Amazon Kindle Fire aims to undercut Apple's iPad with $199 price - Page 5

Didn't say all I wanted to do is read. It's a matter of weight you give to usage and how much money you want to spend. The latter not being insignificant. I'd love to surf the web occasionally while lying in bed, or sitting on the sofa reading. But in those circumstances I'm mainly reading. A device that offers resolution comparable to e-ink (like a retina iPad) plus the OPTION to use as a tablet computer, portable media server is a good thing. Still, there are times when you know you just want to sit outside and read. In that case an e-ink reader is still a good thing to have. If you can't justify spending the money on an e-ink reader and a retina Ipad, then the fire is appealing. Again, the fire is not a direct competitor to the ipad. It's alternative product targeted at a slightly different niche. The gamble for amazon is how big that niche turns out to be. From a cost stand point, you can own a kindle touch e-ink reader AND a kindle fire and still spend 200 bucks less than the entry level iPad.

I am not going to start comparing the iPad to the Fire but simply say well done to a company that appears to have taken it's time and not jumped on the band wagon without thinking first and coming up with a few products that look worthwhile in their own right. Competition is healthy for everyone and Amazon appear to be one of the few that are properly competing rather than copying. Who knows their might be room in our lives for one of each of these products!?

It will do really well... It won't do iPad kind of numbers, but I expect it to outsell all tablets not named "iPad". Will I buy one? Yes indeed...

+1
I'm calling it mobile Amazon store.

Gotta agree...

Actually, I didn't mention the iPad at all just because I don't see the Fire as a competitor. I see the real competition for the Fire being the e-ink readers offered by Amazon at a much cheaper price.

I agree that tablet markets will follow along similar lines. However, Amazon's survival is predicated on having consumer get to their site for content (books, movies music). They have been squeezed out in the "post PC" market where Apple pushes their customers to their Appstore, and Google pushes their advertising to their customers. To remain relevant, they need their own portal to their store. So their goal is to sell as many Kindle fire even if they make no money on their device. It is a loss leader, that will be their paid piper to get them to their core business, which is selling content.

So yes, they will sell a lot of cheap, dated tablets for next to nothing. But it will have little impact to Apple's business strategy, just like the smartphone business where they make over 50% of the profits. It will impact Google.

People looking for leading technology are a tiny market segment. For example, the 16 month-old iPhone 4 is the best selling single phone out there, and it is in no way leading technology. A better example is the 3GS, which has zero leading technology, and is the second-best selling smartphone.

The Geekazoids don't count much with the bean counters at Apple. Or Amazon. Or in most any consumer market. There are niche products for them, like Ferraris. Apple aims for the sweet spot, the broadest market segment. And leading tech is no way to get grandma to buy your portable device. She doesn't care.

What is so fundamentally different in the iPad vs this? NOTHING!

A retailer turned content seller turned hardware manufacturer competing against a hardware manufacturer turned content seller turned distributor.

They both are in the same market competing for dollars. Both are in the tablet business and both consumption units with limited content creation capabilities.

One selling it almost at cost (or even below cost) the other selling it at above cost (and at a profit).

Amazon's strategy is loss leader. They generate most of their profits through software sales, not on hardware sales.

As many people realized with the HP's firesale, people are very sensitive with prices in this category as it is not a necessity with very capable alternatives available in the market.

Size, hardware, specs, capabilities, software, compatibility

You didn't read my comment. If you thnk the kindle will defeat the iPad on price then it has to defeat all other Android devices on price as manufacturers can't subsidize. So if Android is 70% then it is all Kindle.

I mentioned the ipad. I plan on getting one when/if it goes retina. For reading only, I wouldn't get any lcd screen, and I haven't.

But if you decide you want a tablet, and you already own an e-ink device, getting the color version of the product you own (meaning everything digital you bought through your existing account migrates effortlessly to your new device and OS) is especially appealing at a price that is so much cheaper than other tablets. The fire is a cheap alternative for people mainly interested in an e-reader to migrate to tablets to see if they like the experience, without dropping 500 bucks.

I happen not to fit in that niche myself. I want an e-ink reader, and I want a tablet with superior resolution. I'll spend the significant wad of dough to get a retina ipad AND also have an e-ink reader, but I'm not always that wise with how I spend my money.

People looking for leading technology are a tiny market segment. For example, the 16 month-old iPhone 4 is the best selling single phone out there, and it is in no way leading technology. A better example is the 3GS, which has zero leading technology, and is the second-best selling smartphone.

The Geekazoids don't count much with the bean counters at Apple. Or Amazon. Or in most any consumer market. There are niche products for them, like Ferraris.



If you are talking about appliances, that may be true, but not for technology.

While iPhone3GS are heavily discounted upfront, it is still second to iPhone4 which is more expensive. For people who prefer apple, iPhone4 is the leading technology available (until next week), which prove my point. Wait until iPhone 5 is released and see which becomes the hottest phone.

For most technologies, people do not aspire for second rate equipment, not if they can help it.

Of course not. Read the original post to which I was replying.

Amazon is not fighting for survival. Not even close. Indeed, their stock is doing extremely much better than Apple's over several different time horizons.

Get real.

I'm expecting the Kindle Fire to easily crush all other droid-based iPad clones in terms of profit and sales. And to still be a distant #2 to iPad in terms of profit and sales. We'll see in about a years' time.

This looks like a good move for Amazon. It's basically a 'razors and blades' strategy. Sell the device for as little as possible to make money selling content. The content and distribution has always been the key to these types of devices. Apple will continue to do VERY well with their iPad which has carved out a nice niche in the business community. The Kindle is really designed more as a consumer device with very little appeal to businesses. Interesting times we live in. The birth of a new computing paradigm

One of the great marketing realities is that company's need to be willing to "eat their own children" (products).

The posters who said the Fire will have an impact are correct -- it competes for the "tablet-is-easier-to-use-than-my-PC" space in the home. Once Amazon's movies, apps get entrenched then that household will be more likely to follow the upgrade to more expensive Amazon (modified Android) products as long as their app/media investments are preserved.

The number of households who want multiple, unrelated, tablet families with a different UX are a
NANO-segment of buyers. There is really only one opening in households for a "tablet-is-easier-to-use-than-my-PC" device.

Apple would do themselves a great favor by finding a way to get very, very close to the price point of an Amazon Fire in order to reduce intrusion into the iPad's primary market space. Find it, build it, iCloud it, and then give them a reason to move up to a faster, better, more expensive iPad (as the first one gets handed to someone else in the household).

The general (non-tech) media will establish the market position that it's an alternative to the low end iPads before today is over. Just look at the headlines from Fox and MSNBC already.

I've been wrong before, but almost never about marketing.

Actually... I'm like you. I have the iPad v1 but am waiting for a higher rez version before I'll purchase another (my Wife uses it for photos, email, browsing... I use it mainly for astronomy and games)... at the same time, though, I have been waiting for the new version of the Kindle to use as an e-reader.

Regarding money... I'm that fool...

Tablets aren't phones. They're closer to PCs. The way Microsoft looks at this question:

Windows laptops currently outsell OS X and Google Chrome laptops more than 7 to 1.

Why do you expect the tablet market to be different?

Apple is clueless WRT building low-cost devices. Steve has said so many times. That is why they cannot compete in the low-cost computer segment or the low-cost phone segment.

Great job Amazon. But in reality still no REAL match for the iPad 2.

I don't expect anything different in the tablet market from what we see in the PC market and the smartphone market, with Apple eventually becoming a niche player.

I too, believe there is a market for this device! I just watched a demo video and it looked pretty good:

Amazon Kindle Fire impressions

If the Kindle Fire gains popularity, there may be a rather interesting side effect (battle) looming.

The Fire is a media device, but has only 8 Gig of SSD (2-3 movies) -- that means it will rely, primarily, on streaming media over WiFi.

This one of the things that Apple's iCloud will offer: Streaming (or buffered download) of media from the cloud. Handy for a 64 GB iPad but -- really useful (almost a requirement) for WiFi devices with smaller local SSD storage.

Conceivably, you could have a large population of iPads and Fires voraciously consuming WiFi bandwidth access to the cloud -- which, ultimately, is the Internet connection bandwidth provided through your IP (Internet Provider).

I wonder what the IPs will do when there is a large hit to their bandwidth due to 10s (or hundreds) of millions of Tablet owners streaming to their devices.

Edit: I could not find any mention of h.264 in the Fire specs -- if true, this would mean the Fire requires larger streams (more bandwidth) to stream (or store) a mvie than a comparable tablet that can stream h.264.

That is a nonsensical statement. Not one tablet producer can thus far match Apple's price for a similar-sized device; so far, not one MBA-equivalent competitor has been able to match that product's price..... at the profit margins that Apple wants/gets.

Amazon is not fighting for survival. Not even close. Indeed, their stock is doing extremely much better than Apple's over several different time horizons.

Get real.



Amazon is a web store. It has loyal customers including myself, but they are coming second place to iTune and Appstore in many areas of content. Only 5 years ago, they were without rival.

Change the pattern of access to their store by these mobile device, and they are left with just a nice webpage.

Also look at there PE (price vs earnings) ratio of 98. They are in the stratosphere and will be falling to back to earth at an alarming rate, unless they can make it work. They are vulnerable, and they need to sell these tablets hard and fast.

I'll say this ....
I like what I see.

I was, let us say, skeptical, but after seeing the demo, now I am absolutely convinced that not only does Amazon have a MONSTER hit on it's hands,
but finally there is a "Other Tablet" out there for people to buy -- a Mac to iPad's PC, if you will.

Well done, Jeff!

One of the disadvantages of the 7" form factor is when used in landscape mode for surfing or typing -- there is very little room above the onscreen kb to display a WP document, spreadsheet, web page or web form...

The PlayBook, which has the same format as the Fire, demoed typing a WP document where 4 lines of small text were visible above the KB.

If they were to use, say, a 4:3 vs the 16:9 -- then the kb would be too narrow to type comfortably.

You can always go to portrait mode to gain more screen real estate for the document, but then, the kb is only suitable for 1-finger or thumb typing.

All in all, the iPad form factor does a better job of satisfying most use cases.

Apple has to stay on their toes, no doubt. But a Nook killer does not a iPad killer make.

Tiny size, no app eco-system, low memory ... it just isn't a true competitor, but it is a tablet so sales will be lumped into the tablet column. Won't take the rumble out of Apples juggernaut.

Apple has the ability to launch a similar low power, undersized tablet any time they want to. I suspect that they have a lot of prototypes around and continue to update them. I rather suspect that you'll eventually see more differentiation in iPad sizes, power, etc in the next year or two.

Apple is rumored to be releasing a new "talk to type" feature on iOS5. Does that portend a 7 inch tablet from apple?

One of the disadvantage of the 10" size is its size: you cant carry it anywhere without taking up real estate of one of your hands. With the 7", you can free up both hands as the device is pocketable.

I'd rather have a device that I can always carry with me, then have to worry about the portrait or landscape orientation keyboard. Fact, is you can still type, either way.

Just admit it, Amazon released a bombshell.


Steve said 7 inch form factor is useless. If he does release a new size, he will be eating his own words. Steve has too much pride for that to happen.

I really hope this competition forces Apple to reconsider the 7" form factor. An iPad Nano or iPad light with 7" screen, no GPS or camera would be great and could really compete in this space. Or if they don't want to make Steve look bad for bashing the 7" form factor they could call it an iPod Touch HD. I would love to have something like this in my house. And with an iTunes library that is now cresting 1 Terabyte in size with ~100 apps in it I really don't want to repurchase apps for a different device.

Bottom line is that competition is good and I really hope Tim steps up to this tablet challenger.

This will be interesting to watch and learn:

1) The Fire is available on Nov 15, 10 days before Black Friday.

2) I read that the initial order is for 3 million Fires through December

3) The Fire has an estimated parts cost of $185 (very low margin)

4) Apparently, Amazon intends to offset the Fire's low/no margin by selling higher-margin content and services

5) The only seller of the Fire will be the Amazon online store -- no channel to stuff

6) There will be no 3rd-party resellers -- no place for a customer to go and "try before you buy"

7) Likely, Amazon"s top sellers will include all flavors of Kindle tablet and eReaders (and there will be a server overload)...

8) There will be no way to determine the Fire's sell-through -- except anecdotally

9) It will be interesting to see if Amazon can sell 3 million Fires in 45 days

10) If they do, what does that tell us about all of the above points?

Will the next iPhone ship before these new Kindles? AT&T says my eligible date to avoid the $250 early upgrade fee isn't until mid November so it looks like I'll be waiting until then to buy it.

Okay. But they forgot the warhead.


It's hard to compete in the 'completely pointless' market.


So then you WOULDN'T be buying this mythical 7" device, then? Because you'd be rebuying apps for it and it alone.

Don't get me wrong. Android is a great OS. But part of the reason Android sales are overtaking IOS sales are the many different form factors available for it. I REALLY think Apple needs to be in this 7" tablet space. Especially if Apple wants houses with multiple iPads. My wife already hinted that she thinks we should consider getting another iPad. Of course I'm holding out the the doubling of the iPad screen resolution in the iPad3.

Here is what I know, I don't own any form of tablet at this point and I will be buying a Kindle Fire instead of an iPad, assuming that it's as usable as reviews claim it to be. It does what I want from a tablet and while I'd like a bigger screen, it's not worth $300 for one. My co-workers own iPads and iPad2s and while they claim to love them, they don't seem to be doing anything with them that warrents the price and struggle to find new things to do on them. 'Great, you can access your work laptop from your iPad, what real sustaintable value does that bring". The iPad is a better product but is priced to high and up until now there hasn't been a alternative.

This is a device that will live at home, or on vacation but not something I will carry around an a daily basis (which is ironic given it's smaller size). This will fill the gap that an iPad would while saving me $300.

Also, I'm already an Amazon Prime member for the shipping and streaming of video's (mostly childrens shows) to my TV and smartphone (in a pinch) so thats a great bonus. Also, I love that I don't have to have a computer to make this fully work. Between my phone and this I should be able to operate entirely in the cloud. Amazon has an app store with all the primary apps needed, it will be great for my two young kids and for me to site in bed at night in read or watch a video.

I have to agree, amazon did really well here. And I think some things that should be obvious are being missed in the "anything but Apple" moron postings.

First, this is a first attempt, and they claim a larger more powerful version is coming. I suspect that is true. Amazon, it turns out is smarter than HP, MS, etc. For all the "iPad is a toy" comments you hear from time to time on these forums, it has a very real chance to change computing. Amazon wants in.

Their strength is in content. And past kindle book sales. Not kindles, books. Just like my iTunes purchases makes sure I will always consider an Apple product first, Amazon has a built in market just because they own books from Amazon already. Now I have to choose between an iPad which is larger, more powerful and costs more, and has my old music and movies and the "Fire" which is cheaper, smaller, slower and has my old books.

If the future version has some office style apps or online (alla google docs) office, I have a good reason to buy an iPad, and a good reason to buy a Fire. What I don't have is reason to buy a laptop or another tablet.

Amazon has just put a nail in the coffin of all other tablet manufacturers, made almost no difference to Apple at all, and helped shift sales from traditional computers to tablets. Apple will most likely keep selling iPads as fast as they can make them, but their market share may well go down, not from lost sales but from an expanded market. That may even help Apple. It certainly helps Amazon.

It only hurts RIM, Samsung, HP, MS, and on and on and on. Very well played by Amazon.

If they are really smart, they keep the iPad app to encourage book sales and create their own halo, and make some sort of online document creation part of their cloud. And make an iPad app for that too. If they did all that I know my house would own both a Fire (or whatever the larger one will be called) and an iPad. And keeping the e-ink kindle cements it.

Just no need for a computer anymore. Maybe a seldom used desktop to back everything up to. Or maybe the cloud will make that all obsolete.

...very well played Amazon.

Try iPad, try Apple Store. Amazon sells a ton of them, always have.

Correct. No "Fire" for me. I'm already happily entrenched in the double rainbow of happiness that is iTunes. And I don't want to re-train my wife to use another OS. But watching my 4 year old son repeatedly drop my $600 iPad (thank you Otter Box iPad case) I can see where a smaller, lighter & cheaper iPad would come in handy. And has anyone else dropped an iPad on your face while falling asleep in bed watching TV? It hurts!