Engadget has video of a demo and a short hands-on with the Silk browser, which is worth a look if you’re interested in the Fire.
One of the interesting points about the Fire is that Prime members ($79/year) have access to a huge library of streaming video on the device. I have to believe that will cut into Netflix streaming video sales — why have both? Amazon also lets you rent video, so if you want to watch a popular new release like Bridesmaids, for example, you can do it for $3.99. Netflix won’t have Bridesmaids for a month, and instead of watching it instantly, you have to wait for a DVD to arrive in the mail. Since the Fire remembers your place in a video, you can watch on the tablet for a while, then switch to an Amazon-enabled TV (using a Roku or a Tivo) and pick up where you left off.
As for the Silk browser, that technology isn’t new, but it is effective. Opera Mobile, which was designed to run on crappy mobile phones, has been compressing web pages on a central server and sending them down the pipe for years. In addition to compensating for a slow processor in the Fire, Silk technology should make web pages run faster on slow Internet connections.
I assume the Fire, which has an OK but not great processor, and less RAM than cutting-edge Android phones, will have trouble running some apps from the Android store, and will get bogged down and laggy if a lot of apps are running in the background. The other issue with Android devices is battery life, which seems to have been getting worse on phones, not better. If the Fire can run an app or two, and if the battery lasts for more than a couple of hours, it will be a very compelling device.
arguingwithsignposts
Why am I reminded in the video streaming space of the continuing Showtime/HBO wars over new-release movies on TV way back in the early days of pay-TV?
I have Netflix streaming, and I’ve bought some movies over Amazon to stream, but I can’t see buying both. I assume that’s where it will end up if you want access to all the content without a cable.
And I really can’t see Amazon keeping all their content off the iPad if they want that customer base.
ornery
“Compelling device” or not, I really dislike the choice of words that the Amazon marketers have chosen in relation to the control of books, (‘kindle’ ‘fire’).
Just my corporatist-sense tingling I guess. I feel like I live in an impossibly un-savvy time when it comes to our ‘consumer’ relationship to technology.
PeakVT
I bet a lot of people at B&N HQ woke up grumpy today.
cleek
why subscribe to Amazon anything when services like VuDu will let you rent movies a la carte ?
Emma
I looked at the specs and decided to invest my Christmas mad money on one. It’s portable, I’m not a heavy user of apps, and the ones I need, like a calendar and a notepad, wouldn’t run constantly. I can consolidate my email accounts into one, and that’s separate from the browser. I can listen to audiobooks and read books, including PDFs. I might subscribe to a magazine or two and set up some playlists. According to the specs it gets 8 hours continuous reading, which is what I would need in long flights and, after all, many planes (and trains) now come with electrical rechargers.
If I were one of those people who need desperately to be connected at all times, I wouldn’t consider it. Me/ Meh. I can live without access to the Internet for long periods of time.
PeakVT
@ornery: I simply find the name to be a groaner (Kindle Fire, get it? nudge nudge).
RSA
@PeakVT: @PeakVT:
…and the default home page in the browser will be Match.com.
jeffreyw
I ordered one yesterday, had been looking at iPads. The wifi only is fine, I expect to use it at the house mostly to read on. I have a 1st gen Nook and was underwhelmed. I love my Touch for its portability and can read a book on it fine with the Kindle app but have been jonesin’ for a bigger screen. I can tote my 3G Mifi hot spot and have bandwidth enough to browse tho streaming movies is not in the cards.
PreservedKillick
As far as the hardware, it’s almost exactly inline with an ipad 2. The Fire would be a low-end Android tablet for its generation, mostly because of the weak RAM, but it’s still the same amount of RAM as 90%+ even the current generation of Android devices, so I’m not thinking that anything will not run well, especially since the CPU and GPU are wellat the top of range.
Battery life should be at least 8 hours of video. It’s got several times the battery of, say, a T-Mobile G2X – a similar spec device that will go 6-8 hours without a problem.
I’d say it’s going to be compelling, if for no other reason than easy access to Prime streaming video. As a general purpose tablet, it’ll just be damn good.
Crashman
@Emma: This is almost exactly how I feel about this thing, though I will probably wait to order one until I see some reviews first. But I’m very interested.
Amanda in the South Bay
@PeakVT:
Why? You do know there’s a Nook Color 2 that’s supposed to be coming out any day now?
Lets see…locked into Amazon’s ecosystem, privacy destroying browser…what’s not to like?
And yeah, I’m poor and can’t afford to buy e-books, so I want to be able to read EPUB books from my local libraries, and the Nook is still able to do that.
Its like, of course it has better performance than the NC, the NC is last year’s tech. I’m gonna wait for the NC2 to come out, that’s a much more relevant comparison.
Pococurante
I just pre-ordered. When the 10″ comes out next year, and if it is a viable tablet rather than an ambitious e-reader, I’ll upgrade and bequeath the 7″ to one of the mini-Pocos.
@RSA: And the splash song will be “Afternoon Delight”.
tBone
I think “huge library” is overstating things. Their streaming library, despite improving since launch, is still dwarfed by Netflix. The rental option is nice, though.
The Silk browser is creepy. Amazon already knows enough about my buying habits.
Be interesting to see how B&N responds to this. As a platform I like the Nook better than Kindle – native epub support is important to me and I try to buy from B&N rather than Amazon whenever I can because of that. But the Nook doesn’t have Amazon’s huge content libraries, which will be a huge disadvantage going forward. They’re going to need some serious partnerships if the Nook is going to survive as more than a niche product.
MarkJ
Why have both Amazon Prime and Netflix? I’ll tell you: Netflix’s library of “free” streaming movies is much larger – you get free streaming from Amazon Prime on a very limited selection of movies. So if you have both you can watch something for “free” on Netflix that you would have to pay the rental fee for from Amazon.
However, there is a lot of pay-per-view stuff on Amazon that is not available for streaming on Netfix. Plus, you don’t have to be a Prime member to access stuff pay-per-view through a Roku box, so if you prefer to pay by the view rather than a monthly fee, you can stream movies from Amazon – Netflix does not offer that option.
The real advantage of Amazon Prime is that you get free 2 day shipping on all your orders. They throw in a limited selection of free streaming as gravy, but if you want free streaming you are better off with Netflix because their selection of unlimited streaming movies is much larger.
Mike
One point that was brought up in the media surrounding the event was that the streaming movies could somehow be “transmitted” to your TV wirelessly from the Fire. I’m not sure how that would be handled… perhaps through an “app” on a blue-ray or internet connected TV.
Several questions persist, though:
Will the Google App Store be accessible on the device, or only the Amazon App Store. Can apps be “sideloaded” onto the device like they can be in other Android phones?
Since it is a “custom” version of Android, will only a limited subset of apps be able to run on the device, and what about future upgrades?
Will one be able to “try one out” at a store somewhere before purchasing one?
Otherwise, this sounds like a great overall value and worth a look. If Barnes and Noble are feeling the pinch, maybe they should just open up their nook, like most hackers are doing already anyways. That would allow them to compete on the same level.
burnspbesq
@Mike:
Best Buy, more than likely. A great place to do a Fire vs. iPad 2 shootout. Which the iPad will win.
Amanda in the South Bay
@tBone:
Well, the Nook Color has always been an e-reader first, tablet second. Its never tried to compete as a general purpose media device-that was always a secondary benefit. Yeah, like you I’d also rather have a nook for EPUB capability, and I’m seriously thinking of getting an e-ink Nook soon.
Lets wait and see what the Nook Color 2 brings to the table.
adolphus
I think I have been un or under employed for way too long now. It has been so long since I could afford new video viewing devices and/or computers most of what people are talking about here is way over my head.
I can’t wait to have a real job again. Or maybe I should just get used to being ten years behind the tech curve or start to stand in those long lines at the library.
I guess the up side is, Amazon will have little to no idea who I am and what I like.
PeakVT
@Amanda in the South Bay: Because Amazon caught up to or passed B&N (for the time being). B&N either needs better tablets or something else to distinguish it from Amazon in the book reading/selling area, because Amazon is the default online store for a lot of people. Given a choice between two roughly equal readers, I think a lot of first-time buyers will choose Amazon because they already have an account there.
I’m not rooting for one or the other, BTW.
ETA: Actually, I’m rooting for both to survive for a long time.
Cris (without an H)
Except for the camera and mic. I doubt that’s a dealbreaker for most people, who already have a portable camera on their phones.
Rafer Janders
One of the interesting points about the Fire is that Prime members ($79/year) have access to a huge library of streaming video on the device. I have to believe that will cut into Netflix streaming video sales—why have both? Amazon also lets you rent video, so if you want to watch a popular new release like Bridesmaids, for example, you can do it for $3.99. Netflix won’t have Bridesmaids for a month, and instead of watching it instantly, you have to wait for a DVD to arrive in the mail. Since the Fire remembers your place in a video, you can watch on the tablet for a while, then switch to an Amazon-enabled TV (using a Roku or a Tivo) and pick up where you left off.
I’ve had Netflix for years and love it. But since Netflix is apparently kicking me out in Qwikster (god I hate that name) I’m afraid our paths will part. As you note, it makes far more sense for me to get physical DVDs through the mail via Qwikster, and streaming via Amazon Prime, than it is for me to get streaming through Netflix.
Had Netflix kept a one-stop shopping and payment site for both physical DVD and streaming customers, they would have kept my business in both areas. But by separating into two businesses they lost part of mine.
Mike
@burnspbesq:
Probably, but will it perform twice as well to match the price? That’s the million dollar question.
Mike
Ok, so I got some answers to my questions. Yes, you will be able to sideload apps and Amazon said it will not discourage “rooting” (i.e. jailbreaking) the tablet. So far so good!
Maude
@PeakVT:
The nook is a different ereader that Kindle. The current Kindle doesn’t do epub and is black and white.
Amazon is competing with Apple with the Fire.
B&N is different than Amazon. It is a bookseller.
When NC2 comes out, it will be ahead of Amazon.
Don
Don’t forget the privacy implications of Amazon Silk. Since parts of the browsing technology can be offloaded to Amazon’s servers, they have much more capability for tracking. They can even store cookies in their server that can’t be deleted in your browser.
rikryah
I have to admit. I hadn’t even thought of doing the Amazon Prime until I heard about the video streaming capability. I order enough stuff from Amazon to make the Prime worth it, but free shipping had always been worth the wait for me; never ordered anything under $25. Worked it out so that it would mean less than $7 a month; for access to all those shows, I think it might be worth it. Would never order a movie though; I can wait. Not paying 3.99 for a movie.
tom
> Silk technology should make web pages run faster on slow Internet connections.
It won’t make pages run faster, it will just download them faster that first time you visit the page and typically we’re talking fractions of a second faster compared to normal speeds because the page still has to be decompressed on the user end. Any client-side scripting or interaction that requires bouncing back to a dynamic page will run just as slow or slower than before due to lack of good hardware on the Fire end.
Elliott
Can someone comment on touchpad v. e-ink for reading books? The Nook e-ink looks pretty good, but I think that when you turn the page and the ink reverses is a little distracting.
How well does iPad/Nook Color/Fire act as an e-reader?
Thanks.
James K. Polk, Esq.
@Amanda in the South Bay:
$10 says you use gmail or google. Opera has been doing this for years, by the way.
Brachiator
I don’t think this matters at all to many people. There are people who are looking for an ebook reader, and will get a device that lets them listen to music, watch movies, do some web browsing and shop their butts off on Amazon as a bonus. These people are not looking for an Android experience or an iOS experience, and may not even much care about the tablet wars.
I watched a tech podcast yesterday and listened to one of the hosts wonder whether the Fire could be “rooted” and customized. I thought, “Are you high?”
This was as dumb as all the sage tech heads opining that Amazon was going after the Nook. Let’s see, I’ve got tons of stuff in my house, from kitchen appliances to hard drives, and clothes, and books and DVDs that I have ordered through Amazon. Because that’s the business that Amazon is in. Barnes and Noble, not so much.
There’s obviously room for all kinds of tablets, with all kinds of features and functions. I don’t even know whether the Fire will be a big seller. But I will bet good money that Amazon is much more interested in offering products and services to a wide range of customers than they are in coming up with an iPad killer or super high tech portable computing device.
Oh, yeah, and the feature that Amazon will push with Silk will be using the Browser to search anywhere and add stuff to your Amazon Wish List. They already tout this feature on other platforms.
RareSanity
Just in case @Mike happens to swing back by…
This would probably be achieved through something like DLNA. If you have a TV that also supports DLNA, you would be able to stream media from your device, to the TV, using both of their WiFi connections.
The newer Samsung Android products have support for this.
However, there are numerous media exchange protocols that could be used to do this. It’s all a matter of having the sender and the receiver be compatible with each other.
PaulB
It’s only privacy-destroying if Amazon does something to tie specific data to a specific user. As noted elsewhere, Opera does this, all of the search engines do this, AOL used to do this. What Amazon is doing with Silk is definitely not new or unprecedented.
PaulB
I don’t think so. What I think they meant was that if you have Amazon Video on Demand on your TV or Blu-Ray player, their new Whispersync for Video feature will keep it in sync with what you watch on your Kindle Fire.
Only the Amazon App Store. You can load the Google App Store, with a little finagling, but it won’t run properly, as the Fire is missing some of the necessary Google account services.
It depends on the app. Most of the apps in the Google store require the Google account services to run.
Amazon will definitely be motivated to keep it compatible. The primary issue isn’t the core OS, which will be compatible; it’s the services that run on top of that OS.
That will be up to the individual retailer. Amazon doesn’t have a physical presence. Try Best Buy once this becomes available.
Brachiator
@arguingwithsignposts:
Wouldn’t this depend somewhat on the depth of each companies’ video catalog? I don’t know which has more titles. But with Amazon, you can buy or stream or rent from one source. I don’t know whether some customers might see this as an advantage.
Amazon’s strategy typically has been to offer the Kindle in some form anywhere and everywhere.
But here’s an interesting little tidbit. Currently, to view video on Amazon requires Flash. The iPad does not support Flash. So, in effect, Apple is keeping some of Amazon’s content off the iPad.
PaulB
I noticed it for the first few hours but after that I pretty much stopped noticing or caring; it’s just background.
If all you want to do is read, you should definitely get an eInk device. They are much easier on the eyes, much simpler to operate, much cheaper, have extraordinary battery life (measured in weeks rather than hours), and can be read anywhere in just about any lighting condition (other than darkness, in which case you’ll need a clip-on light). I’ve used my Kindle far more than I thought I would and have just about reached the point where I’m no longer buying physical books.
If you want to do more than just read, get a tablet. The reading apps offer good functionality and you’ll have access to other types of media content and a much better browsing experience. You’ll notice some eyestrain from spending too much time staring at the screen after a long session and, of course, you can’t read it outdoors very well, but otherwise it’s a good experience.
PaulB
Not directly. Different capabilities and a very different price point. This won’t be an iPad killer; it has a separate niche.
??? So is Amazon.
Depends on what they offer and what you mean by “ahead.”
PaulB
Netflix, and it’s not even close, although Amazon is working to close that gap and it’s not clear how much advantage Netflix will continue to have once its current agreements with providers expire (e.g., Starz, which controls Sony and Disney online content, expires in February, 2012 and they have announced that they will not renew).
Darkrose
I just pre-ordered.
I know Amazon’s problematic for various reasons, but in the end, the convenience is important to me. I can order electronics and usually get them within 2 days without leaving home, rather than schlepping down to Best Buy or worse, Fry’s. For someone who’s borderline agoraphobic, it’s a great deal.
I adore my Kindle, especially since I figured out how to put fanfic on it. It fits in my purse and I’ve got what would amount to three or four book boxes of stuff on it. When I travel, I don’t have to try to balance how fast I read with the amount of stuff I can fit in a carry-on. And now I can have video, too, on a screen that’s bigger than my iPod Touch but cheaper than an iPad? Sounds like a win.
Brachiator
@Darkrose:
Very well put.
I wonder how many other people will make a similar decision for similar reasons?
MDL
Good for them. However, I am more than happy with my iPad 2. And at this point, NetFlix works for me. So does Hulu Plus, which carries Criterion titles. I’ll take Criterion titles over new mainstream titles any day. Will Amazon carry Criterion?
tBone
@Brachiator:
Not really. Amazon could make changes on their backend to deliver straight h.264 video streams without the Flash wrapper to iOS devices (which is what Hulu, which also requires Flash on the desktop, does with their Hulu Plus app for iOS). Amazon just hasn’t done it for whatever reason. I’m guessing it’s some kind of rights limitation with their content holders, since they haven’t been shy about extending Kindle onto every platform they can.
burnspbesq
@Elliott:
I’m perfectly happy with the reader performance of my iPad, with one exception. The display is pretty reflective when you view it on-axis. I don’t need to see my ugly mug when I’m trying to read.
Elizabeth-Sunhill
I guess you learn something new on internet everyday,im gonna stick with ipad 2 for now