The Tablet Wars: Which Tablet Will Win?

The Kindle Fire brings strong competition to the tablet wars.

Now that Amazon has announced it’s Kindle Fire, there are three tablets that look like they will be competing for the tablet market share. The Kindle Fire will go on sale on November 15 and the first Windows 8 tablet will probably go on sale sometime next year. This gives Apple the chance to release an iPad 3 and Amazon the chance to find out where it belongs in the tablet market. Windows 8 tablets will definitely need to catch up. Especially since the Kindle Fire is only going to be $199. Of course, price isn’t the only factor that’s going into this. You wouldn’t want a $99 tablet that didn’t work very will would you? No. User interface, data plan availability and pricing, weight of the actual tablet, look and feel of the tablet and much more all go into play when deciding which tablet to buy. The user interface of the iPad has the classic Apple iOS look that we all love. It’s almost guaranteed that consumers will know how to use it. The Kindle Fire will be running Android, but it will be heavily themed to look more “Kindle-ish” for lack of a better word. Most people should know how to use it too. And then there is Windows 8’s unique Metro user interface. It won’t be hard to use, it just looks different than the average mobile operating system with its “live tiles” instead of a long list of icons to represent apps. The portability of each of these devices varies greatly. The iPad is big with its 10″ screen and could seem bulky to users who want to carry their tablets around with them at all times, but it is surprisingly light for 10″ at just 1.5 pounds. The iPad also has a nice 10 hour long battery life. The Kindle Fire also beats the only Windows 8 tablet out right now in portability. The Kindle Fire only weighs 14.6 ounces and is only 7″ compared to the Samsung Windows 8 tablet which is 11.6″. (Which is huge compared to all the other tablets.) Of course this is just an Intel prototype. I expect Intel and the other tablet manufacturers to come out with tablets a lot more portable by the time Windows 8 is officially released. Not to mention that once there are ARM-based Windows 8 tablets, the portability will increase a lot. Both the iPad and the Kindle Fire look a lot sleeker than the Samsung Windows 8 tablet, but again, that will probably change in the future. Overall, I think Windows 8 and its tablets may be in trouble if the new Kindle Fire gets off to a good start. But if Microsoft continues to develop their Windows Live Single Sign On (SSO) strategy, then they may still have a big advantage over all competitors. Also, lowering the price could help, and I’m pretty sure Microsoft could easily help with that by maybe offering Windows 8 to tablet makers for a lower price than PC makers, or something along those lines. Source What do you think?]]>