Technology has surpassed all boundaries with the introduction of tablets in the markets. Tablets have evolved as saviors for all tech savvy people as eBooks have many advantages like better readability of their screens in bright sunlight, longer battery life and all these features are well inbuilt in the Amazon's Kindle Fire. Many companies have come up with their version of tablets like Barnes and Noble, Hanvon, Samsung, Aluratek and many more. Amazon has been since long a leader in the online retail space and with the introduction of Kindle it has taken the world to an unprecedented level with a promise that they will continue to make its products better for customers with regular software updates. Since 2007, when Amazon first launched Kindle, they have been continuously modifying and upgrading the versions of the product to make it more user friendly and also to beat the competitors in the eBook reader market.
Amazon says that the Kindle Fire is its most successful product launched ever in its history. The immediate impact of the Amazon device is expected to give a blow to a range of second tier tablet manufactures including Motorola, RIM, Dell, HTC, HP and Toshiba. But there are mixed opinions about the success of Kindle Fire. Some consider it powerful enough to win the hearts of the iPad users whereas some consider it as a failure. A report from IHS has declared Amazon's Kindle Fire as the second most popular in the world after 16GB WiFi only iPad2 by securing 13.8% expected share of the market by end of 2011. It is also expected to be the closest competitor to the Android based Samsung Galaxy Tab which is estimated to have 4.8% of the market share. Forecasts say that it will eat away other tablets share in the market and will also be able to attract 22% of the future tablet buyers whereas in case of Samsung Galaxy Tab, the figure has been estimated to be 4% of the future demand. According to a few more predictions, around half of the Android tablets sold in 2012 will be Amazon Kindle Fire. This seems to be a big call as there are multiple other players who are working on quite innovative tablets which are scheduled to be launched in 2012. On the other hand, it seems that Kindle Fire isn't going to dethrone iPad but rather it is expected to eat up half of the Android market. Owing to the demands, it's been expected that Amazon will ship upto 6 million Fire tablets this season which are quite high numbers as compared to previously estimated 4 million whereas some analysts have trimmed their forecast for fourth quarter sales estimates for Apple's tablets to 13 million the reason cited being Fire. Over 25% of those who plan to buy Kindle Fire have a reason that they don't want to buy the iPad.
Kindle Fire uses faster, dual-channel RAM and with the screen resolution of 1024x600 pixels it becomes almost comparable to all the ebooks available in the market. The new 7 inch tablet is bigger than its original version, less bulky than iPad2 and is competitively priced when compared to its counterpart. Amazon has also developed Amazon Silk-Cloud accelerated mobile browser, whispersync and Free Amazon Cloud storage as additional features for Kindle Fire. The feature of free cloud storage for all Amazon content differentiates it strongly from the feature in iPad 2 that allows only to store iTunes. iPad2 is 46% heavier than Kindle Fire and also the Kindle Fire has 28% higher density pixel than iPad2. Along with the features even the purchase process of the Kindle Fire has been streamlined as it is pre loaded with the individuals Amazon account information which saves the buyer from entering the passwords or credit card information.
Kindle Fire uses a Texas instrument 1GHz OMAP 4430 dual-core CPU as its brains and also PowerVR SGX 540 GPU, the Fire is as capable at pushing polygons as any Tegra 2-based tablet. Once formatted the Kindle Fire has 6GB to be manipulated for personal use whereas in the case of Nook Tablet there is a solitary gigabyte for the same. Amazon has been vigorously building its Appstore more than Barnes and Noble, boasting over 10,000 apps and it has been found that the basic applications on the Nook Tablet cost$3 whereas other app stores offer free versions of the same.
There are visible signs that the robust sales will continue for the Kindle Fire next year, but some are of the opposite opinion. Kindle Fire is expected to pose threat to Apple's digital content business and also its iPod touch. Analysis has found that Barnes & Noble is missing the break-point which will be a critical factor in determining their sales whereas the previous iPad sales estimates have been reduced from 14 million to 13 million for the quarter ending in December whereas some regard the Fire as an alternative which might have enough of Apple's secret sauce to succeed.
The biggest question is whether the Kindle Fire evolves into a bona fide tablet in the coming generation. Like Apple even Amazon has its online store set up for Kindle Fire to go. Who will become the leader of the eBook market that is to be decided by the future to come? Will the Kindle Fire give competition to iPad, Nook? But it is sure that eReaders are more popular than ever these days and its gives the ease of not being locked in a specific store. In the case of Amazon, it has kicked off more than the price war and has created an entirely new market.
