Many Early Adopters of the Amazon Fire Are Unhappy 463
Hugh Pickens writes "The NY Times reports that the Kindle Fire, Amazon's heavily promoted tablet, is less than a blazing success, with many of its early users packing the device up and firing it back to the retailer. A few of their many complaints: there is no external volume control. The off switch is easy to hit by accident. Web pages take a long time to load. There is no privacy on the device; a spouse or child who picks it up will instantly know everything you have been doing and the touch screen is frequently hesitant and sometimes downright balky. Amazon's response was: 'In less than two weeks, we're rolling out an over-the-air update to Kindle Fire.' The only problem with that is many of the complaints are hardware related and no amount of software can fix one of the early blunders: 'The fire is shipped in a box that advertised on the outside of the box exactly what it is. "Hello, you, thief, please come steal me!"' wrote one would-be customer who, as you might guess, had her Fire stolen and was left with the box. This was supposed to be an iPad killer, with its much lower price point, but Apple is tough to beat because most of its mistakes are software-based."
What a surprise (Score:3, Insightful)
Another "iPad killer" in the dustbin. You are not going to compete with Apple with some cobbled together piece of junk. The iPad is positioned to be as dominant as the iPod in the mp3 player market.
You get what you pay for.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Not bad for the price (Score:5, Insightful)
I picked up my kindle fire about three weeks ago. I will not even try to hide the fact that it has flaws. However, the feature list for the price is exactly what I wanted.
It's no iPad killer, but anyone who thinks they're going to get a 200 dollar product to replace a 500 dollar+ one is delusional.
I am so sick of this story.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Hardware problems can be fixed with software (Score:4, Insightful)
Actually many hardware problems can be fixed with software.
You can not change physical switch position, but with software you can change how long you need to keep switch in specific position until it will do something. So you can fix most of the problems with software when problems are that device is turned off or put on sleep mode by accident touch.
Of course software can not add a external volume buttons, but with software you can bind some existing buttons to work as such (if there is such buttons). Or you can add a easy to access virtual button to offer those functions. It is more a hack but can work for many.
The sensitivity of touch screen can be fixed with software, as software rules again how the input data is being used. Better to have very sensitivite input touch screen and then slow down outpus what with software.
What comes to privacy, well, that can be fixed with software as well, place PIN code or something similar. Add lock to every application and make a easy way to delete history of web browsing or book history etc.
Re:Maybe V2 will be better (Score:5, Insightful)
The best selling tablet doesn't have an SD card, so no, that's not one of the problems.
Re:What a surprise (Score:5, Insightful)
Just like the Hyundai Accent isn't poised to kill the Ford F-150... two different markets with two very price tags and two related but still quite different usages
Re:What a surprise (Score:2, Insightful)
Flamebait is not about true or false, it's about terseness * (falsifiability of claim / truth value of all claims over the domain )
Re:Boycotting Amazon (Score:4, Insightful)
I've been boycotting Amazon ever since they started bullying states into dropping sales taxes.
I think they're just trying to keep from having to report taxes in thousands of local tax districts - many of which span zip codes, making it difficult and expensive to comply. Amazon does support a national proposal to simplify and streamline state sales tax collection.
I bought my girlfriend a Kindle and a couple gift cards, but aside from maybe a few more books for her Kindle, Amazon won't be getting any more of my money.
That's not much of a boycott - by buying a Kindle you've locked her into purchasing further e-books from Amazon (unless she buys all unprotected content that can be viewed on the Kindle). You should have gone for a Nook.
Re:Privacy (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:What a surprise (Score:5, Insightful)
The eInk readers would be motorcycles in the analogy :P
I'm not sure Amazon ever claimed the Fire to be an iPad killer. It was likely only the media. And many supposedly sophisticated tech users took the bait for this imaginary conflict.
Re:Nicely played with the statistics... (Score:5, Insightful)
When I read consumer reviews, it's always the negative reviews that have the most useful information. And FWIW, 22% dislike rate is pretty damn high. Over one-fifth of the purchasers are unhappy with their purchase? Ouch. That's quite a hit to brand reputation.
Re:What a surprise (Score:4, Insightful)
Who are these mythical people that were claiming that this was somehow supposed to be some sort of "iPad killer"?
It think this whole thing is just a bogus false strawman.
Book readers predate the iPad. This is perhaps just a slightly better Book reader and is sized and priced accordingly. I think all of the people whining about "iPad killers" want to set up false expectations and some sort of hollow non-victory.
Re:What a surprise (Score:4, Insightful)
The issue isn't that it can't be done it's that they typically don't have the incentive to do so. B&N greatly improved the first gen Nook after release. They added a full fledged web browser, greatly improved the page flip speed and generally making it function better than it did on launch.
Realistically, that stuff ought to be done before the product launches, but if the company cares it definitely can be done, you just don't always know where the bug lies, in software or hardware.
Re:I am so sick of this story.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Another way to look at it is chronologically over a persons lifetime.
Large segments of my life, theres no way I could afford to blow $200 on a toy or even a useful $200 tool simply because there's no way I could scrape up that kind of cash. So who cares about the ipad or the fire. The question is more like "homemade mac n cheese" or "homemade pizza". Medical insurance would have been nice in my 20s as a college student, but crazy me, I decided to gamble I'll stay healthy, and eat instead. I'm sure if I stopped eating I'd soon need the health insurance.
Large segments of my life, basically the last 15 years or so, I can blow $500 on a toy without blinking too hard (as long as I don't make a regular habit of doing this kind of shopping weekly or monthly, I can do it without blinking, anyway). Years of shopping when I was poor at walmart taught me the whole "penny wise pound foolish" thing. So I don't buy junk, I'd rather wait a couple months and save for an ipad than buy something inferior. Which is exactly what I did WRT buying an ipad.
The interval of my life where I could afford to spend $200 on a toy, but cannot afford to spend $500 on a toy... Honestly, I donno, like maybe two whole weeks of my life? The two weeks between getting my first "real job" paycheck catching up on past bills etc and getting my second "real job" paycheck? Those two weeks would have been a great time to buy a Kindle Fire. The rest of my life I was either out of the market entirely, or I'm buying the gold standard aka the ipad.
Pretty much people are either cash flow negative or scraping along the bottom just barely not drowning for now, or they're cash flow positive and little expenses like this are no big deal... To me, as a homeowner, a big expense is replacing the water heater, $2000 of repair work. Or my beautiful $6000 roof job including replacing the water soaked attic insulation quickly before it molds. Or my $800 new dishwasher. Those are big expenses. Trying to excite me with an also ran for $200 instead of $500 isn't really ... exciting. Like trying to get me to buy the 25 cent case screws on my desktop instead of the turned brass thumbscrews holding my case together that cost about a buck each... obviously I spend the buck...
Kindle Fire is no worst than Android (Score:4, Insightful)
All these negative reviews focus too much on the lack of polish of the UI is compared to the actual usefulness of the device. It's UI lags behind iOS, but it is about the same as a mid range Android device, which are widely successful.
I own the Kindle Fire, and its flaws are really just minor annoyances with device, but the overall experience is good enough. I can surf the Internet, watch videos and play graphic intense games no problem and the small form factor makes it comfortable to hold in one hand. Just because you occasionally have to double tap on a button or experience a 1/2 second lag every once in a while, doesn't mean that the $200 tablet is a failure.
iPad Killer? What? (Score:3, Insightful)
This device was never intended to be an iPad killer. Amazon itself said as much. The linked article makes it sound like it was set to be an iPad killer by "important people," but the link just links back to another pcmag.com article. What a joke.
The fire is not intended, has not been intended to be an iPad killer. It's a cheap tablet device that does what many people need it to do without all the extras that the iPad has that some people will never use. It's one of the primary reasons I returned my iPad and got a Color Nook and rooted it - the Nook did everything I wanted a tablet to do at a fraction of the price. If I were to do the same thing today, I would buy a fire instead of a Nook.
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Re:Error in the summary (Score:4, Insightful)
The amount of bitterness emanating from your post is enough to power a whole room full of returned Kindle Fires.
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Re:What a surprise (Score:5, Insightful)
Purchasing stuff from Amazon?
Re:You get what you pay for.... (Score:4, Insightful)
There are some states with 6 lane wide freeways that are practically deserted after midnight.
I'd be more concerned with a blowout at those speeds than a slow moving truck. YMMV
Yeah, back when I was an EMT I responded to a few rural accidents where drivers found out that "practically deserted" is not the same as "completely deserted".
As my partner used to say, speed doesn't kill, it's the sudden deceleration that gets you.
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Re:But you can get more for the price. (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't quite get the fuss. I own the Fire. I knew the limitations when I bought it, and expected it to have a few bugs, which it does. I use it all the time, and pretty happy for my 200 bucks worth. I didn't expect it to keep up with a quad core box, or even the iPad, I expected it to display books, show movies, do light surfing, play casual games, all of which it does ok. It *does* need some updates to the software to work the bugs out, but every computer I have ever bought needed both hardware BIOS upgrades and OS upgrades, so the idea that a new to the market tablet has a few bugs shouldn't come to a surprise to anyone.
If anything, people were oversold on what the tablet was. It was exactly what I expected, and I'm guessing it was exactly what most people expected since the majority of owners are happy with it. What I'm finding is several publications talking bad about the tablet, but the owners I know are all happy. Go figure.
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Re:What a surprise (Score:5, Insightful)
I got a 1st gen iPad a few months ago. Already having an iPhone, not to mention a laptop and a media pc at home, plus a plethora of devices at work, I wasn't sure how much value it would be to me, but I was getting it at a price where I could easily resell it at a profit, so it was a risk free experiment.
Just a few month later, it's become my primary information access device. Be it reading news, streaming ripped DVDs, renting movies, responding to slashdot posts, this is the device I use. It's form factor is great, has battery life to die for, and, as much as I hate the non descript adjective, it "just works"
Mind you it's not a device to get work done on. For that I will always prefer a keyboard and mouse. I've run into nothing that ive thought it should be able to do that it can't, including removing in to servers at the office in a pinch. So, I'd say you should try using it as its meant to be used before knocking it. To say its too locked down to me means you haven't even given it a try before bashing it.
Re:What a surprise (Score:4, Insightful)
A friend of mine bought a nook and modded it into a very nice android tablet. I was amazed how simple it was to do it. Nice touch screen on the nook by the way. Very responsive.
The problem for them (Score:5, Insightful)
But don't worry, you'll figure it out sooner or later, as Android tablet manufacturers will eat Apple's lunch.
They sure will.
The only problem for them is that Apple has already moved on to dinner.