NOOK VS. FIRE
Amazon's Kindle Fire Draws Heat From New Nook: Rich Jaroslovsky
Nov. 17 (Bloomberg) -- There's a lot of heel-nipping in the tablet market these days.
Amazon.com Inc. just released the Kindle Fire, the most serious attempt yet to take on Apple Inc.'s mighty iPad 2. Meanwhile, Barnes & Noble Inc. has shipped the Nook Tablet, which in turn takes aim at Amazon.
I've tried both new devices and my conclusion is that there's no clear winner. They're both compact, capable color- screen media-consumption devices for budget-minded users who don't need all the features and functions of a full-blown tablet.
There's a lot to like about the Fire. I like the way Amazon has integrated its content services -- books, magazines, videos, music. I like how it uses the Cloud, in this case, Amazon's remote servers, to store content and make it accessible when I want it, reducing the need for a lot of storage. (The Fire only holds 8 gigabytes -- same as the base model iPod touch.)
Most of all, I like the price: $199, less than half the cheapest iPad.
When I booted up the Fire, all my previous Amazon purchases appeared automatically and Amazon made it exceedingly easy for me to add more content. I bought a couple of books, some songs and a movie for a long airplane ride. All downloaded quickly and efficiently. There's also an Amazon site with some 8,500 Amazon- approved apps, far fewer than Apple has for the iPad, but still respectable.
Prime Content
Users of Amazon's $79-a-year Prime service get access to a library of thousands of TV shows and older movies, somewhat akin to Netflix Inc.'s streaming service. The Fire comes with a one- month trial subscription.
So I like almost everything about the Kindle Fire -- except, well, the device itself.
The Fire is plain, a chunky black rectangle with a 7-inch backlit color screen. It's shorter than the Nook Tablet, a bit thicker and heavier. In action, it feels sluggish. There can be a noticeable lag when you're turning pages in an e-book or using an app.
I also had trouble with the accelerometer, the sensor that changes the view from portrait to landscape when you turn the Fire. I sometimes found myself looking at an upside-down app for several moments until the Fire sorted things out. And my loaner fell short of Amazon's claimed eight hours of battery life.
Silk Isn't Smooth
Amazon claims that its Web browser, Silk, has been optimized for speed, but in side-by-side comparisons I couldn't discern any advantage over the iPad's Safari browser. A few times the device told me it was connected to a Wi-Fi network while Silk claimed it wasn't. There's no 3G data service for the Kindle Fire, nor are there Bluetooth, a physical volume control, or a camera of any kind.
The Fire runs Google Inc.'s Android mobile-phone operating system. So does the $249 Nook Tablet, whose earlier version, the Nook Color, remains on the market with a newly lowered $199 price tag.
The Nook Tablet, like the Fire, operates only over Wi-Fi and has no camera. In other ways, though, it is the reverse of the newest Kindle. Where the Fire is physically plain, the Nook is sleek and more visually appealing. The $50 price differential buys you not only twice the memory and twice the storage of the Fire, but also longer battery life and a slot for an SD expansion card.
Smooth Scrolling
Barnes & Noble's one-year head start in developing software really shows: scrolling is smoother, the screen reorients itself faster and the device just generally feels zippier.
Where B&N falls short is exactly where Amazon shines -- in the variety of content available and how well it's integrated into the overall user experience.
Books aren't the problem. The Nook's selection is impressive and it has some nice flourishes. On-the-go parents, for instance, will appreciate not only the kid-friendliness of the Nook Tablet but also a feature that lets them record a child's favorite story in their own voice.
For many other uses, though, the Nook Tablet relies on third-party apps in place of the one-stop shopping approach of Amazon and Apple. For movies and TV shows, there's Netflix and Hulu Plus; for music, Pandora; and so on. Each requires a separate membership with its own login and, in the case of Netflix and Hulu Plus, credit card information.
Like Amazon, Barnes & Noble has its own app store that pales next to the iPad's in terms of both numbers and quality.
Ultimately, the choice between these two devices comes down to Amazon's lower price and ecosystem versus Barnes & Noble's polish and network of brick-and-mortar stores to provide in- person support. In either case, paying half what an iPad costs will require you to decide which half of the iPad experience you're willing to do without.
(Rich Jaroslovsky is a Bloomberg News columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.)
נאך איינס פון אן אנדער פלאץ
Who doesn't appreciate a good old-fashioned brawl every now and again? There may be no bigger slugfest than what is taking place this week in 7-inch touch-screen tablets as the Kindle Fire from Amazon goes toe-to-toe with the Nook Tablet from Barnes & Noble.
Personal Tech
By Edward C. Baig
Robert Deutsch, USA TODAY
In one corner is Amazon, the Internet's leading retailer and champion of traditional E-Ink type electronic readers. In the other is Barnes & Noble, which despite its own online presence and lineup of e-readers is best known for its physical bookstores.
Behind the scenes, though, lurks tablet titleholder Apple, which has to take notice of this week's activities. Amazon is unleashing a body blow against the pricing status quo by introducing Fire at $199, $50 less than the Nook Tablet and, perhaps more important, $300 less than the Apple iPad 2.
STORY: Libraries ramp up ebook lending
MORE: Ed Baig columns
Let me state upfront that neither the Fire nor Nook are as fully featured as the iPad 2 with its near 10-inch display. You won't find a camera on either device, which is only a big deal if you have designs on doing video chat. There's no Bluetooth or GPS either. Both Fire and Nook have far fewer apps than the iPad. The software isn't as fluid. And without 3G or 4G cellular, your connectivity options are limited to Wi-Fi.
Still, many buyers won't give a hoot about any of this — especially if what you have in mind for a tablet is reading (traditional strengths for Amazon and Barnes & Noble), music, movies, TV shows, browsing (including Adobe Flash sites) and playing casual games and checking e-mail. Despite some shortcomings I found both tablets appealing in my tests.
The fight between the companies largely comes down to which ecosystem you want to buy into, because books you purchase from one provider are not compatible with the other. Amazon has a major advantage because of its vast digital offerings. Unlike its rival, Amazon has built-in music and movie stores, the latter providing 48-hour rentals along with sales options. If you subscribe to the $79 a year Amazon Prime service, you can freely stream more than 10,000 movies and TV shows and also borrow a Kindle book without due dates each month. Fire buyers can try Prime for free for a month. (As part of Prime, you also get two-day free shipping on products ordered through Amazon).
On Nook Tablet, Barnes & Noble is pushing available apps from the likes of Netflix, Hulu Plus and Pandora, but such apps are also available to Fire owners.
Where Barnes & Noble does have a bragging chip is in extra onboard storage—16 gigabytes vs. 8GB. Plus, through a microSD slot, you can add up to 32GB extra on Nook Tablet. The advantage is meaningful to a point.
Amazon counters that all the digital media you purchase through the company — apps, music, videos, and, of course, books— are held in the cloud for free. That's fine if you use Fire in a place that has Wi-Fi, but you'll have to make choices about what to download onto the device if you are traveling and will be beyond reach of an Internet connection for an extended spell.
Still, it was a pleasure to turn on Kindle Fire for the first time and have access to all the music I had previously stored on Amazon Cloud Drive, including songs that originally resided in iTunes.
You can stash either paperback-sized tablet in your jeans or jacket pockets, a bit more easily with the shorter and slightly less wide Kindle Fire. At 14.6 ounces vs. 14.1 ounces, the Fire is a tiny bit heavier, though.
Both devices have impressive high-resolution (1024 by 600, 16 million colors) screens indoors with excellent viewing angles. Video looked good. But they're difficult to make out in sunshine. The Fire screen appeared to be more reflective.
Amazon's tablet bears a strong resemblance to BlackBerry PlayBook, but that's where that comparison ceases. Judging by early sales, it will be infinitely more popular than Research In Motion's tablet. The only physical button on Kindle Fire is a power button that is in a bad spot on the bottom of the device. I accidently turned the thing off a couple of times as I rested it on a table.
Meanwhile, Nook Tablet looks just like its predecessor Nook Color, which remains in the Barnes & Noble lineup. The familiar "n" button you press gives you a simple a way to return to your home screen, library, or device settings, or to shop, search or access a Web browser.
How apps stack up
Both Nook and Fire run on top of the Gingerbread version of Google's Android operating system. But for apps, you visit proprietary Amazon or Barnes & Noble stores, not the Android Market emporium found on other Android tablets. Amazon says it currently has more than 8,500 apps for Fire; the total is expected to go north of 10,000 within a few weeks. Barnes & Noble says it has more than 1,000 apps and will have "thousands" by year's end. Either way, it's way fewer than Apple has or for that matter what's in the Android Market.
It's a matter of personal preference and a close call, but I'd choose the Amazon home interface. I liked how the search box resided at the top of the screen, just above menu headings (Newsstand, Books, Music, Video, Docs, App and Web). Just below, you can flip through web pages, apps, album covers, and books via a carousel interface that reminds you of Apple's Cover Flow. You can park favorites at the bottom of the screen.
But I wished there was a physical equivalent like the "n" button on Nook Tablet.
At times the Fire screen was slow to respond to my taps and a little sluggish. Onscreen navigational controls didn't always appear immediately, especially inside third-party apps. I sometimes had to tap the screen and sometimes swipe up.
Amazon has made a big deal about its new Silk browser technology that taps into Amazon's cloud services to boost performance. The browser is supposed to get faster as it learns from the collective browsing behavior of Fire users. It's probably too soon for that to kick in, but for what it's worth I didn't experience anything approaching extraordinary speeds using the browser at this stage.
As the first color Kindle, children's books come alive as never before on an Amazon reader, a nice plus for parents. Children's books had already been an area on strength on the Nook Color device and on the iPad. Both companies sell children's books with read-aloud features. Barnes & Noble has introduced a clever feature that lets Mom and Dad or Grandma and Grandpa record their own voice reading a kid's story. The Kindle Fire lacks a microphone for this or any other purpose.
Amazon provides a couple of ways to read magazines on Fire, a page view that mimics the experience of reading an actual magazine and a text view that makes the type larger, plainer and easier to read at the cost of the original layout.
I found it easier to read magazines on the Nook, though in some cases I could read mags in both portrait and landscape views while in other cases I could only read in portrait.
Another Nook plus: free support in Barnes & Noble stores.
I didn't do a formal battery test on either device—Barnes & Noble says you'll get up to 11 ½ hours on Nook Tablet, Amazon says you'll get up to 8 on Fire. The claims seemed in line based on my usage. Of course, while Nook Tablet and Kindle Fire battery life is measured in hours and minutes, the battery life on the company's respective E Ink devices is measured in weeks if not a month or more.
I wouldn't elevate the Kindle Fire or Nook Tablet to knockout status just yet, but they are solid and appealing. I'd give a split decision to Amazon because of a lower price and all its content. But by taking the fight to Apple, and each other, Barnes & Noble and Amazon have produced an ultimate winner, the consumer.
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The bottom line
Amazon
Kindle Fire
$199, http://www.amazon.com
•Pro. Excellent price. Nice screen. Vast content available, includes built-in music and movie stores. Free cloud storage for Amazon content.
•Con. A little sluggish. Modest onboard storage. No microphone, camera or 3G.
Barnes & Noble Nook Tablet
$249, http://www.barnes andnoble.com
•Pro. Good price. Nice screen. Expandable storage. Free in-store retail support. Ability to record your voice reading kids' books. Interactive kids books.
•Con. Fewer apps. No built-in movie or music store. No camera or 3G.