Tablet Trouble
As of today, the new Nook Tablet from Barnes and Noble and Amazon’s tablet the Kindle Fire are available in stores. Except, as far as this Nook user is concerned, there’s only one worth buying.
Both the Android tablets have longer battery life and flash video watching capability. The Nook Tablet comes installed with Netflix and Hulu. Yet, while the Nook Tablet has potentially more storage when you include the potential memory card (48GB), Amazon’s Fire offers much more in terms of design, service, and price.
The Fire’s new design is a complete overhaul from it’s previous model’s look, whereas, the Nook Tablet resembles much of its predecessor the Nook Color. Add that to the fact the Fire comes with Amazon’s already burgeoning app store, movie collection, digital library, and a cloud service allowing you to access your files anywhere, and the Nook’s developing app store begins to look negligible. In addition, the Fire ($199) is a good $50 cheaper than its rival.
However, what seems to be the consensus on the blogosphere is that neither of these Android tablets are anything we haven’t seen before. Actually, the point that makes the Android’s operating system so valuable to the user is the Android marketplace, which isn’t offered on either. Unless, that is, you want to attempt to hack your Kindle Fire, you’re stuck with what each provider offers.
What is interesting is the effect these two soon-to-be popular holiday gifts will have on the elite $500-and-up iPad 2. There is no doubt Apple will milk every penny out of the iPad possible, but take a look at some other Apple products fiscal history.
When the iPhone first debuted in the summer of 2007 the retail price for the cheapest 4GB version was $499 ($599 for 8GB!). Now one can get simplest iPhone 3GS 8GB version for $50 with a 2-year contract. The Macbook Air, which runs the same flash operating system as the iPad and iPhone, first retailed between $1,800 and $3000. It is now sitting at $999.
Of course, these are the woes that come with technology as Chad so nicely explained in his last post.
Except, couple this information with the notion that most other PC makers like Dell, Hewlett-Packard, HP, and Acer plan to slowly pull out of the tablet market by next year and the future of the tablet looks a lot fuzzier. Then consider rumors from those in the industry claiming Barnes and Noble and Amazon will offer their devices free as springboards for their content, according to Applieinsider.com, and one might wonder why they considered buying a tablet in the first place.
Personally, coming from someone who believes that students will be doing the majority of their reading off tablets in the near future – just wait. If you already have an eReader or tablet like myself, upgrading to one of these tablets won’t give you a leg up over your PC or laptop. But, if you still want an eReader, one of the more basic models of the Nook and Kindle should suffice until these tablet industry suppositions become reality.
Or go ahead, buy a tablet. Just don’t end up like this kid.
