Kindle Fire

“We're not going to tally up the marks and declare a winner, because their respective values will vary depending on how you plan to use your device. Feel free to mix and match and decide based on the criteria you value the most. Need a better browser, want to turn book pages without bringing the device to its knees, and looking for superior hardware? A Nook Tablet is for you. Need a constant stream of apps, a good e-mail app, and a thriving content ecosystem? Go with a Kindle Fire. We could discuss the permutations ad infinitum, but it's ultimately up to you to decide which device is best for your needs.”

“Ultimately, the $200 Kindle Fire lacks many features I consider essential in a serious tablet: the ability to work on it using a keyboard, browse the Internet quickly, view whole magazine pages, and so on. But we can't fault it for not being an iPad. It's only a few hundred fewer dollars, and Amazon has never marketed it as a tablet. This is a basic media consumption device.”

“It should be clear by now that the Kindle Fire isn't the cheap Android tablet some people may've been waiting for. Oh well, it is cheap. Not so sure about Android and tablet. It's more like the Kindle for music and video that loyal Kindle and Amazon users may not have been waiting for but just couldn't say no to. The Kindle Fire keeps it simple. It's a multimedia player, which feeds mostly on paid content from Amazon's catalog. They've thrown in email and a web browser (not nearly as revolutionary as they said it would be, but not bad either). There's nothing else to distract users from its main purpose - buying content that's a click away. There must be people who bought the Kindle Fire - or about to - without ever planning to have an Amazon account. They can load their own content and find ways to play it, getting around the Fire's limited file support. It's not impossible to root the Kindle Fire either. And the effort may even seem worth it - $200 for a tablet is a bargain, no doubt about that.”

“There are some differences worth noting. Yes, the iPad's battery will last you a bit longer, it’s a better looking piece of kit, it has 3G, a camera and it’s more flexible in terms of what you can do with it. The real story, and where you need to think long and hard, is about what you want to do with it. If a tablet, for you, is about watching movies and TV, and reading an enormous wealth of publications and periodicals, then it’s definitely the Kindle Fire that’s the one for you. If playing games, communicating, working and generally using a tablet as a tool is just as important, then it’s the iPad 2 and that’s where you need to be at. At least until the iPad 3 comes out.”