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Speaker 1: tech stuff from how stuff works dot com. Hello everyone,
Speaker 1: welcome to tech stuff. My name is Chris Polettin. I'm
Speaker 1: an editor and how stuff works dot Com. Standing across
Speaker 1: from me, as is typically the case, his senior writer
Speaker 1: Jonathan Strictline. There. So, Chris, yes, Jonathan, you you know
Speaker 1: how to read? I'm assuming who told you say otherwise?
Speaker 1: Your editing job has been a complete sham, which also
Speaker 1: would explain the quality of my articles to go up
Speaker 1: on the site. I just I just delete every once
Speaker 1: while to go in and delete random letters and in there,
Speaker 1: I just look for red squigg lease in the in
Speaker 1: the in the in the file, and if I've seen
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Speaker 1: click and choose the first option to correct it. There
Speaker 1: are far too few cueues in this article, so we're
Speaker 1: a little cue that. That was my attempt at introducing
Speaker 1: our topic today, which failed miserably. But today today we
Speaker 1: wanted to talk about the the recently as of the
Speaker 1: recording of this podcast, with the recently announced new suite
Speaker 1: of Amazon Kindle gadgets. UM. Amazon had a big event
Speaker 1: in early September two thousand twelve, the day before we
Speaker 1: were recording this. Actually, yeah, the day before we were
Speaker 1: recorded this, they had their event and they announced the
Speaker 1: the new line of Kindles and Kindle Fires. I was
Speaker 1: actually quite sad that they didn't, because they're now different
Speaker 1: versions of the Kindle Fire beyond you know, WiFi only
Speaker 1: in three G versus that sort of stuff. Now we
Speaker 1: have two different sizes of Kindle's right, yes, Kindle Fires.
Speaker 1: So I'm kind of sad that they didn't go out
Speaker 1: and try and differentiate the names a little more with
Speaker 1: like the Kindle conflagration or the the Kindle burning sensation
Speaker 1: that I think those would have really helped out a lot.
Speaker 1: But sadly that's um, that's not the case. I actually
Speaker 1: was reading one of the live blogs at the event
Speaker 1: as it was about to start, and somebody had suggested
Speaker 1: one of the I think it was on c nets
Speaker 1: uh forum and suggested that they go with other uh
Speaker 1: all chemical elements, you know, like the the water and
Speaker 1: you know, kindle earth. That would be interesting, right, yes,
Speaker 1: uh alchemy. So they did launch, or at least they
Speaker 1: announced the launch of several new lines in the in
Speaker 1: the whole Kindle family of gadgets. And of course, if
Speaker 1: you're not familiar the Kindle, the original Kindle was an
Speaker 1: e reader with e ink. E Ink is this kind
Speaker 1: of cool stuff that has a charge on it. When
Speaker 1: you apply a magnetic field, you can have either a
Speaker 1: blank side presented toward a screen or a dark side,
Speaker 1: not the character from Superman, but a dark side presented
Speaker 1: towards the screen. And so if you think of it
Speaker 1: like each individual tiny element of this ink is like
Speaker 1: a little sphere, right, and one half of the sphere
Speaker 1: is that sort of light gray and the other half
Speaker 1: of the sphere is black. And by applying the magnetic
Speaker 1: field of coust the the the bottom of this UM display,
Speaker 1: you can choose which side gets presented to the viewer,
Speaker 1: and that's what creates the images we see. So it
Speaker 1: looks like paper. It's not a back lit uh the
Speaker 1: screen like an LCD screen. UM, you're not having uh
Speaker 1: that kind of of approach. So that's why it looks
Speaker 1: more like words printed on a page, and you actually
Speaker 1: need an external light to be able to read it
Speaker 1: up till now. Well, they that's one of the reasons
Speaker 1: that the e ink kindles and the ink is a
Speaker 1: company up in Massachusetts, UM, and there they were the
Speaker 1: ones who really got into this UM, this stratagem of
Speaker 1: of trying to uh, you know, do the do the
Speaker 1: ink like this UM. One of the reasons it's so
Speaker 1: efficient and the ink readers made by multiple companies, not
Speaker 1: just Amazon UM, is because all all that needs to
Speaker 1: happen as far as an electrical charge is reversing or
Speaker 1: you know, charging the the substrates and material inside the screen.
Speaker 1: So once that's done, it can stay that way without
Speaker 1: needing constant electrical charge like uh, like a tablet computer would. Right,
Speaker 1: it doesn't have to maintain power to the screen in
Speaker 1: order to keep it at whatever you last put it at.
Speaker 1: So when you turn a page, then it uses a
Speaker 1: power it. You know, it says, all right, well, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna turn this page. I've got to change the orientation
Speaker 1: of these individual uh elements, these individual points the e
Speaker 1: ink itself. But once that's done, everything's cool, which is
Speaker 1: why why e readers in general, not just the Amazon line,
Speaker 1: but the readers in general, tend to have incredible battery
Speaker 1: life when you compare it against tablets, because they're not
Speaker 1: they're not consuming so much power. Now, if you turn
Speaker 1: the Wi Fi on so that you can browse the
Speaker 1: web or order new books or what wor, that can
Speaker 1: drain the battery a little faster. So um, most of
Speaker 1: the time, when you see like the estimated length of
Speaker 1: time you can use a kindle before recharging, it almost
Speaker 1: always says with WiFi turned off, now, those screens can't
Speaker 1: be backlit. Um, which is both a good thing in
Speaker 1: a way and a bad thing in a way. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, you don't have it offers a very good
Speaker 1: resolution this type of screen, um, but it doesn't allow
Speaker 1: for that illumination, which is why if you had, uh,
Speaker 1: let's say a first or second generation Kindle, you would
Speaker 1: still and you wanted to read in the dark, you
Speaker 1: would still need some kind of light to shine on
Speaker 1: the light. Yeah. Um, so you know that that's sort
Speaker 1: of where we're coming from, right. But now now Amazon's
Speaker 1: introduced a new entry into this line of products called
Speaker 1: paper White, which um, I first thought was was supposed
Speaker 1: to be paid or weight, but that perhaps they got
Speaker 1: Aliza Doolittle to make the announcement paper light. All my
Speaker 1: want is a paper light somewhere anyway, paper White is
Speaker 1: the new Kindle uh and although a lot of the
Speaker 1: older models are still also available on Amazon and have
Speaker 1: been marked down in price as a result of the
Speaker 1: new announcements. But paper White has a has a light
Speaker 1: incorporated in it, although it's not a backlight. Still not
Speaker 1: a backlight, um, which is good because one of the
Speaker 1: things that I like about e readers is that because
Speaker 1: you don't have this backlit screen, it seems it feels
Speaker 1: easier on my eyes than reading something that's on a screen.
Speaker 1: So what they have done is they've created a fiber
Speaker 1: optic cable essentially, except that they've managed to make it
Speaker 1: a flat screen. They're using fiber optic technology, but they've
Speaker 1: created a flattened screen. The fiber optics guide light down
Speaker 1: onto the screen. The lights actually coming from above the
Speaker 1: screen onto the kindle of being reflected back so that
Speaker 1: you're seeing a reflection of that light, not the not
Speaker 1: the not a backlit screen. Um. But uh, yeah, when
Speaker 1: I saw the demo of this on some video that
Speaker 1: I think I saw it on the Verge maybe, UM,
Speaker 1: I was really impressed. Plus I thought, wow, this is
Speaker 1: this is really cool. I just got a Kindle last
Speaker 1: year and I'm already thinking maybe I'll upgrade. Well, I
Speaker 1: actually have been using something with a similar technology. UM.
Speaker 1: For you know traditional paper books. UM, the the light wedge,
Speaker 1: which uses L E d s. But it's basically a
Speaker 1: wedge shaped piece of clear plastic. I think, I'm I'm
Speaker 1: guessing it's probably lexan Um, and it's got L E
Speaker 1: d s mounted at the side, and so you lay
Speaker 1: it across the page of your book and it illuminates
Speaker 1: the entire page without shining directly onto the page. And
Speaker 1: I find it very nice to read by UM. This
Speaker 1: this message not sponsored by LIGHTWEIGHTGE. I actually went out
Speaker 1: and bought one. Um, they're not paying me, but but
Speaker 1: I imagine that the the effect is very similar when
Speaker 1: you're looking at a Kindle paper white, UM, because it
Speaker 1: it does, like I said, a very similar thing, although
Speaker 1: it's using a different way to achieve that effect. Um,
Speaker 1: and it's very pleasant. It it's not a bright light
Speaker 1: shining in your eyes and that's UM. That's gonna make
Speaker 1: it easier to read. Of course, now Barnes and Noble
Speaker 1: has a similar type of device for its Nook line
Speaker 1: of e readers, but I don't believe it uses the
Speaker 1: same technology as as the paper White, and as a
Speaker 1: as a result, it's thinner uh. And in comparisons that
Speaker 1: I've read early comparisons, um, they said that the paper
Speaker 1: White as a thinner uh machine. And it can it's
Speaker 1: not as obvious where the light is coming from because
Speaker 1: it is, you know, the using fiber optics and allows
Speaker 1: Amazon to keep it um more uh you know, unobtrusive,
Speaker 1: let's say. Yeah. And it's also it's also increased the
Speaker 1: resolution of the screen. The screen is going to be
Speaker 1: even more crisp than the previous Kindle models. Are that
Speaker 1: it displays it two D twelve pixels per inch. Yes,
Speaker 1: that's the or the equivalent thereof, and um, that's much
Speaker 1: better than earlier generations of the Kindle. I mean the
Speaker 1: other ones are you know, or fewer. So it's going
Speaker 1: to have a nice crisp look to it. It's also
Speaker 1: got a capacitive touch screen, so instead of you using
Speaker 1: some buttons on the bottom to to navigate the the device, uh,
Speaker 1: you're actually gonna be using touches, and of course capacity
Speaker 1: of touch screen for those just just quick round up here. Essentially,
Speaker 1: it's applying a very weak electrical charge across the screen.
Speaker 1: When you touch the screen, that effect of lee it
Speaker 1: interrupts that that electrical charge. You you can you conduct
Speaker 1: electricity too, So when you touch it, uh, there's the
Speaker 1: the device can figure out, oh hey, there's an interruption
Speaker 1: in the electrical field. It's coming from here. That means
Speaker 1: that they want to execute this command because that's what
Speaker 1: UM is connected to that part of the screen. That's
Speaker 1: a very very very bird's eye view of capacity of
Speaker 1: touch screens work, but that's generally how they work. That's
Speaker 1: also why when you are wearing something like gloves, UM,
Speaker 1: you aren't interrupting the electric field. It's not conductive, so
Speaker 1: therefore you that's why you can't necessarily navigate a smartphone
Speaker 1: or tablet while wearing gloves, unless it happens to be
Speaker 1: the special gloves with the conductive fingertips, yes, or or
Speaker 1: you're using a hot dog. There are people who've done it. Yeah. Uh,
Speaker 1: it's it's got two gigabytes of storage. And UM, it's
Speaker 1: multi touch as well, not just not just a touch screen,
Speaker 1: but multi touch. Um. Was there anything there's something specific
Speaker 1: I want to talk about with the paper white, but
Speaker 1: I want to see if there's anything else you wanted
Speaker 1: to why I didn't want to mention that the the
Speaker 1: the simple readers, let's say, not the the tablet style Kindles, UM,
Speaker 1: the fire line. UM. There were there were four entries
Speaker 1: before before yesterday's announcement, officially the regular Kindle, the keyboard
Speaker 1: three G and the d X in addition to the
Speaker 1: Kindle Touch. The paper White basically UM replaces the Kindle
Speaker 1: Touch in that line, and the other three are still available.
Speaker 1: Those are are are things that the keyboard on the
Speaker 1: d X, which is the if you will, the magazine size.
Speaker 1: The larger nine point seven inch it's more uh comparable
Speaker 1: to an iPad in size. Um uh. And the the
Speaker 1: keyboard on the six inch screen keyboard three gum. People
Speaker 1: are are complaining that, uh, you know, the the paper
Speaker 1: white doesn't have the keyboard. People the physical keyboard on it. Um,
Speaker 1: well you know me, I'm a physical keyboard kind of guy.
Speaker 1: You are that that kind of guy. Um. Also, it
Speaker 1: has no audio right on the paper white, so you're
Speaker 1: not gonna be listening to audible books from Audible or
Speaker 1: anywhere else for that matter. On however, it does include
Speaker 1: their Whisper Sinc. Technology, which we'll get into a little
Speaker 1: bit um that that really plays more in with the
Speaker 1: Kindle fire line. But we'll talk about Whisper Sink when
Speaker 1: we get to that. Um. Yeah. The thing I wanted
Speaker 1: to mention was there time to read feature? Okay, I
Speaker 1: read about this. Um No, I don't think so time
Speaker 1: to read what it does? Is it actually times how
Speaker 1: long it takes you to read? Yes? Yes, yes I did.
Speaker 1: I do like that. I don't because I don't want
Speaker 1: to learn how slow a reader. There's gonna there's gonna
Speaker 1: be some sort of nerd bragging rights going on, like
Speaker 1: it took you, you know, twenty minutes to read chapter
Speaker 1: I read in seventeen slow, slow reader. Well, everything's relative,
Speaker 1: you know when you put down your book and go
Speaker 1: to make a sandwich or something. Well, the whole purpose
Speaker 1: of this, well not the whole purpose, but one of
Speaker 1: the things that the time to Read feature allows you
Speaker 1: to do is, you know, the the what happens is
Speaker 1: the Kindle. It just times how long it takes you
Speaker 1: to read various pages, and after a while, it kind
Speaker 1: of builds up an estimate of what your reading speed is.
Speaker 1: So let's say that it's late at night and you
Speaker 1: are on the second book of the Game of Thrones series.
Speaker 1: I can't think of anyone that this would apply to
Speaker 1: besides myself. Um No, But you sit there and you've
Speaker 1: just read an awesome uh Sansett chapter, and then the
Speaker 1: next chapter is a Brand chapter. You love Brand, but
Speaker 1: it's late and you're wondering how long it's going to
Speaker 1: take you to read this chapter. The time to read
Speaker 1: feature would give an estimate of how long it would
Speaker 1: take you, based upon your average reading speed, to get
Speaker 1: through that next chapter. Because it will look at the
Speaker 1: beginn and end points of that chapter how many pages
Speaker 1: that is, and give you that estimate so you can say, oh,
Speaker 1: it's oh, it's only gonna take me another fifteen minutes
Speaker 1: to read this. That's no big deal. I that I'm
Speaker 1: just podcasting tomorrow. What do I care if I'm a
Speaker 1: little extra tired. And so then you go ahead and
Speaker 1: you read about it and brand is awesome. Uh. This
Speaker 1: can apply to books other than the Game of Throne series. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm still waiting for George RR Martin to
Speaker 1: make him a baker by the end of the series
Speaker 1: so that we can have brand muffins. Nice. Anyhow, waiting
Speaker 1: all that time to say that, and all that time
Speaker 1: before we should before we move on, we should also
Speaker 1: say that they did release prices for these these devices,
Speaker 1: and so the paper white comes in. Technically it's it's
Speaker 1: four different models. There are two that are our WIFEI
Speaker 1: only and two that are three G. The WiFi only
Speaker 1: is one nineteen dollars if you do the one that
Speaker 1: has these special offers selection. Basically, you you at a
Speaker 1: cheaper device in exchange for them showing you advertising. Right,
Speaker 1: it's an ad supported device, so you get ads when
Speaker 1: the devices and it's off mode, and occasionally you get
Speaker 1: it when you are uh navigating through stuff, not in
Speaker 1: the middle of a book, or at least as far
Speaker 1: as I know, they have never done that where your
Speaker 1: actual reading experience is interrupted with an AD. I've never
Speaker 1: had that happen. Meanwhile, back at the castle, hey, have
Speaker 1: you ever had a problem? Right, but exactly like dragons
Speaker 1: getting you down? Called Bob's extermination service, so George's could be.
Speaker 1: So yeah, WIFEI wife, I only with the with the ADS,
Speaker 1: there's one nineteen dollars. But if you wanted to get it,
Speaker 1: whether it was not AD supported, where you have no ADS,
Speaker 1: it's one thirty nine, so it's twenty dollars more. The
Speaker 1: three G model is a little more expensive now three
Speaker 1: G you get free three G service with this, So
Speaker 1: that way, when you have your device out in the
Speaker 1: wild somewhere and you're not connected to WiFi and you
Speaker 1: want to get that next book or you want to
Speaker 1: browse a blog or whatever, um, you can access the
Speaker 1: network through a three G connection and you don't have
Speaker 1: a contract, you don't want to pay for it. But
Speaker 1: that's at one seventy nine with special offers and one
Speaker 1: without special offers. Which to me is very interesting considering
Speaker 1: the base price of the new Kindle Fire. Uh, because
Speaker 1: you know, again, this is the e reader. The paper
Speaker 1: whites the e reader, so you can do some browsing
Speaker 1: with it, but it's very limited compared to a tablet.
Speaker 1: And it's of course using an e ink screen, so
Speaker 1: you're you've got a black and white screen. Um, and
Speaker 1: it's not as responsive. They they've increased the speed of
Speaker 1: which the the Kindle is able to present pages to you,
Speaker 1: but it's not as responsive as a tablet screen an
Speaker 1: LCD screen. So I guess with that we can move
Speaker 1: on to the new versions of the Kindle Fire. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's actually interesting. The Amazon's press conference refreshed only a
Speaker 1: small portion of the the regular Kindle line, just the
Speaker 1: replacing the Touch with the paper white and and uh,
Speaker 1: leaving most of the other Kindles alone. Well, they did
Speaker 1: keep the basic Kindle just at the lower price, but
Speaker 1: the Kindle Fire line, um, they added a a couple
Speaker 1: new well two and a half new devices entirely. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that is interesting. First, I guess we'll start with the
Speaker 1: the Kindle Fire. That's more it's it's it's in the
Speaker 1: line of the seven inch tablets the smaller one. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I think in a way it really kind of
Speaker 1: set the standard for the seven inch tablet because so
Speaker 1: many other devices and they kind of touched on this
Speaker 1: and in the and the press conference that uh Android tablets,
Speaker 1: there really wasn't one that found a foothold, like for example,
Speaker 1: every once in a while, uh an Android phone, will
Speaker 1: you know, one dotle of phone will really kick off
Speaker 1: like Samsung's uh Galaxy S three is is huge right
Speaker 1: again right around the time of recording this, but the
Speaker 1: Kindle Fire has the lion's share of Android tablets and
Speaker 1: it's set the I think it's sort of set the
Speaker 1: screen size at seven inches for the popular Android tablets now, right.
Speaker 1: But they've decided to um to update this model. And
Speaker 1: there are two different versions of this. There's the sixteen
Speaker 1: gigabyte version and the thirty two gigabyte version. Sixteen is
Speaker 1: going to be a one and the thirty two is
Speaker 1: at tot nine. So what's interesting to me is that
Speaker 1: the sixteen gigabyte version is one, which is the same
Speaker 1: as if you're getting a three G paper white unsupported
Speaker 1: by ADS. It's that's also one. So you've got an
Speaker 1: e reader which some people would say is a very
Speaker 1: limited device compared to a tablet, where you can also
Speaker 1: do reading on the tablets, just it's not like display a. Um,
Speaker 1: You've got the e reader and the at its highest
Speaker 1: setting I guess, and the Kindle fired at its lowest
Speaker 1: price the same, which is kind of interesting. Um, you know,
Speaker 1: because again, if you are are presented with that choice,
Speaker 1: which one are you more likely to choose? The tablet
Speaker 1: that does all the stuff or the the e reader
Speaker 1: that does one thing but does it really really well. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I think there is a contingent of Kindle fans
Speaker 1: who are going to be just fine with the paper
Speaker 1: white at that price point, because they're going to want
Speaker 1: the illuminated screen and the higher resolution and they're not
Speaker 1: going to care about all this stuff that the tablet does.
Speaker 1: I agree. I mean, you know, as much as I
Speaker 1: express skepticism, I own both the Kindle and a tablet.
Speaker 1: So and I do all my reading on the Kindle.
Speaker 1: I don't. I don't read on the tablet. I just
Speaker 1: stare at the web and say talk to me, Okay, No,
Speaker 1: I'll read websites, but I don't. I don't read books
Speaker 1: or magazines on the on the tablet. So the Kindle
Speaker 1: Fire HD. This this seven inch tablet. It's got a
Speaker 1: dual core Texas instruments process or in it. That's one
Speaker 1: point two giga hurts. It's a little less powerful than
Speaker 1: the one that's on the larger tablet, and it's got
Speaker 1: a twelve eighty by eight hundred screen resolution. So that's uh,
Speaker 1: that's just the basic spects update to that Kindle. The
Speaker 1: other interesting line of products that Amazon introduced was a
Speaker 1: slightly larger tablet, which is an eight point nine inch
Speaker 1: screen as opposed to the seven inch screen. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: they they cleverly named that the Kindle Fire HD eight
Speaker 1: point nine inches. Yeah, it gets a little it gets
Speaker 1: even more crazy when you get to their top of
Speaker 1: the line product. The eight point nine inch screen really
Speaker 1: means that this particular tablet is sort of going into
Speaker 1: competition against Apple's iPad, whereas the seven an inch screen
Speaker 1: is more in line with some of the smaller tablets
Speaker 1: on the market, like the Next of seven from Google
Speaker 1: or the Nook Tablet Nook Tablet from Barnes and Noble.
Speaker 1: So um, but this one looks like it's really taking
Speaker 1: aim at the iPad, which they called in their press
Speaker 1: conference and and their their information online. The iPad three,
Speaker 1: although Apple just wants us to call it the iPad
Speaker 1: the new iPad, Yeah, which is going to be so
Speaker 1: confusing after next year. I hear rumors, by the way,
Speaker 1: that the new iPhone will be called the new iPhone
Speaker 1: and not the iPhone five. Interesting by the time this
Speaker 1: goes like, well no, well know, because yeah, the the
Speaker 1: the press conference for that is literally the next week
Speaker 1: from now when we're recording. So you guys are all
Speaker 1: rolling your eyes, but for us, it's still a mystery anyway.
Speaker 1: The eight point nine inch screen, it is a little
Speaker 1: more powerful that this device is more powerful than the
Speaker 1: other kindle fires point five gig hurt dual core processor
Speaker 1: from Texas Instruments Um. It's also got an s g
Speaker 1: x five four four three D graphics core. They get
Speaker 1: process over twelve billion floating point operations per second. You're
Speaker 1: scaring me. Yeah, it's got a gigabyte of RAM, it's
Speaker 1: got nineteen twenty by twelve hundred display, and it has
Speaker 1: two hundred fifty four pixels per inch, which puts it
Speaker 1: in in spitting distance of the iPad, which has two
Speaker 1: two hundred sixty four pixels p inch. Now that's the
Speaker 1: that's the retina screen, right. The iPad retina screen has
Speaker 1: two d sixty four pixels per inch. This new kindle
Speaker 1: has two hundred fifty four, so it's really close. Um.
Speaker 1: And they also were touting some of the stuff that
Speaker 1: they have that the iPad doesn't, for example, dual band antenna.
Speaker 1: I found this particularly interesting to me for a couple
Speaker 1: of reasons. One is that you know the whole point
Speaker 1: of a dual band to antenna, as they have an
Speaker 1: antenna that's dedicated for the two point for gigga hurts
Speaker 1: frequency and an antenna that's dedicated for the five gig
Speaker 1: hurts frequency. The idea being that should you go into
Speaker 1: an environment that has a WiFi network and they have
Speaker 1: a router, a wireless router that's essentially broadcasting on both
Speaker 1: of these frequencies, you have the ability to switch from
Speaker 1: one to the other should one of those frequencies get
Speaker 1: jammed down with a lot of traffic, because there are
Speaker 1: a lot of devices out there that have a wireless
Speaker 1: UH antenna for that that's for the two point for
Speaker 1: gigga hurts frequency, right, So that means a lot of
Speaker 1: people if you go to, say a coffee shop. That's
Speaker 1: the great example. You go to coffee shop's got free WiFi,
Speaker 1: and everyone there's got a laptop and or a smartphone
Speaker 1: and or a tablet, and they're all connecting to this
Speaker 1: one network. Well, that's a lot of demand put on
Speaker 1: that one network, especially if they're all going for this
Speaker 1: one frequency, the two point for gigga hurts frequency. Now,
Speaker 1: if the network has both frequencies broadcast, then you can
Speaker 1: switch over the five gig hurts, which has less traffic,
Speaker 1: which means theoretically you're going to get your data much
Speaker 1: faster than you would on the other antenna band. Um.
Speaker 1: I thought this was interesting because I always whenever I
Speaker 1: read these things, I think of it in terms of
Speaker 1: my own experience. I don't leave the house much. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I avoid it when I can. So when I think
Speaker 1: of when they were talking about it's got it's got
Speaker 1: a dual band antenna, it's it's so much faster getting
Speaker 1: the data. What's going through my mind is, for me,
Speaker 1: the bottleneck has never been the device. The bottleneck has
Speaker 1: always either been the cable modem or the router. So
Speaker 1: if it doesn't matter how quickly the device can get
Speaker 1: data if it's not being delivered fast enough on the
Speaker 1: other end. So it didn't even occur to me like, oh, well,
Speaker 1: what if you are happy to be what if you
Speaker 1: happen to be out and about with a whole bunch
Speaker 1: of other people, then totally makes sense. It's just I'm
Speaker 1: a hermit and I hate people, so I don't do that.
Speaker 1: Although it would have been very handy this past weekend
Speaker 1: at dragon Con because all those smartphones and all those
Speaker 1: geeks hands just clogged up every single network. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: so they're they're one of the things that well we
Speaker 1: should probably talk about the the other machine, Oh, the
Speaker 1: LTE model. Yes, now it was. It was funny in
Speaker 1: the in the presentation because um, Amazon's founder and uh
Speaker 1: guy in charge, Jeff Bezos was sort of funny about it.
Speaker 1: Was like, well, you know, the price point of a
Speaker 1: tablet this size is about five referring specifically to the
Speaker 1: new iPad. Oh yeah, that's it, the base model. And
Speaker 1: I said, well, what could we do if if we
Speaker 1: were to design a tablet at that price point? What
Speaker 1: would it have in it? I mean, can you imagine
Speaker 1: the amazing magical things we could include in this tablet
Speaker 1: for that price, we could put unicorns and sasquatch and
Speaker 1: and it could dispense candy. I mean the way he
Speaker 1: was talking, it sounded like the only reason the iPad
Speaker 1: is that price is because Apple. Is that the implications
Speaker 1: that Apple is greeting and that they're saying the price
Speaker 1: high so that they have this incredible uh profit margin
Speaker 1: when it comes to selling an iPad versus Amazon, which
Speaker 1: famously sell stuff off at a loss because they're using
Speaker 1: it as a conduit to all the content they own.
Speaker 1: So thinking that if they sell you the they talked
Speaker 1: about their tablets are part of a service. They're not
Speaker 1: just a standalone device, So when they're selling you a tablet,
Speaker 1: they're really selling you access to the Amazon service. So
Speaker 1: uh so, yeah, it was there was there's a little
Speaker 1: snark in that part of the presentation about how, well,
Speaker 1: if we had a four dollar tablet, what could it
Speaker 1: possibly have in it? And so they need to us Yes, yes,
Speaker 1: it's the uh LTE, which is long term evolution. That's
Speaker 1: what the LTE stands for. It's one of the many
Speaker 1: for it well, one of the few UH really supported
Speaker 1: uh for G communications technologies, wireless communications technologies, and it's
Speaker 1: been very much in demand here in the United States
Speaker 1: from phone providers. People are excited about seeing the speeds
Speaker 1: Internet speeds, data speeds improving on their wireless carrier. So
Speaker 1: this is a a huge deal, well a big deal.
Speaker 1: Um and uh, you know, I can't think of another
Speaker 1: tablet right now that supports for g um. Yeah, I'm sure,
Speaker 1: I think, I'm sure there are others out there, and
Speaker 1: I'm sure our listeners are screaming in this right now,
Speaker 1: but won't It won't be long before more of them
Speaker 1: do this. But they're they're coming to market underneath um,
Speaker 1: Apple's price point for this technology. Um. And you know
Speaker 1: this is this is going to be a selling point
Speaker 1: for this particular or device. Now. What Jonathan was saying
Speaker 1: earlier was one of the main focuses of this event
Speaker 1: was you know, hey, we're Amazon, we sell service, and
Speaker 1: that that's what they were. They weren't shy about promoting this. Now.
Speaker 1: They didn't say, hey, we're selling these devices at a
Speaker 1: loss to make it up from us. They didn't say
Speaker 1: that explicitly, but you know, based upon you know, there
Speaker 1: are people who take these things apart and then they
Speaker 1: estimate what the price of manufacturer is and in almost
Speaker 1: every report I've read for the Amazon Kindle pasted. It's
Speaker 1: one of those things where the price, the cost of manufacturer,
Speaker 1: and the price that they sell it at are so
Speaker 1: close as to be uh you know, it pretty much
Speaker 1: means Amazon has to sell it at a loss. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think what was it, the the the original Kindle Fire.
Speaker 1: When they first released it, they were making a profit
Speaker 1: of something like two or three dollars on it. And
Speaker 1: this isn't unusual. I mean we've seen this also, like
Speaker 1: Microsoft did this with the Xbox three six and the
Speaker 1: x spots, the PlayStations and Nintendo as well. You're talking about. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the console itself is priced a little lower than what
Speaker 1: it would be if you were just selling that to
Speaker 1: make a profit, but you're hoping to make up for
Speaker 1: it in whatever the services are down the road. It's
Speaker 1: the old Gillette model, as they say, we should also
Speaker 1: say that if you were to get the LT model.
Speaker 1: First of all, there are again four different models of
Speaker 1: this eight point nine inch display version, right, So there's
Speaker 1: the there's the WiFi models which have a there's sixteen
Speaker 1: gigabyte and thirty two gigabyte versions. The sixteen gigabytes priced
Speaker 1: at two nine nine, which is incredible, right, A sixteen
Speaker 1: gigabyte WiFi um is, that's that's very attractive. Very two
Speaker 1: gigabytes at three sixty nine. Then if you go to
Speaker 1: the LTE, the thirty two gigabyte which is their base
Speaker 1: model for LTE, they said, oh, you know, you need
Speaker 1: to have a lot of space on this thing if
Speaker 1: you're going to have all this speed and everything, which
Speaker 1: we'll get to again in the second because there's another
Speaker 1: problem here. But thirty two gigabyte base models at four
Speaker 1: and then they have a sixty four gigabyte version at
Speaker 1: five nine nine. So those are your your four basic models.
Speaker 1: One of the other things about that LTE is that
Speaker 1: you have to pay fifty dollars a year to get
Speaker 1: the LTE service. So that's on top of the price
Speaker 1: of the device. It's not like the three G service
Speaker 1: that that's free, right, the three G service on the
Speaker 1: paper White, which is completely free. It's not like that.
Speaker 1: So you now it is provided through Amazon, but you
Speaker 1: have to pay Amazon fifty bucks a year to have
Speaker 1: that service. So the device, the base device, costs plus
Speaker 1: fifty dollars per year so that you can get LTE.
Speaker 1: Here's the other thing that I think is a big
Speaker 1: sticking point. They have a data cab on the LTE
Speaker 1: data transfers of two hundred fifty megabytes m hm. So
Speaker 1: that means you can't in a month, you can't do
Speaker 1: more than two fifty megabytes of transfer on LTE under
Speaker 1: this plan, which is kind of crazy because I mean,
Speaker 1: even if you read Amazon's uh stuff about why they
Speaker 1: needed so much space, like the whole idea of here's
Speaker 1: a thirty two gigabyte tablet, why do you want thirty
Speaker 1: two gigs? Well, because the standard definition movie is five
Speaker 1: hundred megabytes, Standard definition movie is five hundred megabytes, and
Speaker 1: your data cap is two hundred fifty megabytes per month,
Speaker 1: you start to question what are you using that LTE for.
Speaker 1: It would mostly be for things like browsing the web,
Speaker 1: doing social networking stuff like Facebook, Twitter, that kind of thing.
Speaker 1: Those are low demand data, uh features, Right, you're not.
Speaker 1: You're not churning up a lot of data getting on
Speaker 1: Twitter and posting hey I got my new Amazon Kindle. Yeah,
Speaker 1: if you were. If you were just downloading books from
Speaker 1: from Amazon, that's not that's not gonna be that much either.
Speaker 1: But if you wanted to download or stream a movie
Speaker 1: or whatever, and you're on you're out and about and
Speaker 1: you don't have WiFi, you're gonna run up against that
Speaker 1: tuneer in fifty megabyte cap pretty quickly. So to me,
Speaker 1: there's a question if you if it's five dollars to
Speaker 1: get the LTE model, the base LTE model, plus fifty
Speaker 1: dollars on top of that to get the LTE service
Speaker 1: and there's a two fifty megabyte cap on that per month,
Speaker 1: is that really worth that? Or should I just go
Speaker 1: with the thirty two gigabyte WiFi only model for three
Speaker 1: sixty nine? You know, I save about a hundred fifty
Speaker 1: dollars that way, A little a little less than that,
Speaker 1: but around a hundred fifty dollars, and let's call it
Speaker 1: a hundred thirty So you save a hundred thirty bucks
Speaker 1: and you're not paying for this service and you don't
Speaker 1: have to worry about data caps because you're only using
Speaker 1: it on WiFi. Is the convenience factor of LTE worth
Speaker 1: it considering that two and fifty megabyte cap, it's not.
Speaker 1: To me. That's my personal opinion. Now for other people,
Speaker 1: they may say I like the idea that i'd be
Speaker 1: able to get books. I like the idea I'll be
Speaker 1: able to do you know, the social networking, the web housing,
Speaker 1: all that kind of stuff. That's what's important to be
Speaker 1: I totally get that, and that makes sense. And I
Speaker 1: have nothing against you, guys. I'm just sitting there thinking like, well,
Speaker 1: I mean, how much would I be irritated if I
Speaker 1: had to find a WiFi hotspot? But on the flip side,
Speaker 1: I don't have to worry about data capps. Yeah, And honestly,
Speaker 1: you have to think about this. I mean, it's not
Speaker 1: It would probably be more of an issue if you
Speaker 1: were planning on, say, buying one of these to allow
Speaker 1: your kids to watch movies as you're driving across the country,
Speaker 1: that would be an issue. If it's buying it for
Speaker 1: yourself to use, say at home, or take it with
Speaker 1: you to work, want you to watch something on your
Speaker 1: lunch break, or take it to the park. Um, you're
Speaker 1: probably not going to be using wireless as much as
Speaker 1: you would WiFi, I would guess, so it may be
Speaker 1: sort of a moot point depending on what you're doing
Speaker 1: with it. Right, So I think think if it were me,
Speaker 1: I would I would be in the same boat, you know,
Speaker 1: I would say. You know, I'm not gonna I'm frankly
Speaker 1: just not going to use this on the move that
Speaker 1: much because, um, you know, I've already been cited several
Speaker 1: times for trying to watch movies while I'm driving. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you shouldn't do that. They keep saying that, But I
Speaker 1: don't understand what the problem is. It's because you like
Speaker 1: foreign films so much, and the subtitles are very distracting.
Speaker 1: You know, I all those people with whiplash. I don't
Speaker 1: I don't get no, I'm I'm I'm teasing. But but yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, but it isn't an interesting selling point, and
Speaker 1: it will be kind of I'm kind of curious to
Speaker 1: see whether this becomes a thing. Um. There are some
Speaker 1: other things to note about the the fire h D
Speaker 1: s um, the the stereo sound with Dolby Audio Delby
Speaker 1: Auto Audio duel stereo speakers. I kind of wonder how
Speaker 1: how effective that is just because they're really really close together. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's that's exactly the reason You've got two stereo speakers
Speaker 1: that are by necessity close together because they're inside a
Speaker 1: tablet device. How effective is that? Granted we should both
Speaker 1: say neither of us have had our hands on any
Speaker 1: of these devices yet, so we can't speak from personal experience. Yeah, however,
Speaker 1: I do imagine that you would have a more depending
Speaker 1: on how you situate the tablet, I imagine you will
Speaker 1: have a more robust audio experience with it. Um, they
Speaker 1: have not just a crappy little one speaker device right right,
Speaker 1: quality speakers. It's not it's not this little tinny thing
Speaker 1: that you know, barely can gain any music out or whatever.
Speaker 1: But there are limitations to speakers at that side and
Speaker 1: that close together. There's some other cool new features too
Speaker 1: that are more on the service side. Uh, the for instance,
Speaker 1: the x ray. That's exactly the one I was going
Speaker 1: to mention. Yeah, now x ray. This is kind of
Speaker 1: a neat idea, the idea being that, and this comes
Speaker 1: from the idea of having a second screen type thing,
Speaker 1: Like how many people when they much television, for example,
Speaker 1: have a second screen in front of them so that
Speaker 1: you know they're they're either doing work or often they
Speaker 1: see something on the screen and they think that's interesting,
Speaker 1: I want to know more about that. For me, it's
Speaker 1: always I know, this person, what else have they been
Speaker 1: in I've noticed this with my friends for years now,
Speaker 1: and actually Google did a report about this, uh came
Speaker 1: out just a few days ago. As I when recording this,
Speaker 1: about how people use multiple screens, and that's you know,
Speaker 1: not just a tablet and the TV, it could be
Speaker 1: a smartphone and a computer, you know, multi screens and uh,
Speaker 1: working on multiple things at once, and even even in
Speaker 1: recreational use. As you said, you're going I I know
Speaker 1: that guy, who is that? And you'll pause whatever it
Speaker 1: is and go look it up on the computer, and
Speaker 1: people just keep that nearby. So so what Amazon has
Speaker 1: done is they've incorporated that as a service directly into
Speaker 1: the Kindle experience. So let's say you're watching a movie
Speaker 1: and you tap the screen, it'll bring up information about
Speaker 1: the people who are in that movie. It'll bring up
Speaker 1: an IMDb page. And Amazon owns IMDb Internet Movie database,
Speaker 1: so that lets you that lets you look up more
Speaker 1: info and learn more about it. But it's beyond just movies.
Speaker 1: They also do it for books. So you might click
Speaker 1: on a book and you learn more things about the chapter.
Speaker 1: You might even learn contextual stuff that is mentioned in
Speaker 1: the book. For example, let's say I'm reading The Devil
Speaker 1: in the White City, which is it's a fantastic book,
Speaker 1: highly recommended. I have no connection with with the author whatsoever,
Speaker 1: but fantastic book. Well, it has two lines of of plot. Essentially,
Speaker 1: this is a nonfiction book and it follows two different
Speaker 1: things that were happening around the same time. It follows
Speaker 1: the murderous exploits of Dr H. H. Holmes, who was
Speaker 1: one of America's first serial killers. Terrible story but also fascinating,
Speaker 1: especially for people were interested in criminal psychology, and I
Speaker 1: think that stuff you should know. I think actually covered
Speaker 1: Holmes's death house in an episode, if I'm not mistaken. Creepy.
Speaker 1: But then it also follows the Chicago World's Fair, which
Speaker 1: was being uh was being put on around the same
Speaker 1: time as Holmes as deadly activities, and we've mentioned that
Speaker 1: on our show before, right, and so these two different
Speaker 1: stories overlap a little bit. But but it goes chapter,
Speaker 1: you know, each chapter kind of alternates. It goes from
Speaker 1: homes to the World's Fair, to homes to the World's Fair.
Speaker 1: And if you were to read this, say on a
Speaker 1: kindle fire, and you had the X ray stuff and
Speaker 1: it was all set up there, you might be able
Speaker 1: to be you know, you could be reading a book
Speaker 1: about this and we read a paragraph about a particular
Speaker 1: person during the World's Fair who did uh some architectural work,
Speaker 1: and you're like, oh, that sounds interesting. I wonder more
Speaker 1: if there's any more about him. You could tap the
Speaker 1: screen and pull up information about that person or go
Speaker 1: to a link on an article about that person, so
Speaker 1: you can learn more about them. And of course this
Speaker 1: applies to you know anything, not just not just that book.
Speaker 1: That's just using that as an example, but it also
Speaker 1: will give you information about the book itself, so not
Speaker 1: just information that's in the book, but about the book,
Speaker 1: so you can, um, if you're curious about certain things
Speaker 1: like what else is this author written? Um? Or you
Speaker 1: know what, what sort of other books are like this one?
Speaker 1: You can find that kind of stuff out too, which
Speaker 1: I thought was pretty interesting. And they're also offering it
Speaker 1: for textbooks, which is nice. If you get really intrigued
Speaker 1: about something that you're you're working on in class, your student,
Speaker 1: and you're you're getting into something, you go, you know what,
Speaker 1: I'm curious about this, I'd like to know more. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, It's it's a really neat idea. I also
Speaker 1: like the whisper sinc for voice, which is cool. Like
Speaker 1: if you're reading a book. Uh, let's say you commute
Speaker 1: by by rail, um and you you um get to
Speaker 1: the station you're about to get in your car, and
Speaker 1: you've gotten to an interesting point in the book where
Speaker 1: you can plug your your kindle into the sound system
Speaker 1: of your car and listen to the audio book being
Speaker 1: read to you as you drive. Ye. So this is
Speaker 1: a little different from you know, the earlier kindles. A
Speaker 1: lot of them had the speech to the text to speech,
Speaker 1: but that was sort of uh, it wasn't it wasn't
Speaker 1: an ideal experience. And in this case, it's sinking a
Speaker 1: text based version of the book with an audio version
Speaker 1: of the book that's been read by a professional narrator.
Speaker 1: So it's this is an actual voiceover person. Sometimes it's
Speaker 1: the author, depending upon the audible or the audio book.
Speaker 1: I keep saying audible because that's where I go for
Speaker 1: all my audio books. But if you you know, it'll
Speaker 1: it'll sink those together so that when you left let
Speaker 1: off from one. Let's say that you um, you like
Speaker 1: Chris was saying, you just finished reading a section and
Speaker 1: you're really interested. You can queue up the audio book
Speaker 1: and it's going to pick up right where you left
Speaker 1: off with the text version. So that way you can
Speaker 1: continue reading this book in two different forms, um, and
Speaker 1: not interrupt your experience, which is pretty cool. Yeah. They
Speaker 1: also have a whisper stinc for movies, books and games.
Speaker 1: Of course they've they've had it for books for for
Speaker 1: a long time. But uh, but yeah, I mean, if
Speaker 1: you you change devices or even with the games, if
Speaker 1: you're in the middle of a level, it will pick
Speaker 1: up where you left off. And it says the Amazon
Speaker 1: site says, even if you delete the game from your
Speaker 1: device and you decide you want to go back and
Speaker 1: do it again later, then you can. You can reload
Speaker 1: it and then they will remember where you are. Of course,
Speaker 1: all this information is stored in the cloud, which is
Speaker 1: another uh selling point. This is another service selling point
Speaker 1: for Amazon. Um, the sixteen or thirty two gigabyte Kindle
Speaker 1: fires Um. You know, they have that limited amount of
Speaker 1: onboard storage. I mean, that's a pretty decent amount. But
Speaker 1: they also, as they advertise, if you download music or
Speaker 1: movies from Amazon, they will allow you to store that
Speaker 1: and it's basically free storage. Store it in the cloud
Speaker 1: for free. UM, So that doesn't necessarily count against the amount.
Speaker 1: Of course, I guess if you take it with you
Speaker 1: and you don't have streaming service where you are, you know,
Speaker 1: you go to the beach, and you're right, you can
Speaker 1: choose attempting to bright sunlightning. I've used these services on
Speaker 1: a very similar services on other devices in the way
Speaker 1: it generally works as you can choose whether or not
Speaker 1: you want a certain track to be streaming only, or
Speaker 1: if you download it to specific device so that it's
Speaker 1: available even when you are, you know, not not in
Speaker 1: a networked area. But yeah, that's the idea, is that
Speaker 1: that way you can store stuff in the cloud doesn't
Speaker 1: count against your your devices on board storage. Yeah. And
Speaker 1: they also have a screen time thing for parents that
Speaker 1: as of right now is not available but will be
Speaker 1: shortly USA, they say, in October of twelve, where if
Speaker 1: you have uh kids who are going to be using it,
Speaker 1: you can set the amount of time that they are
Speaker 1: allowed to use it to prevent them from going over
Speaker 1: their time. So I guess that means they have multiple users.
Speaker 1: For the tablet, you can also set it so that um,
Speaker 1: certain certain functions will be available longer than others. So,
Speaker 1: in other words, you can set it so that watching
Speaker 1: a movie or television or playing a game on the device. Uh,
Speaker 1: the kid might have an hour worth the time or
Speaker 1: two hours whatever. Um, But then if they want to
Speaker 1: use it for reading, they can use it for reading
Speaker 1: for another four hours, but they can't use it to
Speaker 1: watch movies or whatever. So that's kind of interesting that
Speaker 1: they've they've got that sort of granular amount of control
Speaker 1: for parents so that they can shape their kids into
Speaker 1: the automatons that they need to be so they can
Speaker 1: lead us in the future. But I'm kidding. Of course,
Speaker 1: I also don't have kids, so I can make very
Speaker 1: cavalier statements. Um. What about immersion reading? What do you
Speaker 1: think of that? Um? Well, I I don't know a
Speaker 1: whole lot about immersion reading. I'm still catching something. It's
Speaker 1: pretty it's pretty interesting. Immersion reading. It synchronizes an audio
Speaker 1: and text experience of a book so that you are
Speaker 1: hearing the book as you read it. So, in other words,
Speaker 1: you have the text version of the book in front
Speaker 1: of you and you also have the audio version playing
Speaker 1: at the same time. And the idea is that for
Speaker 1: certain people, and it's people from all different areas, Uh,
Speaker 1: they they retain information and learn and um get more
Speaker 1: out of an experience if they are both reading it
Speaker 1: like themselves and listening to it at the same time,
Speaker 1: that they they have a more rich experience with that book.
Speaker 1: So therefore, I think it's something like around fifteen thousand
Speaker 1: titles it's available right now. Where I thought I thought
Speaker 1: that I had read that. I didn't have it in
Speaker 1: my notes, but I recalled that that number being bandied about.
Speaker 1: But yeah, the idea being that you will read a
Speaker 1: book while it's being it out loud at the same time,
Speaker 1: which I can imagine particularly being useful for kids who
Speaker 1: are learning to read. You know, if you're if you
Speaker 1: get some books that are not as a complex something
Speaker 1: like The Hobbit, which was a book I loved as
Speaker 1: a kid, still do technically all right, so I still
Speaker 1: love it, but as a kid I particularly enjoyed it. Um,
Speaker 1: but that would have been an interesting thing where you
Speaker 1: could listen to the book as you're reading along. Uh.
Speaker 1: And like I said, for some people, this is apparently
Speaker 1: the the ideal way to experience a book. So yeah,
Speaker 1: there are a lot of new features that are being
Speaker 1: launched with this. Some of them are going to be
Speaker 1: compatible with the old Amazon Kindle Fire some are going
Speaker 1: to be available only on the new models. Um, just
Speaker 1: because they're more you know, they're they're they're more advanced,
Speaker 1: they have the specs to handle it. Uh. So we'll
Speaker 1: see how this does. I imagine that these are going
Speaker 1: to sell very well. Amazon always positions itself very well
Speaker 1: for the holiday market. And uh, they already are on
Speaker 1: pre order. They went on pre order the day when
Speaker 1: they announced it. And I imagine although Amazon also does
Speaker 1: not tend to release sales figures, so we probably won't
Speaker 1: know how well they'll do, but I'm sure that they'll
Speaker 1: do pretty well. Um So, so Chris, Theoretically, let's say
Speaker 1: that you had the ability to buy one any one
Speaker 1: of these devices, which of them appeals to you most, Like,
Speaker 1: you could only get one of them, but you you
Speaker 1: could choose whichever one you wanted. Well, I I admit,
Speaker 1: um see, I'm I'm sort of torn, frankly, um because,
Speaker 1: like you, I own a tablet, but I don't own
Speaker 1: any reader of any type. So I'm fascinated by the
Speaker 1: paper white simply because, um, I would kind of like
Speaker 1: to be able to have that reader experience that said
Speaker 1: I have enjoyed over the past while that I've owned
Speaker 1: my tablet uh and enjoyed having it available to read
Speaker 1: books on and do other stuff too, and having one
Speaker 1: device that does it. So, I mean, if I had
Speaker 1: to choose one, if you were going to hold my
Speaker 1: feet to the fire, I would probably go with the
Speaker 1: eight point nine inch HD without four G because I
Speaker 1: just simply don't need that connectivity on the go. So
Speaker 1: clearly you go with a thirty two gigabyte because you
Speaker 1: can have any of them, so you can go with
Speaker 1: thirty two gigabyte WiFi only eight point nine h HD.
Speaker 1: That is correct, That's what I would do. That's that's
Speaker 1: that's the correct answer for you. I would go with
Speaker 1: the paper white. And the reason why I go with
Speaker 1: paper white is I love my e reader and I
Speaker 1: would love to be able to um to upgrade that
Speaker 1: because I do like I do like the idea of
Speaker 1: having the onboard light there so I can read in
Speaker 1: the dark and that kind of stuff. Um so I
Speaker 1: and I really just like the features of it. Although
Speaker 1: I am a little hesitant with the capacitance touch screen
Speaker 1: as opposed to a physical keyboard. That does give me pause.
Speaker 1: But the reason why I shy away from the Kindle
Speaker 1: experience is that um is is it's a bias. It's
Speaker 1: a and I fully had it is it is a
Speaker 1: bias because the operating system for the Kindle Fire is
Speaker 1: a forked version of the Android operating system. They took
Speaker 1: an earlier build of the Android operating system as their
Speaker 1: foundation and then spun it off. So it's really its
Speaker 1: own thing, but it at its root it has Android. Well,
Speaker 1: I love the Android operating system, but I prefer to
Speaker 1: have a more in line operating system, like one that's
Speaker 1: that's aligned with Android more directly, and and it gives
Speaker 1: you a lot more flexibility with your device. That's one
Speaker 1: of the complaints some people had about the Kindle Fire
Speaker 1: is that it doesn't give you as much flexibility as
Speaker 1: some other tablets do. Now, granted, you can work away
Speaker 1: around around that. You can hack a tablet and and
Speaker 1: you know, essentially jail break it so that you can
Speaker 1: use it in any way you like, loading on other
Speaker 1: operating systems things like that, But for the average user,
Speaker 1: that's that tends to be outside their grasp. You know,
Speaker 1: someone who just wants to buy something and just have
Speaker 1: it work. Well, if you love the Amazon's uh the system,
Speaker 1: then this is a great fit. And I do love
Speaker 1: the Amazon system. It's just that all of my stuff
Speaker 1: lives in Google, so that's why I love the Android
Speaker 1: operating system for my tablets. Um that being said, I
Speaker 1: think these devices look really, really attractive and their price
Speaker 1: points are phenomenal compared to some of the other stuff,
Speaker 1: and I do think that's going to well. There are
Speaker 1: rumors that in the event that you already know the
Speaker 1: outcome of but we don't, that there may be an
Speaker 1: iPad many announced alongside the iPhone, which will make you
Speaker 1: wonder how much that's gonna cost, because the iPod Touch,
Speaker 1: if you go with the most evanced iPod Touch, that's
Speaker 1: more expensive than some of these tablets. Yeah, so I'm
Speaker 1: starting to wonder if Apple is going to be forced
Speaker 1: to start to lower the prices someone on tablets. Yeah,
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