Before you think of getting a Kindle twinkle …err…Fire, here’s some limitations of it that you need to consider:
-
Kindle Fire doesn’t have microSD slot that, for example, Nook Color has
thus it is stuck with 6 GB usable internal storage unlike Nook Color
that can get up to 32 GB card in. Kindles are made to be almost like a
“dumb terminal” of the past to make sure you’re tied up to Amazon’s
storage on the web (for which you need Wi-Fi connection to get to) and
you can only store content you get from Amazon there, not other files.
Quoting Amazon on Kindle Fire: “Free cloud storage for all Amazon
content”. Get it, Amazon content?
- The stats of how long the battery
can last (Kindle Fire theory is 8 hours) are taken with Wi-Fi off. You
can only imaging how much less Kindle Fire battery will last if you use
it to access content from their Cloud storage over Wi-Fi.
- Amazon can spy on your web activity through their new cloud-integrated web browser of Kindle Fire.
-
VERY IMPORTANT – lack of microSD slot means that if you decide to root
your Kindle Fire, you’ll have to root the actual device thus there will
be no coming back. On Nook Color, you can make it boot from a “rooted”
microSD card and if you want to get back to the original Nook you can
just take out the card and reboot.
- Kindle doesn’t support eBooks in ePub format that is the most used format in the world.
-
Kindle app store contains only Amazon approved apps and it does not
include (and will not include) Netflix app that iPad has and Nook Color
is getting thus again you’re stuck with Amazon content only.
- Amazon confirmed that you cannot download anything to Kindle Fire when traveling abroad.
I’d recommend waiting for a couple of weeks as Nook Color 2 is rumored to be released by Barnes & Noble.