This Fire’s gonna burn
“Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey Amazon, don’t be a copycat.”
That’s what I would say to Amazon, if Amazon were a person. Amazon, though, is just another (sigh) greedy corporation with very little creativity.
Yesterday, Amazon unveiled a brand new line of Kindles—a new base model, a new Kindle Touch, and finally the Kindle Fire (double sigh). Apart from scrapping the keyboard and replacing it with a (this is just a guess) PAINFULLY ANNOYING “5-way controller,” the new Kindle isn’t that different from the old Kindle. With “special offers,” a euphemism for REALLY ANNOYING ADS, the new Kindle is 20 bucks cheaper than its older Wi-Fi counterpart, but probably not much better. (Actually it’s worse. I’ve decided.)
Then there’s the Kindle Touch, which costs 20 bucks more than the new base line Kindle because it has—you guessed it—a touch screen! (Hmm…this reminds me of something). As far as I can tell, apart from the touch screen (which is like, so “in” at the moment), the Kindle Touch offers basically no other benefits over the original. In fact, on their website, Amazon has resorted to listing “fast page turns,” as a cool new feature. (…not quite Amazon, not quite.)
But wait, I’ve saved the best for last—the Kindle Fire! And, by best I mean worst. Yes, yes, in addition to normal Kindle capabilities, the Kindle Fire can play movies and music and browse the web using Amazon’s new revolutionary web browser, Amazon Silk (sigh, sigh, sigh). Yes, yes, it has a touchscreen that’s—wow–an entire inch larger than its Kindle brothers. But, the Kindle Fire has one immutable flaw: it’s not an iPad. (Also it has a stupid name.)
Amazon is basically throwing the Fire into the Fire (hardy-har) by releasing it into a market saturated with the better known, and let’s face it, far superior, iPad 2. True, the Fire is nearly $300 less than the iPad2, but it also has a screen that’s 2.7 inches smaller, has half the storage space, no 3G capabilities and no HD video camera.
If Amazon had released the Fire two years ago, when apple launched the iPad, its affordability may have made it a contender. But, as it is, the Fire just looks like an inferior rip-off of Apple’s incredibly lucrative baby. And, that’s what’s disappointing. There’s nothing new or exciting or creative about the Fire (except its stupid name). It’s just an attempt to undercut the competition, which (quadruple sigh) might actually work.
ishouldhaveablog 
You could very easily have gone after Google, HP, Dell, and numerous other companies who’ve released tablet PCs. You seem almost comically angry that there’s an affordable tablet PC on the market that’s actually decent. Some people can’t afford iPads and are willing to take the tech downgrade in order to have basic features.
What’s new and exciting about the Fire is that it’s accessible, that a majority of people could at least hope to afford it.
I like Amazon a lot actually, which is why I’m criticizing. Hyperbole is a comedic device, though, maybe one that I need to work on if this post is coming across as intensely angry.
Haha, I didn’t realize this was a comedy blog until I had time to scroll through today. Imitating intense, righteous anger over silly things is hard to do without coming across as sincere, since so many people are actually like that.
That is an excellent point.