Amazon Kindle Fire: 10 Factors That Explain Its Surprising Popularity | eWeek

Amazon Kindle Fire: 10 Factors That Explain Its Surprising Popularity

Amazon Kindle Fire: 10 Factors That Explain Its Surprising Popularity
Written By
Don Reisinger
Don Reisinger
Feb 21, 2013
3 minute read
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Great Prices

Amazon Kindle Fire: 10 Factors That Explain Its Surprising Popularity

It’s hard to turn away from the Kindle Fire when customers look at its price. The original Kindle Fire is available for $159. The Kindle Fire HD starts at $199 and goes up to $499 for a bigger screen and 4G LTE support. In other words, it’s nice and affordable.


Ample Storage—Thanks to the Cloud

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The one issue folks might find with the Kindle Fire is that its storage tops out at 64GB. However, the device supports up to 5GB of free cloud storage and customers can get even more storage in the cloud with Amazon’s cheap plans. In other words, the amount of storage available on the Kindle Fire is actually quite substantial when the cloud is factored in.


Different Screen Sizes

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Like Apple, Amazon has realized that the key to the average consumer’s heart is to deliver products with different screen sizes. That’s why the Kindle Fire comes with a 7-inch display and Amazon also sells an 8.9-inch model. It would be nice to have a 10-inch version, but the 8.9-inch model will do.


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A Nice Design

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Amazon’s Kindle Fire might not be as pretty as the iPad, but it’s no slouch when it comes to design. The device has a nice black finish and the bezel is small enough to appeal to customers who want to look at a prominent display. The Kindle Fire also comes with a thin frame, which makes it easy to tote around.


A Retina Display Competitor

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The Kindle Fire HD with the 8.9-inch screen is visually impressive. The device, in fact, has 254 pixels per inch, putting it in direct competition with the iPad’s Retina display. That’s something that quite a few customers were pleased to see, considering how cheap the device is. They get a great display and a low price.


An App Store Competitor

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Many mobile customers have called Apple’s App Store the best in the business. But Amazon’s own Appstore can’t something to be ignored. The marketplace has all of the best apps found in Apple’s store and ensures that they’re properly secured through Amazon’s vetting process. Buying a Kindle Fire does not mean leaving the best apps behind.


E-Reading Functionality

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Amazon started its Kindle line on the backs of e-books and e-readers. All of those books, therefore, have made their way to the Kindle Fire in full color glory. Amazon’s Kindle e-books count well into the millions and deliver an ideal reading experience. In most cases its al those books that get table shoppers to take a close look at the Kindle Fire.


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4G LTE Support

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When Amazon first launched the Kindle Fire, the company’s device only supported WiFi. Now, though, the Kindle Fire can connect to the Web via 4G LTE. That’s a huge selling point for mobile customers that want to be able to connect to the Internet no matter where they are.


Easy Mobility

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Amazon’s Kindle Fire is the epitome of mobility. The device weighs about nine tenths of a pound and at 0.35 inches thick, it’s easy to toss into a bag and carry around town. Amazon made clear last year when it unveiled the second-generation Kindle Fire that mobility was a key consideration when it designed the device, and it delivered.


Amazon’s Product Placement

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Perhaps the main reason the Kindle Fire is so successful today is its placement on Amazon.com. The online marketplace is a destination for millions of customers, and every time they go to the homepage, they find the tablet sitting right there above the fold. It’s hard to say how many Kindle Fires Amazon has sold just because of this, but one could bet that it’s a lot.

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