Blazing Ambition

Nov 21, 2011 - Akshit Goyal |

Age Correspondent

Ever since Google demonstrated that Android could thrive on a tablet ecosystem, tablet vendors have been running left, right and centre to reproduce shameless impersonations of the iPad. Unsurprisingly, they haven’t been entirely successful with their ambitious plans. The main goal, I feel, has been lost in the midst of this frenzied game of copycat — it is possible to bring out a focussed content consumption device for a niche market without ever aiming to be an “iPad killer”. It appears now, though, that Amazon has hit the nail on its head with the launch of the Kindle Fire last week.
The Kindle Fire never aims for the sky — it is a 7-inch multi-touch enabled device that is designed to be used primarily as an e-reader, though it also offers strictly barebones multimedia functionality that allows it be used to watch videos and perform casual surfing, but nothing more grandiose. The screen is bright and vivid, powerful enough to be able to handle both text and photos with ease, but it’s no e-ink. The device is meant to harness the power of the cloud, which is why it packs only 6 GB of internal flash storage, with no additional storage options. With how underdeveloped the cloud is right now, this seems like a misstep, though whether it may end up being pioneering remains to be seen. All of this comes with about 6 hours of battery life, which is quite robust indeed.
The Fire runs off a heavily modified version of Android 2.3 (Gingerbread), but ditches the Android Marketplace for Amazon’s own proprietary App Store. While this might be reason to worry for the seasoned Android enthusiast, casual users won’t need to panic, with most of their essential apps intact here. And boy is the interface that encapsulates them pretty. Featuring a virtual bookshelf system, the Fire presents to you all your books, apps, videos, and email in one streamlined, well-designed piece.
But that’s all there is. The Kindle Fire never shines as a cohesive, superbly polished product. It is what it is — a decent e-reader with decent multimedia capabilities. At $199, it’s not a bad deal at all... just one that needs a little bit of thoughtful consideration.
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