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Comment by potatolicious | Hacker News Reader

IMO the Kindle Fire dropped below the generously low bar for a dud - I've bought plenty of dud devices before without feeling too raw about it (the iPad 1, for example, which didn't really find a solid use until the second iteration).

My issue with the Kindle Fire is that the "dud-ness" of the device seems willfully negligent as opposed to merely missing the mark.

It's like buying a video game that just didn't turn out to be very fun, vs. a video game that's no-fun and crashes every 5 minutes. One is disappointing, the other is infuriating in its unprofessionalism and lack of respect for their own product.

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Specifically what did you find so awful about the Kindle Fire? I bought one and I'm quite happy with it.

I've experienced some problems with connectivity and the browser freezing occasionally but that's it. A hard reboot every once in awhile seems to solve both.

What makes the other tablets so much better? I haven't used them so I have no point of reference.

The Kindle Fire is very slow, runs an old version of Android (seriously, 4.1 on the Nexus 7 is fantastic), and is maliciously limited: the Fire disallow installing Google Play if you install it yourself unless the device is rooted, for example. And it feels ridiculously cheap in the hands compared to a Nexus 7 (which isn't perfect, but the 7" size is great) or an iPad (which feels much better but the 10" size is like carting around a small dinner plate).

I owned an iPad and an iPad Retina, and I can also attest to a huge jump in use between those versions. The first iPad was excellent, but it was just a little to slow, little too heavy, and little too big. Those issues added up to a product that was fun to use, but less so than a laptop. Truth be told, I think the iPad still suffers from a size/weight issue. If the iPad mini ever becomes a think, I expect my usage of it will change drastically

Those are fair points, but I don't agree with your general point of view. After all, it doesn't matter much if the product is just slightly lousy or awful. You don't end up using the products so the money is equally wasted in both cases.

Let's suppose 30% of all products are duds (i.e. you wouldn't buy them after playing with them for 10 minutes or reading a few reviews about them). So when you buy a product a launch day you pay a premium for getting your hands on it 2 weeks early. The kindle fire was a $199 device, I think, so you're then paying a $60 premium for having it a week or two early. Whether you want to take on that risk is entirely up to you. I personally wouldn't take on the risk, because I know myself well enough to predict I'll feel disproportionately bad when I waste money on a gadget I don't use. It looks like you're the same way. Most people aren't suited to gambling like this.

So you have to take a look at all the anticipated consequences of buying early. And the sour taste of ending up with a dud is part of that. By blaming Amazon for a lousy product you lose sight of the more important conclusion: that this outcome was completely predictable and avoidable.

I bought the iPad 1 and the Kindle Fire on their respective launch dates. IMHO, the original iPad was awesome. The kindle Fire should not be placed in the same category.

The iPad 1 worked very well for my use cases (main one was an instant-on, reliable web browser). At the time, no other device offered me that capability. And I tried many options. For this use case, the original iPad is fine. I have yet to upgrade to the iPad 2/3 (my wife has the latest one and she uses it for web browsing and games).

The thing about the Kindle Fire is that I now don't trust Amazon enough to buy a product from them on launch day. This is a big deal because I have (used to have?) very high regard for Amazon. They broke my trust.

Apple still retains that trust btw. They mess up badly too (iTunes is a train wreck) but have a better batting average. Google does not (I got burned with the Nexus One and Google TV).

Agreed. The first iPad was amazing for a first gen device.

Can you expand on your comment about how the iPad didn't find a solid use until the second iteration? Not sure what that means.

jskopek covers a lot of it - it was a little too heavy, a little too bulky, a little too unresponsive, that you just didn't want to carry it around everywhere - and without having it on you, you'd never really get to use it.

It also took quite a long time for most apps you'd care about to release iPad-compatible updates, by which time the iPad 2 was out and was lighter, smaller, and much faster.

The browsing experience was particularly painful on iPad 1 - loading things took a long time, and the new, bigger screen practically begged for multi-tab browsing, except there's not enough RAM to hold even two tabs at once, so switching tabs was just constant reloads. Lots of little things that aren't huge problems by themselves, but contributed to not using the device.

Calling the iPad 1 a dud is just plain ridiculous.

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