I just received my Kindle Fire. It's in this box. Just to be clear, this Fire is my Fire: it's money out of my own pocket. This isn't a unit Amazon gave DVICE for review.
Like many, I tossed my name in early for a Kindle Fire pre-order. I was at the unveiling, and got just as excited by the prospect of a $200 tablet as anyone else. That's an amazing price point (and one that's punishing Amazon, at least up front), and even now the temptation is there to tear open this box and play with Fire.
But I won't. By the time you read this, the Fire will already be on its way back to Amazon's returns department.
So, what's the deal? Amazon didn't do anything to earn my ire. It wasn't the damning reviews that turned me off. I'm even already tied to Amazon's ecosystem, and an ecosystem is pretty much why you'd want a tablet. I'm an Amazon Prime member, and I use the Kindle app almost daily on my commute to work. (While standing in a subway car, mind you — not while driving.)
After some thinking, I've realized that my relationship with Fire is more complicated than that.
Saying No to Tablets
When the iPad first hit, it was clear that if any product was going to be able to make tablets relevant — not to mention an actual market — it was going to be Apple's offering. Still, even then, faced with that "magical" product, I didn't buy in. Where would a tablet fit into my life?I have a Droid Charge with its generous 4.3-inch screen in my pocket, a 13-inch MacBook Air for work and travel, a desktop PC I cobbled together myself for everything else, and an Xbox 360 that handles both my console gaming and Netflix needs. I suppose the Kindle Fire's 7-inch screen slides it into a specific slot amongst my pantheon of gadgetry between phone and laptop, but the how I'd use it is what's not coming together.
To listen to music? I don't need an MP3 player that doesn't fit in my pocket. Video? If I'm at home, there's my PC and Xbox-fueled television. Anywhere else and I'd use my laptop, and, considering I spend half my in New York City time underground, there isn't a lot of time to stream things while on the go. For reading books, too, I do that on my phone or with a dead tree device — the 4.3-inch screen of the Charge and Amazon's excellent Kindle app that you can get for pretty much any platform make a comfortable pairing.
There's almost no scenario I can imagine where a tablet would plug into my life in any meaningful way. I could just use my phone or laptop or desktop, and the experience would probably be better to boot.
All The Things I Could Buy Instead
I'm not going to tell you the Fire isn't worth $200. It was clearly in impulse buy territory for me at that price. Still, you can do a lot with $200, especially considering the two craziest discount days of the year are right around the corner.I've been looking to buy a nicer lens or a flash for my camera, for instance — $200 could get me started there. Maybe I could pick up a PS3, or bump up my PC's graphics card now that Skyrim is testing its limits. I've also had the same HDTV for well over five years now. $200 could go toward a new one of those.
I'll be the first to admit that I'm probably a more deliberate gadget purchaser than most tech reporters out there. The point is, it's hard to justify a tablet as anything more than a toy. $200 was enough to snag my interest initially, but not enough to make me take the plunge.
To Amazon's credit, the company made it super easy for me to return the Fire with only a few clicks on its website. It's also worth mentioning, since we brought up Wired's review, that the Fire currently has a four star rating on Amazon after over 500 customer reviews.
When you get right down to it, though, there still isn't a tablet out there that's right for someone like me. It would have been so easy to just tear open that package, too.
What Do You Think?
I'm not saying everyone who bought a Kindle Fire should return it. This isn't even a knock on the Fire itself.I've laid out the gadgets I use and find vital here. Maybe you're less a smartphone or an option to stream video effectively. Do tablets fit into your world in a meaningful way? Don't they? Let me know down below.
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