Light My Fire: Kindle Fire Gets In Ring With iPad

Book readers and other tablet-based gadgets are simply the best possible invention for those that hate paperback books and want an all-around solution for web browsing, reading a few chapters at the doctor’s office, and keeping up with the email from work while taking the kids to the amusement park for the day.  There are a few products out in the tech stratosphere that could do the job, yet the two that seem to get the heaviest publicity are the Amazon Kindle Fire and the Apple iPad, both which do some nifty things for the user.  Yet, there are several really eerie and different qualities that do set them apart, one of which is the obvious $300 dollars in price.  Read the comparisons below and put your own thoughts into these masterful match-ups.

A Reader’s Preference

Taking into account what specifically the Kindle Fire does – gives access to 18 million books, shows, movies, and other forms of literature – and then taking into account what the iPad does, which is merely an iPhone in a tablet minus the phone plus an 802.11g – you will see the obvious choice for readers is the one with easier access to content such as the latest James Patterson or Stuart Woods.  It appears that eBooks and magazine subscriptions are all that you really can count on as Apple is not known for housing a library of books. Advantage: Kindle Fire

Web Browsing

Both tablets have excellent forms of browsing, with the Kindle utilizing the relatively new Amazon Silk web browser that supports the Cloud-based platforms for storing your wares safely.  Apple iPad utilizes the Safari web browser, which is better known to Macs, Windows-based PC’s, and their iPhones.  Having a browser that is widely known throughout the web world and having the ability to utilize Java and Flash-based integration that websites have is important, and with the Amazon Silk, the feature isn’t as well tested as the Safari is.  Advantage: iPad

Storage

Having plenty of room to put book purchases, music, and movies is an important factor in deciding which tablet will suit your lifestyle.  Currently, the largest available Kindle product is the Fire which boasts 8GB of storage of songs and other downloads which may seem sufficient to the moderate user.  The iPad comes with up to 64GB of storage which can easily warehouse your music, movies, downloads, apps, and whatever else you can shove through a USB device. This size appeals to a larger range of people, giving the advantage in storage to the Apple gurus.  Advantage: iPad

Ease of Navigation

The iPad has an excellent icon structure that has everything you need right in front of your face with the ability to add icons as needed, or subtract those that are useless.  The Fire has a similar layout; yet again, this is still new territory for the Fire.  It appears to look garbled, however, when you are scrolling through titles of books and really doesn’t have the type of usability that iPad users enjoy.  It does have a home screen with the icons on a shelf; the iPad has customizable backgrounds and the ability to put any icon you want on the home screen.  Have to go with what is simpler in this instance.  Advantage: iPad

Overall Grading

The iPad comes from a market that it has cornered for decades now in one shape or another; therefore, getting any sort of gadgetry from them in today’s society is going to have some pretty nifty perks to it, yet come with a hefty price tag to boot.  The Kindle Fire is heading in the right direction, especially since it’s appealing to the readers and authors of the world.  A little more improvement is going to have to come for the Fire, especially expansion of the hard drive and the ability to ad-hoc with other networks.  The price is great in comparison with the iPad, the selection of music and reads remains competitive, and if they can choose to take their OS to a strictly Windows-based format, they will more than likely take over the tablet market as untested and unchartered waters for new browsers and operating systems is dangerous.  The Fire is completely wireless and relies only on Amazon for use, which minimizes what you can do with it; the iPad uses an actual OS and has capabilities that are out of this world making it the people’s choice for tablet device of the century.

Synapsis: Until dramatic improvements are made to the Kindle Fire, those who want deeper usability need to stick with the iPad; those that simply want a book reader on a small dose of steroids can snatch up the Fire and expect to save very little on the hard drive and see many restrictions on what it can actually do for an audiophile or a web junkie.