IPad or Kindle Fire?

Cafe Society
1

Hi all. I need comments/suggestions/stories about the Kindle Fire or IPad 2 or 3. I currently have a 2007 Gateway 17’’ laptop with Vista, and a 2009 Asus netbook. I’m thinking of selling the netbook, because I’ve used it twice. I use the laptop at least 4 hrs a day.

I’ve never owned an Apple product and $500 is a little too much. The Fire is $150-$199. If I use the Kindle or IPad, can I get the signal off my router? Is there a way to get any book I want for the Kindle, without paying for it? I mostly browse the internet. Tell me the pros and cons of the two. Can you also recommend a place to sell the netbook? How do I wipe my hard drive clean from the netbook to sell it? Thank you.

2

I have both and I’d suggest the IPad if you can afford it. The IPad can do anything a Kindle Fire can do
Heh, I even half a Gateway computer too…2008, with Vista.

Is your router a wireless one? If so, you should be able to get a signal off of it, yes.

Uh, I think you need to pay for any book you want with a Kindle, although if you pay for Amazon Prime, they have this feature that allows you to “borrow” books to read temporarily on it. No idea how wide the selection of books is, though (I don’t have Prime).

Kindle is good for most things. You can get the SDMB on it, Facebook, Youtube, Pandora, Wikipedia…the IPad is bigger, though, it has a bigger screen than the Kindle and a bit more access (for example: on the Kindle, you can only get Facebook Mobile app and use that which allows you to do about three things: Update status, Upload photos, and browse friends’ status’…on the Ipad, you can actually go to the full site and do anything/everything on Facebook that you can on a computer. Of course, all of this is moot if you don’t use Facebook).

The IPad has a camera and can take videos too, which the Kindle can’t.

My suggestion would be to buy the Kindle if you want to spend less. It can do almost everything an IPad can do by way of getting online and the sites you can access. Get an IPad if you have extra to spend and want about 100 more cool features that the Kindle doesn’t have (mostly all little things, though, like the camera I mentioned–stuff like that).

Whatever you do, though, DO NOT do what I did: Get a Kindle and then (eventually) get an IPad…because the IPad will pretty much make your Kindle redundant.

3

Since you already have the laptop, I’d go with the Fire unless you really just have to have “all access” everywhere and have the extra cash. For me, it’s about price. My Kindle was a gift but still, I don’t fret too much about it getting damaged or lost at $200 value. An Ipad would make me nervous as hell and really, for what I do - reading, facebook, magazines, occasionally tv/movies - the Kindle works perfectly.

You can get some books free without Amazon Prime (I wasn’t too impressed with the book loan during my trial) - like many classics and sometimes you can get new author’s works for free or almost free but the quality is very hit or miss on those. I love mine though- I love I can read in bed without a light, that I can play Words With Friends at lunchtime or catch up on tv series. I can stream Netflix or Amazon - and have side-loaded HBO GO so I can watch that too. And the books…I’m reading so much more these last two years of owning some sort of Kindle. Just so nice to have a portable library.

One complaint I have about the Fire is the weight. I don’t know how it compares to an Ipad, but it’s a little clumsy to hold compared to the earlier Kindles which were one-handed reading tools :).

4

I love my Fire. A question, what does a iPad do that a Kindle doesn’t? And I agree with BoPeep, one-handed reading while lying in bed can be hard on your wrist.

5

Do you have a smart phone? Or plan on getting one?

If you have an Android phone, you can download your already purchased Amazon Catalog/Android Marketplace apps onto your Android tablet.

If you have an iPhone, you can download your already purchased iTunes apps onto your iPad.

And vice versa in both situations.

6

No.

There are some books available free (through project Guternberg and other sites), mostly classics that have been out of copyright a long time (newer editions of translated classics and annotated classics are generally not available). The Prime lending selection is pretty laughable. Like the slushpile of 99 cent novels, it’s not worth the effort to sort through the trash to find something worth reading. Now that I’ve read “The Hunger Games” series I can’t see ever using it again.

Kindle versions of books generally cost the same to just slightly less than the print edition. The Amazon Daily Deal and other one–off coupons bring down the price from time to time.

7

It all depends on what you want to use it for. Now, I don’t think it’s completely asinine to get both, but some people do.

Do you want to do more than just watch videos online and browse the web? Then you want an iPad. If you’re content with just consuming media then a Fire will be all you need.

I have a Fire and I like it so far. All I really use it for is watch Hulu, Netflix, and videos on Amazon. They’ve just added a ton of Discover Chanel and Nature stuff to their instant watch, so I need to look at that.

I’ve never tried to read a book on an iPad, but despite the backlighting it really isn’t an issue to do so on the Fire. I’ve read an entire day without any eye strain. The size is perfect for your hands. I move around a lot when I read so I’ve found myself laying on my bed upside down holding my Fire with one hand above my head. I don’t know if you can do that with an iPad.

I’m a history major so I work with a lot of PDFs for school, and the Fire is nifty for that. Download them, attach them to an email, then send it to my Fire’s email address. Within a few minutes in there for me to read.

8

If your local library has ebook lending, that’s one way to read a lot of stuff for free.

Also, manybooks.net has a lot of free stuff.

9

I have the classic Kindle Keyboard 3g, pretty much unlimited access to a Kindle Fire (belongs to my buddy, he has leant it to me several times) and just recently got the iPad2.

Frankly, with the iPad2, I never touch the others. The screen is larger, which makes reading PDFs a lot nicer. It runs the Kindle software, so all the books I already bought for my Kindle are available on it. And it has about a billion more apps available to it, which I love.

I did play with the Fire extensively before getting the iPad2, but the smaller screen, while great for standard reading, was a bit wearisome on the eyes for internet browsing and PDF reading.

I don’t have any problems with my iPad2, and I use it pretty much constantly. It has become my default tech for web browsing, news reading, books, emailing, and social media.

10

I got a Fire at Christmas to replace my netbook (maybe the same one you had, mine was a 2009 Asus Eee) after it hit the floor once too often. It’s a great replacement for me, because the extra features on the iPad are all things I had on the netbook and never used. Well, I did use the camera a few times to Skype with my family when we were travelling, but that was it. The netbook was pretty purely a means of surfing the web, watching videos, and playing games. The Fire is a means of doing those things plus reading books. Depending on what you want to do with your tablet, and why exactly you never used your netbook, it might or might not be a great replacement for you.

The Fire gets a wifi signal from our wireless router, just like the netbook and hubby’s laptop. There’s apparently also some way to use a smart phone to create a wifi signal for it if you’re out on the road or otherwise don’t have access to a network. Don’t know for sure about the iPad, but it’s my understanding that it’s the same.

As for the books, there are a lot of things you can get for free through perfectly cromulent channels like Amazon and Gutenberg. You can get more stuff through the Prime lending library, though I haven’t really looked at that much. I’m not tech savvy enough to say for sure, but I also suspect you can get quite a lot of newer things through…less-cromulent sources just the same as you can movies and music.

As it stands now, I’ve got almost 70 books on my Fire and I’ve paid for maybe 2 of them. One was a complete set of the Green Gables books that was cheap enough it was totally worth saving the hassle of tracking down all 8 books and getting them separately from Gutenberg. The other is the new Stephen King, which I honestly don’t know where hubby got it from, so I can’t vouch for it having been paid for. Of course, I’ve been on a “never got around to reading those” kick the last several months, so I’ve mostly been downloading old series that I either never read at all or only read the first book or two and works I was unfamiliar with from authors of things I liked. The past week or so I’ve been working on the Tarzan books.

11

I like my Kindle Fire. I consider it more economical than an iPad because its so much cheaper. For what they charge for a new iPad i’d rather have a modest laptop.

12

This. My local library has Overdrive e-book lending and I love it. This of course works for both the iPad and kindle.

Also, this blog runs a daily list of kindle free specials that have gotten good reviews. I still tend to find about 99% of it not worth it for me, but I’m pretty picky. I’d rather pay $10 for a really good book than $0 for a bad one. But every so often there’s something good.

My sister also has an extensive Goodreads account where for the “price” of writing reviews she gets a lot of free copies of stuff, sometimes hard copy, sometimes kindle copy. She says a lot of it isn’t very good, though.

13

Idle, I can’t say I agree with everything you just said here.

While your second sentence is true; I disagree with the first one. Why buy the more expensive option when the less expensive option might work just as well? I too have both; but my goto device is my Kindle Fire. I carry it with me for reading while I’m working out; I have tech books on it, so I use it at work, and it works great for email and most web surfing.

You can stream a lot of movies for free if you have Amazon Prime. Yes you can borrow books from digital libraries. You can also email yourself books and documents via the @kindle.com email address; and it adds the document or book into your collection. And finally if you already have books and documents on your computer; you can move them to your Kindle via USB. I’m curious; how is this different (or worse) from the iPad?

Bigger is not always better. For example when reading the iPad has to be held with two hands if you’re doing it for an extended period of time. That gets old fast; when you’re reading a novel, IMHO.

Ahh yes the camera feature of the iPad. A feature I personally never used except when I first opened the iPad. My phone takes just as good of quality of photos; and it’s a lot less hassle.

While I’d balk at the “100 more cool features” part, I pretty much agree here. I think the iPad/Kindle debate comes down the age old answer: “It Depends.” Before you buy either one; decide what you want to use it for. My iPad is now just an internet tool that stays beside my favorite sitting spot in my living room. My kindle is rarely more than a few steps from me at any time.

Agreed, but it goes back to my last statement. Look at the features you want and make your decision. For an e-reader; the Kindle Fire has a lot of functionality in a nice portable size.

14

I thought the Kindle Fire had 3g/4g access. Do you have to be hooked up to a home network to surf with it?

15

Well, bootlegging, but that’s illegal. I don’t feel too bad if I own the book already, but it is illegal. Libraries do borrow out many e-books, which is both legal and free.

16

If you look around, you can get the iPad 2 for much less than $500. Micro Center has the base model, new, for $359, and I believe you can get a refurbished one from the Apple Store for $349.

It’s not a $300 difference, but a $150-$160 one - and at that difference I’d go for the iPad.

17

You need wifi.

18

You really need to use both to make an educated decision. If you have an Apple Store around you; don’t go. It will be too crowded. Or if you do go, wait until this new iPad mania dies down. Try a Best Buy or something. And, try out the iPad. The same with the Kindle Fire. While you are at it you might as well try the Barnes and Noble Nook, too.

Using it in the store will give you a good idea on what sort of size suits you better. And, then you can make your decisions from there.