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Comment by smackfu | Hacker News Reader

What is the difference between the Playbook and the Kindle Fire, except $300 and a camera and 8 GB of flash?

For most consumers, the Fire is more functional: It is a portal to content they want and it runs apps available everywhere.

The Playbook is more business orientated (secure QNX OS) but is also on sale to consumers. The kindle is purely a consumer product.

> The Playbook is more business orientated

People say this, but I disagree. They shipped with working Flash and no email. If you look at their actions instead of what reporters and RIM's marketing team say, I think it's very difficult to call the Playbook a "business orientated" device.

All of their commercials even boasted about the Flash capabilities and the HD-movies-that-keep-playing-when-you-multitask-away. Business tablet? Yeah right.

Not to mention it shipped with Need For Speed preinstalled

It does make me wonder what an actually business oriented tablet would prioritise.

One is shipping. The other isn't.

$100, actually--BestBuy is now selling the 16GB Playbook for $299.

Not much because both Amazon and RIM outsourced their tablet hardware design to ODM Quanta:

http://gdgt.com/discuss/the-amazon-tablet-will-look-like-a-p...

I'm not sure how important the hardware is. It has to meet a minimum level of functionality/quality, but that's it. The software is what's going to sell the tablet. The Playbook's and Fire's software is vastly different.

Amazon.

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