Tech specs of the new Amazon Kindle Fire tablet vs Apple iPad 2 in an infographic
By Enrique Serrano.
Compact and useful, tablet computers are moving from being just eye-catching gadgets to productivity tools. Nowadays it isn’t strange to find tablets in the workplace, as even judges use iPads. Twenty percent of U.S. lawyers already use a tablet device, and 96 percent of them are iPads, as the ABA Legal Technology Survey concluded. Other tablet devices, like the HP TouchPad, have had a hard time competing.
But now there’s a new contender in the landscape of tablet computers. Amazon is presenting a new tablet device, Amazon Kindle Fire. In the next infographic, we take an in-depth look at the tech specs of the new Amazon Kindle Fire tablet and compare them with the Apple iPad 2 specs, to determine if there is a place for the Amazon tablets in a professional environment (Affiliate links included)
Amazon Kindle Fire tech specs vs. iPad 2 tech specs
The key points of the comparison between the Amazon Kindle Fire and Apple iPad are as follows:
- The measures of the Kindle Fire are 4.72 x 7.48 x 0.45 inches while the measures of the iPad 2 are 7.31 x 9.50 x 0.34 inches. That means that even when the iPad is slightly thinner (0.11 inches), the Amazon Kindle Fire tablet is considerably smaller than the iPad 2. It has been designed to be easily held with just one hand.
- Consequently, the Kindle Fire is much lighter than an Apple iPad. Amazon’s tablet is a 45 percent lighter than the new iPad 2 — a difference of 0.43 pounds or 188 grams.
- Nevertheless, the advantage of the smaller size in the Kindle Fire is also a drawback, as the size of the color screen in the Amazon Kindle Fire tablet is only 7.1 inches measured in diagonal with a screen resolution of 1024 x 600 pixels. Reading text in the bigger iPad 2 screen of 9.7 inches with higher screen resolution (1024 x 768) and larger pixel size would probably be less demanding on your eyes. Both devices have multi-touch screen input support.
- Kindle Fire and Apple iPad use flash memory to store data. There are three different iPad models with 16, 32 and 64 GB of storage available. The Kindle Fire only has a single model available with 8 GB of storage which cannot be expanded. Nevertheless, Amazon offers unlimited Amazon Cloud storage for Kindle Fire users so memory shouldn’t be a problem as long as you had a network connection available.
- Both Apple iPad 2 and Kindle Fire have dual-core CPUs, with 1 GHz clock speed. The Apple A5 processor on the iPad could have some higher performance than the Texas Instruments OMAP4 processor on the Kindle Fire, but we would need to confirm this after the first Kindle Fires are released. The amount of RAM memory is identical on both devices, 512 MB.
- Amazon Kindle Fire has no camera or microphone so it is impossible to use it to take pictures, record video or video conference. All of these functions are available on the iPad 2 which is equipped with a mic and 2 cameras: a front VGA camera for video conferences and a high-resolution camera on the back.
- Amazon Kindle Fire doesn’t have cell phone network support (GSM, 3G or 2G,) while some iPad versions do have such mobile connectivity. Both the Kindle Fire and the iPad have WiFi and Bluetooth networks. The Kindle Fire lacks GPS which will make impossible to use navigation or services depending on fine geolocation.
- The battery life of the Kindle Fire is expected to be around eight hours while reading but the iPad claims to work up to 10 hours without needing to be recharged. So that means that the battery of the iPad lasts 2 hours longer than the battery of the Kindle Fire.
- Amazon Kindle Fire will have a Web browser named Silk. Unlike the iPad web browser, Silk will have Flash support. But the most important feature of Kindle’s Silk browser is cloud-based technology that leaves most processing to the Amazon cloud, reducing the number of requests to fetch a Web page and speeding the browsing process up to 20 times faster than the standard Web browsing speed.
- The iPad runs iOS. The Kindle Fire runs Android under a custom Amazon interface that ties it with Amazon’s shopping and entertainment services which features 18 million movies, tv shows, songs, magazines and e-books. Although the Kindle Fire will be shipped with access to Amazon’s own App Store, its users won’t have access to Google’s Android Market from their Kindle Fire devices, as Amazon announced. This significantly cuts the number of available apps for Kindle Fire to a few thousands while Apple App Store offers around 425,000 apps that can run on an iPad (with more than 90,000 iPad-optimized apps amongst them.)
- The iPad is available in 64 countries. The Amazon Kindle Fire will only be initially available in the U.S. The release date of the Kindle Fire tablet is officially set for November 15.
- The price of an Amazon Kindle Fire tablet will be $199 and they can already be preordered at Amazon. The cost of the Kindle Fire tablet is definitely an advantage, as the less expensive iPad 2 model starts at a price of $499. So it is possible to buy 2 (and a half) Kindle Fire tablets for the price of a single iPad 2.
Conclusions of the Kindle Fire vs. iPad Comparison
Overall, Amazon seems to be introducing a powerful tablet with interesting features at a competitive price that is very well tied to Amazon’s services. But the smaller screen and smaller app catalog of the Amazon Kindle Fire are probably directing this gadget more towards a non-professional usage. So, unlike the iPad, Amazon Kindle Fire will probably be less used at work on enterprise environments. Nevertheless, its attractive price might make it worth considering for entertainment, reading and Web browsing.
Have you already tried a new Amazon Kindle Fire tablet, or are you considering to buy a new one as soon as they are officially released? Would you rather choose an iPad instead?
Also in Lawyer Tech Review:
As a side note, the Amazon Kindle Fire also has a built-in accelerometer, a gyroscope and an ambient light sensor. The iPad 2 has all these types of sensors too.
“As a side note, the Amazon Kindle Fire also has a built-in accelerometer, a gyroscope and an ambient light sensor.”
I believe that statement is wrong on all three counts,
Hi, Ward.
We were unable to get an official reply from Amazon to confirm that so far. However, it seems like the most probable scenario, and we will keep an eye on that to keep those specifications updated as soon as more official Kindle Fire Data are published, or as soon as we get our hands on that new tablet.
In the demo videos that were published about the Amazon Kindle Fire we can already see that the Fire tablet has some tilt sensitivity (at least, to change the orientation of its screen.) If the Kindle Fire will have a gyroscope with a precise 3-axis system is yet to be confirmed.
Also, in the featured lineup of Android games available for Kindle Fire, Amazon is already including games that would need accelerometer or gyroscope features, like Doodle Jump. I really doubt that they would be promoting this game if they didn’t have accelerometers or gyroscopes on the Kindle Fire, since the only-tap version isn’t as successful as the full, motion and tilt sensitive versions of such game.
I also didn’t see any notes about ports. While Ipad2 has just one power and access port, With an apple headphone jack. I believe the Fire has headphone jack, USB2.
Can you get comparison updates on this?
You’re right about the ports. I’ve confirmed the information by checking the specs provided by Amazon, and they state that the Kindle Fire will have a USB 2.0 port (with a micro-B connector.) On audio ports, the Kindle Fire will have a 3.5 mm stereo jack.
The info is wrong in one respect. According to Amazon, the battery life is up to 8 hours of continuous reading with wireless off [which means, not browsing]. It’s 7.5 hours of video playback. With wireless, it will be significantly less. (link)
Still, nice information.
Hi, Scott.
You’re right about that. Offline reading is not the same as (Web) browsing on Amazon Kindle Fire. Wireless network usage will decrease battery life on the Kindle Fire.
So the Amazon Kindle Fire lasts 8 hours reading and 7.5 hours watching video (with wireless off) while the iPad supports up to 10 hours of Web browsing using Wi-Fi, watching video or listening to music. And up to 9 hours of Web browsing using 3G.
After reading your comparison, I noted a couple of things. Your graphic accurately represents the comparative weight difference between devices, the iPad is 45% heavier than the Fire, however, you erroneously claim in the article that the Fire is 45% lighter than the iPad. Were this the case, the Fire would need to weigh 330g or the iPad, 750g. Neither is true.
I also noted that weight was the only metric that was fractionally compared. It, too, is the only one in which the Fire seems to have an advantage. However, when comparing the actual screen area, we notice that the 45% heavier iPad actually has 105% more screen area. Your graphical representation in this area IS accurate, but the article would be far more equitable, had these metrics also been stated in the same manner as weight was, i.e. comparatively, using percentage.
You also mention the amount of video media available on the Fire as one of its advantages. This may be true, but I for one would enjoy watching a TV show or movie far more on the 9.7” iPad than the 7” Fire. Sometimes SIZE does matter.
I believe that the Fire is an interesting alternative to the Ipad, and that it will be a better choice for many users, however, when comparing the two, I feel it is important to be impartial, and to highlight the advantages of each, to allow the consumer to make their own decision.
Hi, Chris.
Thank you for clarifying that and for pointing out such interesting percentual stat.
To remove any ambiguity, let’s say that in the weight comparison between the Kindle Fire and the iPad, all weight percentage data were calculated in respect to the Kindle Fire’s weight, and that’s the sense in which they were intended to be mentioned on the following review. We used percentage when comparing weights as a way to get an easier, relative idea of how much they weighed; we considered that actually depicting a proportional image of such a visual magnitude as the screen area would illustrate that concept clearly (although we really find the 105% more screen area on the iPad than on the Kindle Fire an interesting stat.) We used the same approaches when comparing the specs of the HP TouchPad vs. iPad.
The infographic itself contains no opinions about the Kindle Fire or the iPad, but just objective specification data of both tablets, as our opinions were expressed in the following review. As you can read in such article, we also agree about the advantages of the bigger screen size of the iPad when compared with the screen size of Amazon Kindle Fire. In our opinion, the weight of the Kindle Fire is not its only advantage. And we didn’t point the 8 million media available for Kindle Fire as one of its advantages, even when I would agree with your reading on that. According to the data on the infographic I would say that the main advantage of the Kindle Fire over the iPad is its price. The speed of the Amazon cloud-based Silk browser of the Kindle Fire still needs to be tested, but it sounds as a promising Kindle Fire feature. Anyway, we think that for business oriented purposes the iPad would be a better choice, but we also agree that the Kindle Fire can still find its place in the market, mostly for entertainment purposes at a very competitive price.