Hacker News Reader

> Also, it's disingenuous. Of course a 7" "tablet" is cheaper than Apple's 10" tablet. Film at 11.

It isn't obvious that the screen size is really the sticking point on price for tablets. The iPod touch retails for $229 and is much smaller than 7".

They are just comparing tablet products. If Apple had a 7" iPad and Amazon were comparing their prices to a 10" iPad, then it would be disingenuous. As it is, Apple only has a 10" tablet, so that is really the only comparison that can be made on price.

I disagree. Every time Amazon gets a sentence printed that says the Amazon table is $300 cheaper than the iPad, they win. They want to have them be mentioned in the same comparison, because that encourages the consumer to think "do I really need $300 more of tablet?"

This is precisely what you want the consumer thinking, and it's amazing that a simple fact like that eluded the likes of Samsung, etc.

? How does this relate to Samsung? Their related phone and tablet devices are priced nearly identically to Apple's offerings with nearly identical specs.

In the minds of most people, Apple is sexy. They make stylish products that are easy to use. They have sexy stores and enjoyable ads on TV. The high price makes them status symbols. They are massively entrenched and can take advantage of network effects ("all my friends are ipad owners and they love it").

In the face of that, the only rational area to compete in is offering a functionally similar product at a much lower price. But instead of attacking from below and, as the OP said, making consumers question the price tag, Samsung chose to attack from above by matching specs and price point. Riskier move that has now spectacularly failed.

>Riskier move that has now spectacularly failed.

Samsung's sales figures beg to differ. In an extreme, extreme way.

Yes, it's selling, but...

http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2011/01/31/samsung-galaxy-tab-sa...

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2392422,00.asp

And that's not even considering the patent mess that has killed the product in Europe.

The articles are about Samsung's first, 7", Froyo based tab. The 10.1 and 8.9 Honeycomb tabs are selling so well, that they are nowhere in stock (you are given about week delivery time on order). And yes, that's in Europe, German judges have jurisdiction only in Germany, nowhere else.

How would Samsung fight on price here? Amazon is using the Fire as a loss leader. They very likely lose money on every sale. But they make it up on extra Amazon conversions. What would Samsung make up their losses on?

sdks and a cut from app sales via a samsung app store. ???

I think it's a little bit misleading. You can interpret those statements as an attempt to steal iPad's customers or you can interpret those statements as an attempt to attract a new market of consumers that would never buy an iPad because of the price. I like to think it's the latter more than the former.

To say this is to ignore the well-established history of retail upselling.

When someone walks into a Best Buy and tells a salesperson "I want to spend $600 on a TV" the standard practice is to show them what they get for $600 and then you show them what more you get if you spend just a bit extra. People often walk out of these stores spending more than intended.

By linking the Fire with the iPad, Amazon is (IMHO) making the same mistake. A consumer will look at the Fire and if the iPad is then on their mind they'll look at it and see what that extra gets them. Not everyone will buy an iPad but some will when they see it plays games, has a richer app experience, has a larger display and so on.

What Apple has mastered is aspirational purchasing. People want to own Apple products. The last thing you should do is remind your potential customers that your product is an inferior (albeit cheaper) version.

Amazon has done one thing right: they haven't created an iPad clone. Don't then lose that advantage by making comparisons.

See what's going to happen is in 6 months there'll quite likely be 9" and/or 10" Fires. They won't be $300 cheaper than the (then) iPad 3. This is where your earlier comparisons come back to haunt you.

> Not everyone will buy an iPad but some will when they see it plays games, has a richer app experience, has a larger display and so on.

The kindle fire can play games and has a rich app experience thanks to android. The only thing the ipad has going for it is the larger display. Time will tell if people care about that.

"The only thing the ipad has going for it is the larger display."

There are a few other key, and important differences other than screen size.

  o IOS 4 (and soon 5) - Lots of pre-existing premium apps.
  o 8 Gigabytes Flash vs 16 Gigabytes.  (I was surprised to see no SD card capability on the Fire.  That sucks.  I have a 64 GB iPad, and the extra flash makes a difference on long trips when you are watching videos)
  o Video/Camera capability on iPad
  o 10 Hours Battery on iPad vs 8 Hours on Fire

For a media consumption device that will be used on airplanes, the 20% less battery life (or 25% more on the iPad), and the limited 8 Gigabytes of memory is unfortunate. It's a nice first attempt, but for anyone with the extra money, I think the iPad still offers the better value play - and clearly is the higher quality offering.

See: http://gizmodo.com/5844648/how-does-the-amazon-kindle-fire-t...

> IOS 4 (and soon 5) - Lots of pre-existing premium apps.

Android has tons of premium apps too.

> 8 Gigabytes Flash vs 16 Gigabytes.

The Kindle stores everything in the cloud for free.

> Video/Camera capability on iPad > 10 Hours Battery on iPad vs 8 Hours on Fire

I see everyone saying here that people don't care about features, they only care about the content, this is why previous Android tablets failed despite having more features than the iPad. Again, I think only time will tell.

> It's a nice first attempt, but for anyone with the extra money, I think the iPad still offers the better value play

But it's $300 more expensive, that's a huge difference for the regular customer. And as I explained, the difference in features isn't that perceivable for non-techies except for the size.

> Android has tons of premium apps too

Kindle Fire is built off the Android 2.1 phone OS and lacks the speed improvements of 2.2 and 2.3, as well as the tablet interface elements added in 3.X. I would hesitate to call the compatible Apps in the Amazon Appstore "premium" for those reasons. Games will work comparably, but for anything else people there is distinct difference.

> and me having just bought a Kindle like 2-3 months ago, grrr

I wouldn't be annoyed, the Kindle you have has a battery that lasts twice as long as the new Kindle, and it has a proper keyboard. The only plus for the new Kindle is it's a bit lighter.

And Amazon knows that. They will still be selling the 'old' Kindle at the current price.

Agreed. The 'normal' Kindle is a fantastic little device, the battery life being one of the many reasons why I don't feel the new Fire supercedes it in any way.

> and it has a proper keyboard

This is my favorite feature of the kindle.

Before I used to read technical books in bed and I wasn't sure how much I was actually getting out of them. With the kindle I can make notes as I go and then review the notes later.

I find I'm retaining a whole lot more with the note taking ability of the kindle than I do by just reading a book in bed.

I've tried to use the iPad keyboard on the kindle app but it's just much slower.

I wouldn't give up the physical keyboard for anything.

Sleeker, too. As someone with a 2nd gen Kindle, let me tell you the smaller, slimmer 3rd gen Kindles have haunted me for some time. When they are already this small, shaving off an inch is a big difference.

> I'd strongly suggest, they should stop making statements like this:

I think that statement is more about positioning the Kindle Fire into a different market segment than trying to frame it as a competitor to the iPad. Bezos needs people to see this as something different, something you might potentially own as well as an iPad. For that to happen he needs to be able to say that it's not just cheaper, but radically cheaper. Personally I think it needs to get down to $149, but we'll see.

>> The Kindle Fire will have a 7-inch display and sell for $199, compared with $499 for Apple’s cheapest iPad, Amazon executives said in interviews with Bloomberg Businessweek.

I'm not sure that Amazon told Bloomberg "The Kindle Fire will have a 7-inch display and sell for $199, compared with $499 for Apple’s cheapest iPad". I understood that as "Amazon told us it was $200, now we're going to make a reference to the iPad, because we just can't not."