Amazon's new Kindle Fire tablet: an in depth review

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  • Reply 141 of 157
    ahmlcoahmlco Posts: 432member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by solipsism View Post


    Maybe if they realized they rewrote the UI from the bottom up to be idealized for the display, which is also completely different aspect ratio not just size, they'd realize why Android never had a chance by simply scaling up to fit a larger display.



    They did NOT rewrite the UI from the bottom up. They added the UISplitViewController for side-by-side master-detail views. They added automated support for larger icon sizes -- if present.



    Everything else, from a development perspective, is the same. They did modify some of their own applications to better utilize the additional screen real estate, but that's not rewriting the UI from the ground up.



    The following article shows just how much work goes into converting an existing iPhone app to an iPad app. Pretty much ONE build setting, and checking to see if you hardcoded any screen sizes.



    http://iphonedevelopment.blogspot.co...universal.html
  • Reply 142 of 157
    solipsismsolipsism Posts: 25,726member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by ahmlco View Post


    They did NOT rewrite the UI from the bottom up. They added the UISplitViewController for side-by-side master-detail views. They added automated support for larger icon sizes -- if present.



    Everything else, from a development perspective, is the same. They did modify some of their own applications to better utilize the additional screen real estate, but that's not rewriting the UI from the ground up.



    The following article shows just how much work goes into converting an existing iPhone app to an iPad app. Pretty much ONE build setting, and checking to see if you hardcoded any screen sizes.



    http://iphonedevelopment.blogspot.co...universal.html



    So you're saying a split UI and different sized icons were all that were needed to adjust for a 3.5" 3:2 display into a 9.7" 4:3 display. That'll be your little secret¡



    Or… you could accept that reality that both are CocoaTouch and are unique UIs designed independently for their primary I/O.



    And I guess we can completely ignore all the default apps that are nothing like their iOS for iPhone counterpart, because that would totally decimate your argument even more.
  • Reply 143 of 157
    As far as I can tell, this is an _unbiased_ DED article!



    /me puts that date down in his Tablet of Memorable Events.
  • Reply 144 of 157
    The good thing about Kindle Fire is that for $199 you got all you need on travel )



    There are some Kindle reviews on http://kindle-review.useful-source.org/, thought it might be helpful.
  • Reply 145 of 157
    Yay. Look at me, Internet tough guy, arguing against someone on an online forum thread because I have nothing better to do at work. Yippie =)



    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Apple ][ View Post


    Basically, the Kindle Fire is a substandard mini-tablet that might appeal to some frugal people who have never been exposed to the greatness and superior performance of Apple's devices.



    People who have low standards, little money and people who are not used to quality might find the Kindle Fire attractive.



    Ah yes, us frugal types. The ones that can't afford to spend close to $1000 every year to get the latest and greatest from Cupertino. I believe we're referred to as "common folk," the unwahsed, non-baptised practitioners in the Church of Apple. We've never been touched by quality, so we'll accept any junk that comes our way as truth and be damn grateful for it as well!



    ....or, we simply don't feel compelled to spend over $500 on something we don't really need. Better yet, perhaps we just feel like the iPad is overkill for our purposes, and something that costs almost less than half the price accomplishes it beautifully (Netflix, ebooks, a few games and a browser more than satisfies most). No, the interface is not fluid as liquid, and no, it doesn't have the hundreds of thousands of apps you normally find on an iPad or Google Android tablet. But for goodness sake, its $200 freaking bucks, and the device feels solid when you use it. The UI will improve (just like iOS did), and the hardware will get even better (more storage, 3G, etc).



    Having used both devices for an extended amount of time, the "safer" choice would be the iPad if you can afford it. But there is nothing inherently "wrong" with the Kindle Fire, and I do believe people will find a lot they like about it once they try one for themselves.



    Did I mention it's only $200?
  • Reply 146 of 157
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Prof. Peabody View Post


    There are always "glitches" in software (normally called "bugs"). Several times recently there have been bugs found in Windows and Mac that have apparently existed for years without being discovered. The key phrase in my remarks was "Apple would never release a product with as many (glitches, bugs, etc.)"



    The Kindle Fire is a placeholder product (rumour has it that the "real" 2.0 Fire is set for release in less than six months), and a bug fest extraordinaire.



    I really don't understand all the idiots criticising DED for being "biased" here for that reason. The Kindle Fire has been hugely panned in almost every review. It's an absolute piece of junk. Almost every reviewer has given it poorer marks and excoriated it even more than DED does here.



    This is a fair review and a reasonably positive one given what everyone else is saying about it.



    Anyone who thinks this is Daniel being "biased" needs a reality check.



    Well, let's be fair here. To your words, "Apple would never release a product with as many bugs," have you been completely asleep the last several years? MobileMe, iOS 5 crashes and glitches, iCloud and iTunes Match syncing issues, iPhone 4's antenna problems, iPhone 4S's battery problems. Apple is a fine company, and certainly they have a reputation for quality, but they're not perfect, and they never will be. Whenever you add new code, you introduce the opportunity for bugs. That will always be the case, and Apple is no exception.



    Now, to the fault of Amazon, the Kindle Fire review units were all using unfinished code, which became the basis of many of the early reviewers. Immediately on the day of the launch, Amazon released an update for the Fire that addresses many of the performance issues reviewers had been dealing with for over a week. If you pick up and use a Kindle Fire today, many of those complaints don't hold water. Also, Amazon *never* billed this device as an iPad killer. The only people who were disappointed when they found it it wasn't an iPad killer were the same reviewers that hyped it up as Amazon's iPad killer for weeks. Taken for what it is, the Kindle Fire is an unbelievable value product.



    I don't dare claim this article is 'bias,' although let's face it - humans are bias by nature. If you can afford an iPad, get an iPad. There's nothing about the Kindle Fire that will pull you away from that experience. But it isn't fair to call it a "placeholder" product either. It's version 1.0 of a new line of products from Amazon, and while it's lacking in some key areas (storage, connectivity, UI inconsistencies, etc), it genuinely feels like a solid product with a future, unlike many of the other "iPad killers" that have come to market, like the HP Touchpad or the Blackberry PlayBook, which are both dead in the water. It also feels like a solid product with a story, with Amazon's cloud services powering an Apple-like end-to-end experience, unlike just about every other Android-based tablet on the market.



    For something that costs less than half the price of an entry-level iPad, you get a piece of hardware that looks and feels good in the hand, yet is humble and does not try to be what it isn't. It's a portal for digital content, with a rich ecosystem of services at a price that undercuts just about every tablet device being sold on the market. Best of all, it has a future in an ever-increasing flood of devices and manufacturers that are all trying to compete in the wrong areas.



    Does the Kindle Fire revolutionize the world? No. Will it drive away sales from the iPad? Probably not. Will Amazon sell millions of these things and make a boat load of cash from the increase in Amazon content and services sold to consumers? You bet your butt they will. I did. I'm a satisfied customer.



    (And just to deflect some of the impending nonsense, yes, I have used the iPad before. And yes, I use an iPhone. I've bought four of them, actually, on two different networks. So clearly, I go for the best product for my needs.)
  • Reply 147 of 157
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by yuusharo View Post


    I don't dare claim this article is 'bias'



    Feel free, there is plenty of bias in there!



  • Reply 148 of 157
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by island hermit View Post


    ... and I was making a joke about the length and breadth of DED's review.



    It's lightweight compared to the usual reviews of CPUs and GPUs on TomHardware and AnandTech... There people don't consider something "reviewed" unless you have 12 pages of text with each page having at least 5 benchmarks.



    Ah, back in the day when I was "into" the GPU scene. You just couldn't run enough benchmarks back then. Now I have an Xbox360. Never EVER going back to PC gaming unless... well, it's very unlikely. \
  • Reply 149 of 157
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by thesmoth View Post


    The iPad is FAR away from a laptop replacement. It cannot yet really do anything well enough to replace a laptop. Even simple web browsing is faster and more efficient on a laptop, AND You can watch flash videos (actually a big deal). There are a lot of sites I frequent that require flash, so the argument that it isn't a big problem anymore is completely false. The iPad is an expensive toy and all I see on these boards are people desperately trying to justify their expensive and unnecessary purchases. You spent a lot of money on a nearly useless toy, accept the fact and deal with it, stop making up pathetic justifications. iPads are really cool, pretty, trendy, well advertised, fun to interface with, have cute games, etc... But that is all they are and all they will be. They are great to have around for those odd occasions where you don't want to use your laptop or you are traveling, etc... but they are worth about $200 in the functions they return. Slowly the number of useful functions they can perform is increasing, and slowly their prices will drop, and in about 2 years those will balance out and we'll have tablets worth buying. For now you early adopters are beta testers funding development of the real deal.



    sadly, your comments show a surprising level of naivety. All one has to do is take a quick glance at what people are actually doing with iPads to see that not only is it replacing the laptop, it is doing alot of things the laptop couldn't. Speaking from experience, my iPad very quickly replaced my laptop for everything. So much so that after a year and only using the laptop maybe twice, I gave it away to my mother.



    Lastly, no, flash videos is not a big deal.
  • Reply 150 of 157
    cmvsmcmvsm Posts: 204member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by thesmoth View Post


    The iPad is FAR away from a laptop replacement. It cannot yet really do anything well enough to replace a laptop. Even simple web browsing is faster and more efficient on a laptop, AND You can watch flash videos (actually a big deal). There are a lot of sites I frequent that require flash, so the argument that it isn't a big problem anymore is completely false. The iPad is an expensive toy and all I see on these boards are people desperately trying to justify their expensive and unnecessary purchases. You spent a lot of money on a nearly useless toy, accept the fact and deal with it, stop making up pathetic justifications. iPads are really cool, pretty, trendy, well advertised, fun to interface with, have cute games, etc... But that is all they are and all they will be. They are great to have around for those odd occasions where you don't want to use your laptop or you are traveling, etc... but they are worth about $200 in the functions they return. Slowly the number of useful functions they can perform is increasing, and slowly their prices will drop, and in about 2 years those will balance out and we'll have tablets worth buying. For now you early adopters are beta testers funding development of the real deal.



    First off, you really should do some research before bumbling off at the gums in front of a global audience. You've already been given a couple work related examples for the ipad at work. I'll give you another. Home Depot, one of the largest retailers in the world, requires their management teams to use ipads in conjunction with Salesforce.com in order to conduct daily business. The medical profession is also using the ipad and custom apps like never before. The list goes on, and you are a nob.



    By the way, news flash, Adobe has abandoned any future development for Flash. I guess you missed the memo. So get your head out and pay attention.
  • Reply 151 of 157
    gongon Posts: 2,437member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by nvidia2008 View Post


    It's lightweight compared to the usual reviews of CPUs and GPUs on TomHardware and AnandTech... There people don't consider something "reviewed" unless you have 12 pages of text with each page having at least 5 benchmarks.



    You make that sound like a bad thing, but AnandTech's reviews are pretty much perfect. Some critical reading skill required, of course. Reading all of the benchmarks instead of selectively jumping through the ones that matter for your particular use case would be a waste of time.

    Quote:

    Ah, back in the day when I was "into" the GPU scene.



    What in the name of holy mackerel is "the GPU scene"?
    Quote:

    You just couldn't run enough benchmarks back then. Now I have an Xbox360. Never EVER going back to PC gaming unless... well, it's very unlikely. \



    So you are willing to throw away a tremendous amount of versatility and performance to gain a little bit of convenience and/or price savings, which is also what people opting for a Kindle Fire over an iPad are doing.

    Somehow I suspect the "fair and balanced" gentlemen of this thread are not going to condemn your choice on equal criteria they condemn a Fire purchase, nor are they going to make personal insults towards you for having a different personal preference.
  • Reply 152 of 157
    gongon Posts: 2,437member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Tallest Skil View Post


    You've missed the point, I think.



    There isn't a "continuous line". THEY'RE trying to make a "continuous line". I'm simply trying to illustrate that there's no gaps between the three points. It's not stairs that can be dissected and made shorter by adding more steps; it's a data plot with only three points. Connect these three and you have the entire spectrum.



    Nice story, but demonstrably wrong.



    I want a device small enough to fit in a jacket pocket so I can always have it on hand, yet has a screen large enough to draw on. iPhone can't do that, iPad can't do that. Apple's lineup has a gap. QED.



    As for the iPod Touch, every mobile phone these days has sufficient ability to play music, and mobile touchscreen gaming in 3.5" is a bad joke. I really can't see a reason to buy one. Growing it to a larger screen size like mknopp suggests would at least give it some edge over the iPhone as an entertainment device. 7" isn't the only choice, of course. Going to 5" or so would retain great portability.
  • Reply 153 of 157
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Gon View Post


    Nice story, but demonstrably wrong.



    I want a device small enough to fit in a jacket pocket so I can always have it on hand, yet has a screen large enough to draw on. iPhone can't do that, iPad can't do that. Apple's lineup has a gap.



    I keep hearing this stuff about jacket pockets?



    I've never had a single jacket large enough to have pockets large enough to hold something with a 7" screen. That's crazy. And I used to be HUGE, for crying out loud; I'd know if jackets had pockets that large!



    You want something always on hand, you have the iPhone. Need something larger, you have the iPad. QED.
  • Reply 154 of 157
    gongon Posts: 2,437member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Tallest Skil View Post


    I keep hearing this stuff about jacket pockets…



    I've never had a single jacket large enough to have pockets large enough to hold something with a 7" screen. That's crazy. And I used to be HUGE, for crying out loud; I'd know if jackets had pockets that large!



    I'm looking at the Galaxy Note which has a 5.3" screen and definitely goes into a jacket pocket, cargo pocket, any size bag etc.

    Quote:

    You want something always on hand, you have the iPhone. Need something larger, you have the iPad. QED.



    You effectively repeated my analysis of how neither Apple device does what I want (which means the lineup has a gap). Not sure what your point was in doing so.
  • Reply 155 of 157
    gatorguygatorguy Posts: 24,153member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Tallest Skil View Post


    I keep hearing this stuff about jacket pockets…



    I've never had a single jacket large enough to have pockets large enough to hold something with a 7" screen. That's crazy. And I used to be HUGE, for crying out loud; I'd know if jackets had pockets that large!



    You want something always on hand, you have the iPhone. Need something larger, you have the iPad. QED.



    Since you mentioned it, I just checked to see if my wife's Nook Color, 7" screen I think, would fit in a jacket pocket. Thin hiking jacket? Not well. I wouldn't trust it to stay, but it does fit. My heavier ski jacket? No problem at all. Inside pocket on a suit coat? Yup, it fits, but snug (makes the suit coat hang like crap tho.) FWIW I'm not a large man at all, a 42R. Her long leather jacket has plenty of pocket space for it.



    Note that the Nook has a pretty wide bezel. Apple would be more than capable of shrinking that I would think. An iPad, or call it an iPod Touch if it makes you more comfortable, with a 7" screen would be quite portable and convenient IMO.
  • Reply 156 of 157
    chabigchabig Posts: 641member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Gatorguy View Post


    An iPad, or call it an iPod Touch if it makes you more comfortable, with a 7" screen would be quite portable and convenient IMO.



    And what OS would you run on it? Is it an iPod, in which case you're blowing up a small display with a corresponding decrease in resolution? Or is it an iPad, where you're shrinking the display and making the touch targets smaller and more difficult to use?



    That's why the 7" tablets are tweeners with no future.
  • Reply 157 of 157
    gongon Posts: 2,437member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by chabig View Post


    And what OS would you run on it? Is it an iPod, in which case you're blowing up a small display with a corresponding decrease in resolution? Or is it an iPad, where you're shrinking the display and making the touch targets smaller and more difficult to use?



    That's why the 7" tablets are tweeners with no future.



    OS != UI



    What you mean is Apple's 7" tablets are tweeners with no future as long as Apple doesn't have a well-scaling mobile UI.



    A 5+" iPod Touch could use the exact same UI with iPhone no problem, have a massive portability advantage compared to tablets, and have a massive media-watching and gaming advantage compared to iPhone.
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