Divisive Cotton
Now I just have my toy soldiers
kindle fire will come with its own web browser, which should be an interesting one for the web designers
Amazon Kindle Fire Tablet: $199
- Thread starter lobster
- Start date
editor
hiraethified
Divisive Cotton
Now I just have my toy soldiers
there's more info here:
http://amazonsilk.wordpress.com/2011/09/28/introducing-amazon-silk/
if you use their browser then the data will be filtered through their servers to be optimized for speed - kind of like Opera Mini does on the mobile platform
ChrisFilter
Like a boss.
It's about quality, not quantity. I have been using Android for 9 months and it's not getting any better. Especially for tablets.
editor
hiraethified
There are some very high quality apps available on Android - more than ample for my needs - and of course, Android users can enjoy proper customisation options and useful widgets.
Vintage Paw
dead stare and computer glare
So, the Kindle Touch isn't available in the UK. Tell me, tech-heads, would one be able to purchase a US version and have it still work over here? Would I be able to use the UK Kindle store? Or would I have to create a US account? Or what? Because I have someone who could ship one to me.
Is it worth the faff, if it would even work in the first place?
Is it worth the faff, if it would even work in the first place?
ChrisFilter
Like a boss.
Gawd! I fear I'm going to fall into the trap so I'm going to let the conversation go.
In brief, I'm very happy with my Android phone. I know I can customise it a lot and widgets sure are handy. I have no interest in an Android tablet though. It is WAY behind having the quantity and quality of tablet-specific apps available on iPad. That is irrefutable.
magneze
🎧
So it's £130 and 0.414kg. Wow. I'm impressed.
editor
hiraethified
If those prices stick over here - and it arrives some time soon - then I'll probably be up for this. I can't justify spending £500 on a flashy tablet, but the Amazon Fire looks to offer all the things I need.
Vintage Paw
dead stare and computer glare
A google around online seems to show that you can, indeed, buy a US Kindle and have it linked to your UK account and it will work fine. The 3G chip will be an AT&T one, but since there is free 3G roaming internationally, that's not an issue, and of course wifi works as you would expect.
Very handy.
Very handy.
Vintage Paw
dead stare and computer glare
Yes it's made for travel. The wifi will work wherever there is wifi.
If it's the reader with 3G you're interested in, then the 3G will work internationally as well, for free.
Simply put, it'll work anywhere you can usually find 3G and wifi services. If you can use your phone or your laptop, you can use the Kindle.
You encounter many wifi hotspots whilst traveling? Where? Motorway service stations? Or at / around your destination?
Maybe I'm unusually parochial; the last few trips I've made've been train / plane, and the only wifi I've encountered on either has been paid access. And the 1hr free wifi at Nice airport, admittedly. Those're also the only occasions on which I've been particularly thankful for having more internal memory than I need - because it's pretty damned hard to guess, before 8-10hrs of traveling, what exactly is going to look interesting in 6-8hrs time. And those're the occasions when having a tablet's been a godsend (particularly given the last 2 times I've flown back from France, I've hit 6-12hr delays...)
e2a: and the only WiFi I could access during fieldwork - apart from weekends at home - was from my mobile.
editor
hiraethified
editor
hiraethified
If there's no wi-fi about, I just fire up my phone and use its built in wi-fi hotspot feature. Problem solved.
There's rumoured to be a 10" tablet coming later which may well have 3G, btw.
elbows
Well-Known Member
OK this is very good stuff, I am very happy with this move. The iPad is only just starting to break into the realm of anyone I know at work buying one, and I want to see decent tablets in much broader use, with a greater range of price points. I expect the wait for this device to appear in the UK might be a bit tedious, but ultimately I think this may well me the right device for my mother.
elbows
Well-Known Member
Your three posts here bout android apps are not wrong, but at the same time I think they give a misleading impression of the state of Android tablet apps. But the devil is in the detail, it depends what sort of apps we are talking about for example.
Personally I sit somewhere in the middle, neither believing that the state of Android tablet apps today is satisfactory, nor that Android tablet apps have only a poor chance of becoming rather special over time. Enough quality android tablets selling in huge numbers and I think things will be ok on this front. Its already fine for certain sorts of use, but please stop suggesting that all is completely rosy on this front.
No, fully appreciated, but that isn't really an out-and-about solution, is it? It'll be really interesting to see how the cloud storage is implemented, and how well it works around the limitations of having a smaller inbuilt memory. tbh, I can see it working pretty well, in most situations. Particularly if - for example - your progress in a game is saved in the cloud, meaning that you can switch the apps that're stored on your tablet without losing any progress in a game, or documents in a word processing app, or whatever.
But no-one is going to be able to walk out of the house with much in the way of variety stored on their Kindle tablet, are they?
Cloud is great in opening some things up; but it comes with a different set of limitations to inbuilt memory. Limitations that are particularly pertinent when someone doesn't have direct internet access. Like when they're traveling.
OK, great, but, well. That's kind of like saying that the Kindle tablet looks quite useful as a companion device, just so long as you've got an android that can provide you with a wi-fi hotspot.
tbh, I'm not even that keen on 3g. It - again - carries limitations with it that inbuilt memory doesn't.
It's the particular confluence of low internal memory, combined with a lack of 3g, that's kinda making me think
, though.It looks perfect for Artichoke, tbh. Who mostly uses her iPod touch for watching Waterloo Road and connecting to facebook, whilst at home. But - e.g. - it'd be fuck all use to someone who was off to France for a week (or anywhere else abroad), and who wasn't likely to have readily available WiFi.
Sounds interesting; again, IMO, the thing that looks interesting (or the main limitation) is the combination of low internal memory, plus a lack of 3g. IMO, addressing either of those would be a significant step up.
I really am a bit unconvinced by it not being able to hold enough media / video to outlast its battery.
lobster
Well-Known Member
Are you referring to Android tablet apps or android phone apps, there is a big difference?
The phone apps are fine, the tablet apps are lacking in comparison, I remember linking on another thread to a review of the Samsung galaxy tab 10.1 3 months ago and reviewer was less that satisfied with the lack of applicaitons, Three months on nothing has really changed.
editor
hiraethified
8GB can provide a hell of a lot of content for offline use ("80 apps, plus either 10 movies or 800 songs or 6,000 books"), but if you're hooked to the web, then you've got access to 100,000 movies and TV shows, 17 million songs, Kindle books and full-colour magazines stored for free on Amazon Cloud Storage.
Al tablets are about shuffling around compromises and priorities, but I'm pretty sure that a lot of people are going to find Amazon's tablet a very, very seductive offering - after all, it's smaller, lighter and over half the price of the iPad, and for many people people, it'll do all the things they need.
Unless there's something seriously screwed up with the tablet, the Fire is going to be MASSIVE in the States. Bigger than the Kindle.
editor
hiraethified
Phone apps because the Fire tablet is running a modified version of Android 2.1 (which is a phone OS).
Notably, Android tablet and phone apps will merge soon with the release of the daftly named Android Ice Cream Sandwich - this provides one, unified OS for the entire Android platform.
cliche guevara
Well-Known Member
There is a distinct lack of Honeycomb specific apps though. Google have gone some way to resolving that by implementing scaling in 3.1 so most apps now work fine on Honeycomb, but there are still a lack of quality apps designed specifically for tablets. That's one place where the iPad currently holds the crown, but I'm expecting the imminent release of ICS to rectify this problem.
Edit: You've basically posted the same point while I was typing
editor
hiraethified
You'd need a hell of a battery to power 10 movies from start to finish or play around 200 hours of MP3 files!
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