The Kindle Fire & Kindle Touch

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Okay I have not been in a writing mood, and was losing my passion in gaming and movies (and all things nerdy).  I was planning on, and I guess had begun the process of, abandoning this blog.  However, I had a little cry on Twitter a couple of nights back, and had a little rant and cry on Facebook just now (which I had recently joined, with sole intent on applying for a game beta I might add). So I thought I might repost my rant as a post on here.  Will there be any more posts?  That depends on how passionate I get in the future, how many rants I have bottled up inside, and most of all, how lazy I feel in the future.  It’s like waiting for toast from a temperamental toaster that may or may not be plugged in – only time will tell.

Anyways my cry and rant was about the upcoming devices from Amazon.  I was soooo disappointed to find that the Kindle Fire and Kindle Touch aren’t available for shipping to New Zealand.

I kinda feel sorry for all the other companies out there, with Amazon releasing a full featured US$200 tablet.  They have already driven down the prices of several competitors’ tablet devices, and I believe the announcement of the Fire is also the reason why Kobo have pulled back on their own announcement of their upcoming Vox, which was supposed to be priced at CA$249.

The thing is, it is easy to make a decent piece of hardware, but the content that runs on or through them is what will make or break these devices.  Most companies fail to understand that, but you know what – I think Amazon gets it.  What will wow the general consumers, and win over even the harshest of skeptics will be the access to Amazon Cloud. This will include their Android app store, their music and video on demand, and their Kindle store services.  All the existing Cloud services will be accessible on the Fire, including Amazon Prime access, which allows for free streaming of thousands of movies and TV series via VOD.

This means contents and support wise NO OTHER COMPANY can compete, period.

The Kindle Fire will be Wi-Fi only, and offers a 7″ vibrant color IPS multi-touch display, with a quoted battery life of 8 continuous hours for reading, or 7.5 for videos.

The Touch edition of the Kindle offers the obvious upgrade of a touchscreen and the usual software improvements, as well as a slight reduction in dimensions and weight, but will otherwise retain the same battery life and storage space of the existing 3rd gen model.  Like the previous gen, the Touch will be available in both Wi-Fi or Wi-Fi/3G models, but interestingly this time around Amazon will offer ad-supplemented versions of both, which are available at cheaper prices, starting at as low as US$99.

Both the Fire and Touch are due for release in the US on November 15th.  Of course no one can say for certain until they have been released, but it would not surprise me if Amazon overtake Apple on the tablet market by 1st quarter of next year.  Even if they don’t take the top spot their new devices are guaranteed successes.  Unless something goes drastically wrong, involving exotic deep-sea fish; cherry flavored alcohol and Japanese hookers dressed up as Teletubbies…  There is just no way Amazon can lose overall.