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Amazon Unveils $199 Kindle Fire Tablet

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Re: Amazon Unveils $199 Kindle Fire Tablet

#261

Post by notatoad »

schrototo wrote: post #48
achompas wrote: post #28

Bezos, on Amazon's refreshed e-Ink readers: So meet the family. These are premium products at non-premium prices. People are going to love these products. This is Amazon's mission statement for product development. They will not compete with Apple's "revolutionary, magical" phones and tablets; instead, they'll sell quality tablets and readers to the average person at great prices. This populist attitude has been miss…

I don't think Apple has ever promoted its products as "luxurious". Jobs introduced the iPad as " a magical and revolutionary device at an unbelievable price ". I think that Bezos quote is actually very Apple-like, what with "people are going to love these" and so on.

maybe luxurious is the wrong way to put it, but the iPad has always been marketed as a luxury-segment product. it is promoted as being something special, not just another everyday CE device.

the iPad is like a backyard swimming pool - you don't need one, but it's fun and all your friends will be impressed. the kindle is like a washing machine - you don't need one, but if you don't have one you're going to be going to the laundramat/reading paper books like a barbarian.

Re: Amazon Unveils $199 Kindle Fire Tablet

#262

Post by orangecat »

cincinnatus wrote: post #241
mun2mun wrote: post #113

In the product page http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0051VVOB2 the word Android appeared once only. Interesting.

I'm surprised the number isn't zero. From the Google strategic point of view this device is not Android.

Sure it is; if it succeeds it will encourage more app developers to target Android.

Re: Amazon Unveils $199 Kindle Fire Tablet

#263

Post by chc »

fab13n wrote: post #162
achompas wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since there's nobody to challenge them on this market, they will get the volumes to drive the BOM prices down, too. Barnes & Noble is in this space too, and they have hundreds of stores that will serve as points-of-sale for the Nook. Don't forget them. EDIT: apologies to the European HNers. Still, those B&M stores in America are incredibly popular, making it easier for Barnes & Noble to find new Nook users.

I'm not in the USA, so I don't know B&N (although my company provides some of the hardware in the Nook). However, B&N's main advantage compared to Amazon is its network of B&M stores, right? Now, the bet here is "let's lose money on the tablet, and hope that people buy tons of ebooks". I'd guess that people for whom the existence of B&M stores is important aren't going to be the biggest ebook buyers: they'll be more…

Barnes & Noble also has in-store cafes and their in-store Wi-Fi offers Nook users free reading and coupons for goodies in the store. I'm not sure how many people take them up on it, but it seems like they are at least playing with a business model.

Re: Amazon Unveils $199 Kindle Fire Tablet

#265

Post by ErrantX »

anigbrowl wrote: post #256
freejack wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

B&N doesn't have the operational chops that Amazon does. Its going to take more than Brick & Mortar to make a dent in the tablet market. B&N will fight with Dell for table scraps while Amazon and Apple each capture sizeable, material share. I wrote a bit about why I think Amazon is going to kill this on my blog earlier today - http://www.byte.org/2011/09/28/amazon-coming-into-its-own/ - tl;dr: Amazon is one of the fe…

How true. I had to buy a heap of textbooks recently, and had a discount coupon for B&N, so I decided to give them a try instead of just buying from Amazon as I had originally intended. Bad idea. I saved about $75, but had to deal with billing errors, cancellation of part of my order, slow and overpriced shipping, and that cost me several hours of my valuable time. I was astonished at how poor the experience was.

I buy as much as I can on Amazon now - with Prime it is a no-brainer...

This is after wondering why I could order books from Amazon and they arrived 9am the next day (the joys of living in a teeny country like the UK :P) but when I ordered X other thing from different sites it took days, and was full of mistakes.

Amazon have absolutely nailed the shipping side of online retail - which is usually what people most complain about in retailers, after all!

Re: Amazon Unveils $199 Kindle Fire Tablet

#267

Post by krishna2 »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #233
joebadmo wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The most interesting thing to me is that the Fire doesn't seem to have pretensions about replacing computing, though it theoretically could just as much an iPad or Android tablet. There's an app store, but they seem to be only pushing games on it, and the main thrust seems to sit squarely on consumption. Especially at this price point, it's not a replacement for a computer, it's squarely a supplement. I think I prefe…

Totally agree with this insight. One of the fallouts of the tech bubble and ubiquitious computing trend was that it became so 'cheap' to add programability features and customization that everything got more computer like. The backlash, things like the cell phones for elderly people which act like 'normal' phones was the result. Also the market seems to be pushing back on things like TVs that are also internet browse…

"school district can give those to every student"

How cool would that be! My library finally got the overdrive support so I wanted to check out an e-book (an audiobook) to try out on my kindle/iphone. And found a nice book that I wanted to read and the page says, "available copies : 0, library copies : 1, No. of patrons in waiting list : 23, Click here to add yourself to the waiting list".

File this under w.t.f.

Re: Amazon Unveils $199 Kindle Fire Tablet

#268

Post by krishna2 »

achompas wrote: post #28

Bezos, on Amazon's refreshed e-Ink readers: So meet the family. These are premium products at non-premium prices. People are going to love these products. This is Amazon's mission statement for product development. They will not compete with Apple's "revolutionary, magical" phones and tablets; instead, they'll sell quality tablets and readers to the average person at great prices. This populist attitude has been miss…

"Amazon won't steal Apple's customers"

- Absolutely correct. But all the other android tablet makers pricing their tablet anything over $300 will all get screwed by this for sure. [I cannot see what else they can do to justify double the price of the Fire without some brilliant ideas and innovations.]. They all refuse to do anything to the software. They also cannot match Apple's (and probably soon Amazon's) scale and huge volumes to get a good price on bulk-hardware. Nor do they have the "content" and "user base with credit cards" to match that of Apple and Amazon.

Good news is that we can expect more HP-touchpad like fire sales. Bad news is very few are going to want those even at those prices.

Amazon brilliantly played to their strengths. Kudos to Jeff Bezos and team!

Re: Amazon Unveils $199 Kindle Fire Tablet

#269

Post by vsl2 »

Most people here and in the press (Amazon's PR unit included) consider this a company v company debate - "Apple vs Amazon" debate. Barnes & Noble seems to be such an afterthought that the Nook Color gets little attention though it is the directly competing product in terms of product specs and price (though the NC price will have to come down from $249 to $199 or below to compete).

The NC curently has what I think is a large advantage in that its easy to root via the microSD slot so it becomes a fully functioning Android tablet, including Android Market. The KF can provide Amazon media - for users, does this outweigh access to the Android market and native access to Google products? The NC still got nowhere near the appreciation from the public in its history that the Kindle Fire got in one day.

I'm curious as to what strategy Barnes & Noble takes with regards to NC in resposne to KF. A reliable source tells me that the NC is 85% owned by women and the targeted primary audience for its apps are 30+ women. There are few free apps because BN doesn't want to create an expectation of "everything should be free" (i.e. get users used to paying for value). The targeted audience also is one less opposed to paying for something nor have time to find free hacks (unlike young males). I don't think this market will be sufficient to keep the Kindle Fire from dominating at the $200 price point. Everyone, including not-yet-purchased-a-tablet 30+ women, will soon likely hear of the Kindle Fire and BN will lose much of its small core audience.

Given the $200 price point, I think that there may be an oppotunity for BN to make a large mainstream splash if it allows greater flexibility in the NC (including fully integrating Android Market). Otherwise, I don't see how it competes with Amazon because of "coolness" perceptions of the two companies. In that respect, Amazon competes with Apple; while BN competes with Borders (RIP).

Re: Amazon Unveils $199 Kindle Fire Tablet

#270

Post by [deleted] »

sharmajai wrote: post #219
thenduks wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmm I'm not so sure... My iPad can replace my laptop for basically everything but work. Web browsing, listening/browsing/buying music, twitter et al, emails, games, books, movies/tv shows, etc, etc.

"My iPad can replace my laptop for basically everything but work" - so I guess my point stands. I was trying to argue against OP's point that all these things "Web browsing, listening/browsing/buying music, twitter et al, emails, games, books, movies/tv shows, etc, etc" can be done on a Playbook too.

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