Saturday, October 1, 2011

Amazon's Kindle Fire: does it have something to offer other than cheapness?

The latest company to jump on the tablet bandwagon-- in as much as such a bandwagon actually exists-- is Amazon with the launch of its new Android-based Kindle Fire.

Clearly, the distinguishing feature of buying Amazon's offering is that the device is coupled with Amazon's purchasing ecosystem, as opposed to, say, Apple's if you were to buy an iPad.

One thing that strikes me is that at present at least, the majority of media focus appears to be on the price, which at $199 does seem aggressive to the point of being a loss leader. When Apple originally launched the iPad, arguably the spark of the recent tablet frenzy among the rest of the market, it is interesting to compare Apple's approach of offering what they saw as a "fairly priced"-- but by no means "cheap" if you sounded opinion at the time-- marketed essentially on features. Amazon clearly have their ecosystem on their side compared to the average Miscellaneous Android Tablet Manufacturer X. But they do appear to be buying into the price-focussed strategy of the other manufacturers. It will be interesting to see how this plays out!

What do you think? I'd love to hear your opinion about the Kindle Fire.

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