Well, a side trip to Best Buy on Wednesday yielded up a second Kindle Fire on a back display that was NOT in “display only” mode. \u00a0More remarkably, the Wi-Fi was on and working and connected. \u00a0So I was able to actually take a pass at the web browser and see what’s doing.<\/p>\n
It’s tough to make a solid evaluation in five minutes, but the browser seems to be within acceptable parameters. \u00a0It didn’t blow me away or anything, but it didn’t drag excessively or struggle with my usual array of websites. \u00a0There were a couple of rendering errors, but those were readily attributable to the ad-blocking on the in-store network.<\/p>\n
The thing I keep coming back to is the lack of radio options – no Bluetooth (so no cheating with a keyboard for text input), no GPS (so no reliable mapping software), and no 3G (so stuck with whatever Wi-Fi is on offer). \u00a0What you have at that point is a slightly larger color display – which might be fine in conjunction with an iPhone as a larger reader, except that I already have the regular Kindle for reading purposes. \u00a0And the availability of e-ink for battery life and contrast\/readability means that I would be on very thin ice to justify making a run at a Fire when I know that a notional iPad 3 would almost certainly serve me as a personal-laptop replacement.<\/p>\n
I think I’ll withhold judgement on the Fire until after the holiday season so we can see what the long-tern performance is like (I especially want to see how buggy the fork of Android 2.3 is or isn’t). \u00a0But for now, it’s still not for me – I think the final sweet spot is still going to be 32 GB 3G-capable iPad for $730 rather than 4GB\/128GB 11″ MBA for $1150.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Well, a side trip to Best Buy on Wednesday yielded up a second Kindle Fire on a back display that was NOT in “display only” mode. \u00a0More remarkably, the Wi-Fi was on and working and connected. \u00a0So I was able to actually take a pass at the web browser and see what’s doing. It’s tough … <\/p>\n