The iPad rival, Amazon Kindle Fire, has been out for just under a week, and the reviews are flowing. Is it the tablet that will kill Apple's omnipotent iPad? Will it kill off all comers? Will it be available in the UK? No word on the latter yet, but here is our round-up of what they're saying out there in tech land.
Phonedog says: If you're on a $200 budget, there is nothing out there quite as nice as the Kindle Fire. And it will be a great tablet for the family or anyone who was on the fence about buying a tablet in the first place. But for those die-hards, those who have owned tablets – like the iPad, or any other high-end Android tablet – before, may find the Fire a step in the wrong direction, even for $200. Nonetheless, it will make a great holiday gift for people of all ages.
David Pogue, New York Times: "For one thing, the Fire is not nearly as versatile as a real tablet. It is designed almost exclusively for consuming stuff, particularly material you buy from Amazon, like books, newspapers and video.
Most problematic, though, the Fire does not have anything like the polish or speed of an iPad. You feel that $200 price tag with every swipe of your finger."
IT World: "I'll give you the bottom line right now. If you're not a fan of Amazon's ecosystem, don't get the Kindle Fire."
"My second issue is that it's too heavy, or more accurately, I'd like it to be lighter. It's not that it's actually heavy, it just feels very dense."
Engadget: "When stacked up against other popular tablets, the Fire can't compete. Its performance is a occasionally sluggish, its interface often clunky, its storage too slight, its functionality a bit restricted and its 7-inch screen too limiting if you were hoping to convert all your paper magazine subscriptions into the digital ones. Other, bigger tablets do it better -- usually at two or three times the cost."
T3: "It's not close to being an iPad killer, but by knocking down boundaries and attracting those who've been edging towards their first tablet but have so far struggled to justify the cost while appealing to those Kindle reader graduates, it will become the first tablet to sell on anything like the same scale. To that end, it's the iPad's first true rival."
The Verge: "Minor complaints aside, my main takeaway from the Fire on the process of finding and purchasing content is this: Amazon has done it better and more elegantly than anyone else in the space right now, and I hope the competition follows suit."