Amazon says that both the Kindle Fire and Kindle Fire HD will be available in the UK and across Europe too, and that is the first time the Kindle Fire is launched outside of the US. They will come to the UK on October 25.
The 16GB Kindle Fire HD will cost £159, and the 32GB version will cost £199. That means that you get double the storage for the same price as the Nexus 7.. Interesting.
In Europe, the normal Kindle Fire will cost €159, the 16GB Kindle Fire HD €199, and the 32GB €249. Great price. Both models shipping October 25.
It also looks like Amazon will open up the Appstore for Android for European usage too! That's great!
Will that mean that we can install any app from the Google Play store? If that's the case this tablet has more value than even the Nexus 7..
Update: Amazon has confirmed that the new Kindle Fire HD tablets are running a modified version of Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, but I don't think that matter at all. Amazon has made the OS totally their own. Android is hidden in the background.
Some voices heard:
"By Appstore they mean Amazon Appstore not Google Play. Amazon's appstore is already available in the UK and I think it's already available in some parts of Europe."
"Does the Amazon Appstore have any apps then? I mean, it's kinda pointless to buy the Kindle Fire HD without any apps... Does anyone have some stats on how many apps there is for it?"
"I've got it installed on my phone. It doesn't say how many apps it has. It seems far more oriented towards pay for apps than Play is."
"that doesn't necessary mean it's bad though. I like to pay for good apps."
"It'll be Amazon Appstore only (no Google Play access without hacking/rooting), and there are PLENTY of apps on the Amazon Appstore, both paid and free. Check out this link for a bit of a browse -> http://www.amazon.com/mobile-apps/b?ie=UTF8&node=2350149011 - this is the US store but most apps will also be available in the UK store, unless for some reason the devs don't want to make it available, which would be a little crazy."
"From my 10 minutes of playing with the amazon appstore -
Appwise it looks like it has a lot of the major stuff (like Evernote and Tune In) but it seems to drive you towards the Pro versions, even when the free version is available (ie, it promoted Tune In Pro even though if you scroll down the info page about Tune In Pro you'll see that Tune In is available.
I'd have to say I prefer Google Play. Not just in content but also in design. Also (though I have no idea how it works on the Fire), why do I need 4 Amazon apps (Appstore, Kindle, Music and Audible) to get all the content that Amazon will sell me?
If the Fire was running some other OS then I think the app catalogue would be considered adequate - but as it's running Android then you know that there are more apps out there. It's like if Dell launched a PC running some tweaked version of Windows and you could only buy apps from the Dell app store."
"it doesn't matter what Android version it runs on really. Because they have made it their own version. In fact there is almost no Android left. It's hidden in the background. And personally I like that Amazon tries to do an "Apple thing" here."
"Correct. Could be Android 2.3 or 4.1.1 and no-one could tell the difference because it's completely customised."
"Tough call - GREAT device, without a doubt, but less of a "tablet" (compared to a Nexus 7, for example) and more of a media consumption device. If I lived in the US and could get access to all the Amazon Video on Demand etc that comes with Amazon Prime membership, I'd get one for sure, but no access to that stuff in Australia makes it less appealing."
"I think all Kindle Fire HD is based on ICS fork. Also I think with the releases yesterday the Amazon tablets are becoming a good contender and competition to iPad and N7. If that happens and the teen continues then more app developers will find it viable and worth building Kindle Fire apps. The good thing is if your app runs on android your app will mostly run on Kindle Fire with possible exception of removal of some google specific code (like google maps and geolocation etc)"
"Regarding Android apps for Kindle Fire. It's not quite as simple as removing a couple of things, but it is certainly not as complex as porting to another completely new OS, like iOS for example."
" I think it will be a great competitor to both Nexus 7 (with the 7-inch version) and the iPad (with 8.9-inch version)"
What do yo think?
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