroughly tested, SHOULD equal better performance and simplicity.
The Fire’s nowhere near as bad as I thought it would be based on the reviews.
Then please buy one! And please your buyer’s remorse to yourself. We have no sympathy.
Really? He picked one the most craptastic apps on the iPad and compared with a brand new version on the Kindle.
NetFlix, while it was great to have access to the content, was one of the worst experiences I’ve had when using an app on any iOS device. I’m guessing they made an app with a webkit view and just linked to the website.
And yeah, those non-registered touches and unresponsive swipes and scrolls will become more and more frustrating as time goes on. My iPad gen 1 does this occasionally and it does get old really fast.
MDN take: ” We’d call it the poor mans iPad, but we don’t want to insult the poor man.”
The iPad was a first generation device (as a tablet) and it wasn’t rubbish then. Even the first iPhone in it’s pre apps days was still polished.
@Mxnt41
Yes! Not many seemed to notice that although it was described as an iPad 2, the iPad in the video was a first generation iPad!
I’m dumping NETFLIX as soon as an alternative from Apple arrives. NETFLIX did an Adobe stupid move. Treating iPad users as 3rd class citizens. Giving preference to Android platform than iPad. Knowing that the iPad is the best selling most popular and most used device for that category. So NETFLIX, go screw yourself. Or in SJ style “NETFLIX SUCKS”
Whatever the reviews, it will sell. Several people in my office have ordered one, even some who own an iPad. They liken it to a cheap way of getting some iPad-like experience, with many looking to give it to their kids. At $199 it falls into the expensive toy range. When I mention the iPod touch might be a better choice, they say the hope is it will encourage the kids to read.
Those poor children. The Fire would have scared me off reading.
Not one of these clowns will test the Fire vs the iPod touch vs the iPad. At $199.00 the iPod touch will win. If you want a really big HD screen, get the AppleTV later and AirPlay to your home entertainment HDTV system.
It is amazing how he tries to apologize for the poor performance of this device. Almost every time something doesn’t load as fast it is “you have to remember” or “It’s almost done”…
Even when he says the page is loaded you can’t scroll or do anything. How is that even close to comparable?