On the second day of Christmas My Truelove sent to me
THE KINDLE FIRE this Christmas retains its firepower which comes from its $50 (US) price tag but it has lost its Kindleing which started the fire.
Bad pun aside, we don’t have to worry our pretty little heads about why the Amazonians have dropped the Kindle attachment to what is now the Fire tablet. This raises interesting semantic and philosophical questions. Does the 5th generation Kindle Fire become the 1st generation (Unkindled ) Fire tablet? BTW the 1st-gen Kindle Fire cost $199 so the price has tumbled since its birth in November 2011.
Bad pun aside, we don’t have to worry our pretty little heads about why the Amazonians have dropped the Kindle attachment to what is now the Fire tablet. This raises interesting semantic and philosophical questions. Does the 5th generation Kindle Fire become the 1st generation (Unkindled ) Fire tablet? BTW the 1st-gen Kindle Fire cost $199 so the price has tumbled since its birth in November 2011.
I suspect the unKindleing marketers are trying to 1) redefine the product as a tablet not just an eReader and 2) position themselves as a genuine competitor to the iPad and its little sibling the iPad mini.
Of course, Samsung would object that they are a handy competitor to the iPad as well. We can buy the Samsung Galaxy Tab 4 7-inch online for $128.94 (USD, I think) and it does ship to Australia. There 4000+ reviews to choose from.
Read reviews of the Fire HD 10, 10.1"
Bigger Fires retail for significantly higher than the standard 7” model. Top of the range is the Fire HD 10, 10.1" which is now on sale for $229.99.
I am not sure why I put up the above picture of the Fire 10 because on screen it looks like the 7” but, of course, it has a lot more whizz-bangery. Maybe it was to point out the Kindle 10 has 1900 reviews (for many products a worthy number) compared to more than 70,000 for the 7”. This shows the $50 price tag is the anchor of the Fire’s success.
It is part of mythology that Kindle prices the standard Fire so low because it is connected to the Kindle entertainment store. In other words the message not the medium is making the moola.
For one of the best commercial communicators in the world. Amazon is tight-lipped on the fiscal side of its operations. For all we know Amazon is doing nicely out of its Fire 7” while millions of buyers cannot believe their good fortune in snaring such a bargain.
However the Fire 7" at $50 does seem something of a loss leader aimed at the US market lucrative for Amazon in its purchases of entertainment products. The Fire does not ship to my island home of Australia. Australia’s official Fire retailer Dick Smith is not selling any and Amazon Oz will sell me a HD Wi-Fi Fire 7” for $168.97 USD which is $230 in Aussie currency. This summarises why the Kindle Fire at $50 USD is indeed a bargain for those who can acquire one at that price.
TV Firestick garners thousands of reviews
Amazon does send to me the Fire TV Stick for $39.99. It plugs into a TV HDMI port. You can find out how well it works by sampling some of the 76,000+ reviews. That must be about the same number of reviews my novel Iraqi Icicle has by now and it also ships around the world. That sounds like a fantastic Christmas present to me.
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