The Amazon Kindle Fire is even cheaper than we’d expected; $199 is the price point and it’s a damned attractive one, given what you get: 7-inch color display. An innovative browser that actually relies on cloud computing for, you know, computing and not just storage. Access to the Amazon infrastructure and the only store for apps, books and media that rivals Apple’s own. Weight under a pound and dimensions that would make it slip into the inside pocket of my peacoat without a fight.
The downside of bringing it in at two bills, though: 8 GB of memory with no expansion. No camera or microphone. No unlimited 3G – no 3G, period, actually, let alone GPS. This is, in fact, the very thing the iPad is oftimes accused of being: a device for pure consumption. But to add video playback from Amazon Prime (and presumably music) on top of the world’s biggest bookstore may well make the Fire the gold standard of easy consumption. Especially with Amazon leveraging their cloud infrastructure to handle computation and storage alike.
Won’t know for sure until I get a hand on it – which is the common problem with new gadgetry these days – but at first glance, you have to think they’re going to sell a million of these things. I’m definitely more interested in this than any Android tablet so far – this looks like a dream of a travel device, map and 3G notwithstanding, and at only $199 it’s going to shift what’s an acceptable price point for an Android tablet. Hell, any tablet.
Your move, Cupertino.