So when I first got a Kindle for Christmas a few years ago, it was the original version, and I have to admit, I was unimpressed.
It seeemed…archaic.
I’m an iphone user and an Apple lover in general. Their designs are always (to my mind) sleek, sexy and very user friendly. The original Kindle was not. I hated the buttons on the bottom of the device, I hated the sepia-toned screen background, I hated there was no touch screen. It was underwhelming. At best. The only thing it was was light and compact. I could fit it in my handbag. One other plus was that I could read it in light. Not that I do a lot of reading outdoors, but there you go.
So when I got an iPad for my birthday the following month, I was stoked. Amazing touch screen, beautiful design, email, web, toys, games, etc. etc. I was in paradise.
Then at the end of last year I was invited to the press conference in Santa Monica where Jeff Bezos unveiled the Kindle Paperwhite and the Kindle Fire and Fire HD, and my world changed again.
You should have heard the gasps in the audience when Mr. Bezos described the new Whispersync for voice feature. Read on your Kindle, follow along in an audio version, switch back and forth and keep your place. Genius. Then the Paperwhite screen was revealed, in all its glory. Better than the original Kindle, for sure, but it was no iPad. (Again, just my opinion.)
Then he brought out the big guns. When he described the technology the Kindle Fire and Fire HD had, the iPad was totally blown out of the water. The Kindle Fire is a far superior technological product, in everything from memory to screen resolution to sound to processing speed. It’s an unbelievable product, and I had to have one.
So I bought two. The smaller version, and the big bad version. The 8.9″ Kindle Fire HD with 32G. Un-freaking-believable. AND, it’s like half the price of an iPad.
It took me all of two seconds, without reading any documentation, to figure out how to turn it on, surf the web, buy books and movies and generally enjoy the hell out of myself. It has all the bells and whistles of an iPad, and then some.
But it still wasn’t an iPad.
Part of the problem, I think, is that being an iPhone user, I want all those icons on the main screen. I want all the apps right there like they are on my iphone. But on the Kindle Fire, there is a scrolling menu bar at the top. Same idea, but not as visually stimulating. Not as fun. (And I still don’t know if I can check my email from a Kindle.) The Kindle Fire is still geared primarily toward reading ebooks, while the iPad is geared toward…well, everything. You choose.
So the jury is still out. I do love my Kindle Fire, and have been using it exclusively for reading since I bought it. There’s some really fun features and it makes it so easy to buy new books (almost too easy.) But I can’t give up the iPad, because it’s more like a mini-computer and less like a reading device. So now I have three Kindles (original, Fire HD 8.9″ and Fire HD 7″) and an original iPad. I haven’t tried the Nook–nor do I have any desire to do so, as B&N will be out of business in the next few years (again, in my opinion) but my original problem still isn’t solved.
Which is better: Kindle Fire HD or the iPad? What do you think?
Source:
http://www.jtgeissinger.com/kindle-fire-vs-ipad/