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Originally Posted by
Apple ][ 
A lot of people are going to be returning that cheap mini tablet once they get theirs and they see how it actually performs and they realize that there's a lot that they can't do with it. I wonder how many returns they've already gotten? They obviously won't be releasing those numbers either.
The only numbers that Android sellers seem eager to release are the shipped numbers which means tablets sitting on store shelves, not the actual numbers of tablets sold to people who are buying them.
I bought a Kindle Fire for the wife so she can lay off my iPad. In the mean time, a friend of ours gave her an HP TouchPad. So now she had two tablets. Needless to say, the iPad is the one she still wants to use, the TouchPad is a close 2nd (it "fulfills" the basic needs but not as good -- it will hold her over until I get an iPad 3 and she inherits my iPad 2) and the Fire was garbage.
It crashed a lot on the browser, had trouble inputting onto forms via the web, and ran pretty sluggishly. I sent it back today to get my money back. It was complete garbage.
First, 7" is really too small for a tablet. After putting this thing side by side with the iPad and the TouchPad, it looked more like an iPod Touch with a magnifying glass than a true tablet. Second, with crappy software and sluggish performance, its not scoring points on usability.
Then all the little things. Battery life is about 3.5-4 hours with Wi-Fi on and real world usage (i.e. browsing, reading books, watching a few videos on youtube, etc.) and thats being generous. The 8 hours they claim is with wifi off, and probably with the brightness down while reading a kindle book.
This is amazing too that they keep noting its with wi-fi off because who the heck would want to buy a CLOUD tablet (the big selling point is the cloud storage and streaming) and then use it with the internet OFF? I guess they figured that announcing the FIre with 3.5 hours of battery would have demolished their sales and they are hoping most people don't notice the "Wi-Fi off" thing in their ads.
Also, the lack of camera and microphone means it can never be a Skype machine like the iPad. You can also not record personal voice memos or take picture with it (shame too, because 7" is almost small enough to be a camera without looking as ridiculous as the iPad).
No GPS/Location Services means you can't look up directions on it or use any location-based apps.
So yeah, the Fire is a dud. It will sell like hot cakes by many well meaning but technology inept aunts and uncles this year. But how many of these will actually be used after the initial shine wears off? Probably not many.
Oh, wait.....
