Apple may face stiff competition with new Kindle Fire
Photo submitted by MCT Campus.
November 3, 2011
Amazon’s Kindle Fire, the newest tablet e-reader announced last month, will look to compete with other tablets like the iPad 2 when it releases Nov. 18.
At just $199, the Kindle Fire will cost much less than Apple’s lowest-end iPad, which sells for $499.
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The tablet, which has a seven inch color display, will offer access to over 18 million movies, TV shows, songs, apps, games, books and magazines. It will also offer free storage space using Amazon Cloud, according to an Amazon press release.
Murali Shanker, professor of management and information systems, said he believes the low price will help it compete in a tablet market currently dominated by Apple.
“The Apple ecosystem is really very strong, and one of the ways to unseat them is price-point,” Shanker said. “Two hundred dollars is a really effective price-point. People already use Amazon a lot. To tie it in with some good services, there’s a good chance.”
Shanker, who owns a Nook e-reader, said his tablet does everything he needs it to do, and this has made his laptop unnecessary in most cases.
“To be honest, I never even pull out my laptop anymore,” Shanker said.
Amazon’s new tablet could also help students who are looking to consolidate all of their college textbooks into one small device.
Andy Crescencio, freshman technology major, said that the convenience of having his textbooks on an e-reader like the Kindle Fire would be beneficial.
“It’s more convenient to carry one tablet with all your textbooks loaded onto it, rather than carry a whole backpack with all of your textbooks,” Crescencio said. “For me personally, I would rather scroll down a page or touch a button to turn a page as opposed to switching the page and holding the book open manually.”
Lucas Wickiser, sophomore communication studies major, paid $400 for his laptop and said being a college student not made of money, the Kindle Fire at $199, would be in his price range.
“I would surf the web, use Facebook, get online assignments done and stuff like that,” Wickiser said. “I would basically replace this laptop I have with the Kindle, and it would probably have some added benefits that I can’t get with my laptop.”
Contact Evan Graening at [email protected].
