Basically, I’m looking for thoughts on the Kindle Fire. Simple as that.

Ever since Apple announced the iPad, and since I got my fingers on one at an Apple store, I’ve been dying for the day that I can make that purchase myself. I’ve always thought, I don’t need one, but my life won’t be complete without one. Ohh, the ways of Apple. I digress. When Amazon announced that they were coming out with a tablet, I was intrigued. I’ve played with my mom’s Kindle and enjoyed it slightly, and I’m a huge fan of Amazon. I felt this was promising.

However, with today’s news, I was a bit disheartened. Yes, it’s cheaper. It’s $199, which beats the Apple iPad and Blackberry Playbook by hundreds upon hundreds of dollars, based upon which iPad/version/3G/Data/Storage/etc you purchased,. But, is the price difference worth it? I read an article posted on CNN that pointed out all the differences, which were basically all the “downgrades,” in the iPad vs Kindle Fire….

The Kindle Fire…

-Has about two inches smaller of a screen than the iPad coming in at a 7 inch display screen, but it’s just shy of the Blackberry 7.6″

-No camera.  This might not seem like a big deal, but that means no photos, no “photo booth,” no Skype accessibilities, no “FaceTime,” no none of that.

-No Microphone.  So, not only can you not video-chat with people, but you couldn’t use it like you would a tell phone and simply voice-chat. That also means, for people who like to create their own music, you couldn’t record any music on there or use it to mix sounds.

-No 3G.  This may not be a big deal to some, given that it’s WiFi only, and that WiFi is so easy to come by these days.  But, say you’re in a place that doesn’t receive WiFi, or camping, or what have you.  Then what good is it?

-Only promises 8 hours of battery life, where the iPad guarantees 10 and the Blackberry Playbook offers about the same as the iPad.

-Only 8 GB of storage.  The iPad’s bottom amount availability of storage is at 16GB.  However, Kindle Fire does say they will make up for it by offering free cloud storage on Amazon’s servers, but again, WiFi only, people.

-The Fire will be running on the Android system, which now offers over 250,000 Apps.  Not to shabby.  However, the Apple App store offers over 425,000 apps.

So, thoughts, anyone?  The device isn’t going to be on sale for a few more weeks, so I guess we’ll just have to see what comes of it.  CNN did point out that it’s a better tablet option for parents who want to buy a tablet for their children that may not take the best care of it… which I can understand.  I guess I just need some more opinions on why it’d be worth to buy (in my opinion) such a step down from the iPad/Playbook.  They cost more money, but in the end, it seems worth it… Maybe they just need some better PR telling me why this downgrade is actually worth it.

Photo Credit: http://siliconangle.com/blog/2011/09/27/amazon-ablaze-with-kindle-fire-hype/