Amazon sent a wave crashing through the mobile industry when it announced that its Android based tablet, the Kindle Fire, would land with a price of $199. Its custom UI looked good, Amazon promised tons of available apps and media content, and it seemed poised to steal some thunder from even Apple's vaunted iPad 2, which costs more than twice as much.

And now it's here. Do the expectations mesh with the reality of the device, now that we've been using it? Yes and no. It's still likely the best value in a tablet on the market, and will make tablet computing accessible to many people that either couldn't afford Apple's iPads or couldn't tolerate Android Honeycomb based tablets.While somewhat restricted compared to other Android tablets when it comes to apps and content providers, nobody can argue that Amazon doesn't provide a great self-contained ecosystem. Amazon's streaming services, books and other "print" media offerings, and Appstore - all backed by its cloud storage - give users plenty of opportunities to find stuff to purchase and pass the hours with.



Link: Techspot