Kindle Fire versus iPad – FIGHT!

Shut the front door! It just got announced and people are already comparing it to the iPad. You really need to stop doing that, for a few reasons. The biggest reason is because the Kindle Fire isn’t competing with the iPad, nor is it trying to.

The newly unveiled Kindle Fire is a $200 7” tablet with a color IPS display, dual-core processor, and 8GB of built-in storage. It comes with free Amazon Cloud Drive, and will automatically be synced to your Amazon account when you pull it out of the box. It is running a customized build of Android 2.3 and it’s stripped of Google’s services in favor of Amazon’s own music, application, and storage options.

Now I understand that most if not every other person on the planet reads “tablet” and immediately thinks “iPad”. That’s because you’re narrow-minded and you lack the ability to look around you and see what’s going on. The Kindle isn’t trying to compete with the iPad. It can’t compete with the iPad. If you want an iPad, you’re either already have one or you’re waiting for the price to drop because you’re dumb enough to not realize that Apple products don’t drop in price in a way that will make waiting a fiscally prudent decision. If you want an iPad, you don’t give a fuck about the Kindle Fire because it’s not an iPad. In the words of C.W. Gabriel “It’s not for you!”

The Kindle Fire was designed for and is being sold to that guy that doesn’t need 64GB of storage. This guy doesn’t need a 3G connection to constantly stay connected to everything on the internet. The Kindle Fire is for that person that likes reading news stories, books, and comics away from his computer but he doesn’t want to have to do it on his 4” cell phone screen. Even the entry-level iPad is too expensive for this guy because he doesn’t care for the bigger screen, the games, or iTunes. The Kindle Fire is for the person that wants a good color e-reader that has the ability to pull down his favorite RSS feeds.

The iPad was designed to be the device that will let you do everything away from a computer. Yes, I understand that it doesn’t quite let you do everything and it is, in essence, a computer. But you also understand what I’m saying, so stop being such a douche about it. This is why the iPad and the Kindle aren’t competing. They are going after different groups of people. The difference between an iPad and a Kindle Fire is similar to the difference between a $100,000 Mercedes and a $16,000 Honda Civic DX. They both use the same roads to get you to your destination. They both run on gasoline. They are both cars. One is for the pompous asshole that thinks the names on his products defines who he is as a person, and the other is for the person that just wants to get where he’s going with more convenience than walking or taking the bus.

When the Nintendo Wii came out, people scoffed at it because it was only capable of 480p maximum resolution and it wasn’t able to play DVDs, unlike its “competition” the Xbox 360 and the PS3. Then it started selling faster than bottled water in Hell and people had to grab a plate full of shut the fuck up. The Wii wasn’t designed to be one of those “DO ALL THE THINGS!” devices, and neither is the Kindle Fire. They are for the other guy, and all that guy wants is “good enough”.

That’s exactly what the Kindle Fire is. It’s good enough.