News this week about Amazon’s Kindle Fire tablet device shipping earlier than expected in the US has caused a stir on the internet. Many technology commentators have said this device offers some serious competition to the iPad 2. With all this hype flying around, we here at Elysium thought we’d better give you the lowdown on the ‘next big thing’.

 

First off it’s worth noting that the Kindle Fire isn’t a revolutionary tablet device – that accolade was taken by the iPad, followed by the iPad 2. However the Kindle Fire is actually a very important product for Amazon that brings together its popular services (store, movies and eBooks etc) and showcases them all in a solid piece of hardware with an easy-to-understand interface, at a game changing price. It’s the price that’s most revolutionary.

 

All Singing, All Dancing

 

Fitted with a 16-million colour, Gorilla Glass, 1024 x 600 resolution 7 inch LCD touchscreen that’s a higher density than those found on iPad 2’s – so the beauty is very much in the display. It’s not got as much on-board memory storage, only 6 GB in fact, but as Amazon likes to put it – ‘most of your stuff will be in the cloud’. Ahhh the trusty ‘cloud’.

 

As mentioned above, the price is the biggest factor here – the Kindle Fire will be available for $199 – no other tablet with a similar spec comes close to this offering. There are other options out there that will perform better, but usually at two or three times the cost and without the seduction of the vast Amazon content store at your fingertips. If you were to do some rough maths with exchange rates now you’d be looking at around the £125 mark plus any delivery costs. That’s less than a third of the price for the lowest spec iPad 2.

 

Please Release Me

 

No date has been set for availability in the UK yet so it’s purely a US thing for the moment. If you really want one you’d better get a telephone call/Facebook message/Tweet out to the relatives over on stateside telling them to bag you one of these this autumn.

 

Overall the Kindle Fire is a great piece of kit, especially for the price. There are other bigger tablets that have more features and a larger screen, but these also cost two to three times more. If you’ve already got an iPad 2 then there is little point in getting this one too. However if you’re in the market for a tablet at extremely good value for money, the Kindle Fire is definitely something you’d want to get your hands on at an extremely competitive price.

 

UK Availability: TBC

UK RRP: TBC