Let me start off by saying that I am a firm Amazon.com fan-boy. I love using their services and signed up with Amazon Prime to get the benefits ($79 / year):
– Free 2 day shipping on any product
– Instant video streaming on thousands of movies
– The ability to borrow a book on my regular Kindle for FREE
So naturally, I looked at the Kindle Fire as a good way to consume all the free services I get with my Amazon prime subscription. But I’ll tell you in a few bullet points why I will not be buying one:
- No hardware volume button: I have to go through menus to turn the volume up or down? Come on now…what if I get a phone call while listening to content? How do I shut the thing up to take my call quickly?
- No Google Apps: Amazon, you based this thing on Android, but you completely cut out the good stuff that Google makes available? ?>##!@#!@#!@# Why? I’m a fan of your products but also that of Google. You could get a much wider ecosystem if you kept things like Gmail and other Google services in-play.
- I don’t want to read on a regular tablet screen: Your e-ink screen on the normal Kindle is much easier on the eyes.
Not a bad first try Amazon, but you need to do better. For now, I won’t be buying the Fire, even if it is subsidized for an extremely low cost by your services!