Fire for $199, Touch 3G for $149, Touch for $99, and Kindle for $79
Ok, back from watching the live blogs of the Amazon event and I was right, there was a bit more than just hardware, but… there was a bit more hardware too.
- The basic Kindle has been redesigned, no keyboard a few buttons, and comes for just $79 with ads, ($109 without ads). 6” E-Ink display. Can you say killer Christmas gift?
- New Kindle Touch, no buttons, touch screen display X-Ray Service lets you tap a word and instantly get definitions and/or wikipedia information on topics, all built in. just $99 with ads ($139 w/o ads). 6” E-Ink display, for just $20 more this is the one to get, if you want a stand alone e-reader.
- New Kindle Touch 3G, same as above but with built in 3G that works for free for the life of the device in over 100 countries. $149 with ads, ($189 w/o ads) 6” E-Ink Display. Fifty bucks for 3G connectivity virtually anywhere is a nice deal, but honestly, unless you travel a lot, Wifi is everywhere I need to be.
- The Fire, it’s everything we listed in the previous article, but comes with a bunch of cool services.
The two the seem really cool right off the bat are:
- Whisper sync now extends to your TV’s and Movies. Start watching on your Fire, finish watching it on your TV (Roku or other connected devices that support Prime). Never have to find your place, Amazon remembers it for you.
- Amazon Silk, Cloud based rendering for web browsing. Let the power of Amzon’s EC3 service to the heavy lifting of web browsing and just send you what you want to see in the format you need for your device.
Combine this with the fact that Amazon will let you buy music, movies, books, magazines and apps, and I think you have the first “real” competitor to Apple’s iPad.
Now, what’s missing?
- No Camera or Microphone on the Fire, so no skype, no video conferencing or calls, video recording or photos.
- No 3G service at all on the Fire, WiFi only.
- 7” Display is a bit tight in my opinion, no 10” offering (yet)
- No proper Android access (This is actually a good thing, me thinks), but limits expandability.
- No GPS
- No Bluetooth
- Not enough streaming content, though Jeff said he’s committing a boat load of money to getting content.
Personally I think it’s a great deal if you live in Amazon’s world, but the price does bring with it some significant limitations. And I am skeptical about Silk, I wonder how well that will work on a very dynamic website such as Google+. But over all I think Amazon hit this one out of the park, $79 Kindles, $199 Tablets, this is a home run for the Holiday shopping season.
I can’t wait to see how thew competitors react.
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