Buy Kindle Fire
The Kindle Fire, is Amazon's answer to the iPad. It is now available to buy from most of the Amazon sites worldwide (note it is an Amazon exclusive and you can't get it in other stores).
Before you rush off to buy, read our comparison between the Kindle Fire and the iPad.
Differences between Kindle Fire and the Apple iPad
Kindle Fire
| IPad
|
|---|---|
7 inches
| 9.7 inches
|
weighs 14.6 ounces (413 grams)
| weighs 24 ounces (700 grams)
|
1024 x 600 pixel resolution
| 1024 x 768 pixel resolution
|
8 GB of flash memory
| between 16Gb and 64Gb of flash memory
|
Free cloud storage for Amazon products
| no cloud storage
|
Wi-Fi connectivity
| choice of Wi-Fi or 3G versions
|
2.0 USB Port
| no built-in USB port (but you can buy a dock with port)
|
Texas Instruments OMAP 4 dual-core processor
| 1GZ Apple A5 processor
|
maximum 8 hour battery life
| maximum 8 hour battery life
|
no cameras
| still camera in the back and web cam in front
|
built in email app (but nothing for documents)
| iWork 2010 (full office software)
|
Amazon Silk web browser
| Safari web browser
|
back-lit and no eInk
| backlit and no eInk
|
built in color ereader
| built in color ereader
|
Android OS
| iOS
|
$199
| $499 - $799
|
The specifications
As you can see the main difference between the Kindle Fire and the iPad is that the Kindle Fire does all it's computing in the Cloud (Amazon provide free cloud storage for Amazon products). As a result it only needs 8GB of Flash memory, which is enough to store 6000 ebooks on your Kindle Fire (or 10 movies or 80 apps). On the iPad everything is stored on your tablet's hard drive and you have a choice of 16GB, 32GB and 64GB flash memory.
Another difference is that the iPad has cameras (a still cam and a web cam) while the Kindle Fire has none, plus the iPad comes with the full iWork office software, so you can create and read documents, spreadsheets and presentations) - the Kindle Fire only has an app for reading email plus allows you to read documents and pdfs, but you can't create them. If you are using your tablet to work on the go, you will be better off with the iPad.
The addition of the office software and the cameras, accounts for some the reason the iPad is more expensive than the Kindle Fire - but the other reason for the difference in prices is that Amazon just wants to undercut Apple!
The cheapest iPad is $499 (16Gb Wi-Fi version) and this goes up to $799 (64GB flash memory Wi-Fi + 3G version). The Kindle Fire at $199 is a bargain. From a price point of view, Kindle Fire has won the Kindle Fire vs iPad contest.
