Kindle Fire Now on Sale, Starting at $169Hmm. Is Amazon reacting to the Nook HD price cuts? Looks possible, with their new Kindle Fire sale. (By the way, I love it when Amazon puts them on sale because I get to write “Fire sale.” ;))

Ahem. Anyway. Obviously if you’ve been on the fence about a Fire, this is looks like a good time to buy. It’s a nice color tablet, and if you’re already invested in the Amazon infrastructure, this could be the tablet for you. There’s no indication of how long the sale will last, but, if I had to guess I’d say probably until the end of the July 4th weekend.

However, I’d be remiss in not pointing out options. I’m not a fan of the Fire (and don’t own one) because I don’t like the lock on the Amazon App store. I’ve bought apps from the store in the past, and they are often one or two updates behind the apps in Google Play. I like having the most current version, and it finally annoyed me enough that I repurchased my must-have apps in Google Play.

The Nexus 7 and Nook HD are excellent alternatives, especially with the recent price drops on the HD.

So, why would you want a Fire?

1. You are an Amazon Prime member and want to take full advantage of the offerings, including the Lending Library and free Prime Streaming. A Kindle Fire or an iPad are currently the only ways to view Prime Streaming on a tablet. (And hey, Under the Dome is currently free for Prime members. I’m taking advantage of it.)

2. You have kids and want to take advantage of Kindle Free Time. This is huge, and if I had a small rugrat, I’d be all over it.

3. You primarily read Kindle books or are savvy enough (and inclined) to strip DRM from other sources.

I make these points because I’m seeing Kindle owners on other forums move away from their Fires (often to iPad minis). The Fire does fill a content consumption niche, and if that’s what you’re looking for, it’s a good device. If you’re looking for a more all-around tablet device, you might want to look elsewhere.

The other reason I’d hesitate to buy, even at this price, is that my gut feeling tells me we are only a few months away from a new Fire.

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  1. OK, serious question here: Is there really, truly no way to stream Amazon Prime videos on a Nexus 7 tablet? I don’t have a Kindle Fire or an iPad, and I’m really getting tired of watching Prime videos on my laptop – which is heavy, and never leaves my desk. There must be some way, no?

    I realize Prime videos require the Adobe Flash player, which I can’t seem to install on my Nexus 7. And yet I was able to install it on my phone, which is an Android phone … but not a Nexus. (it’s an HTC.)

    Anyone?

  2. Dan, Flash is no longer supported for Android. You may be able to install it on some Android devices, but it’s not guaranteed to work with all of them–Adobe is no longer updating it to work with such devices. Adobe’s trying to move people to the Adobe Air platform.

    As far as I know, you need the Amazon Prime app to watch Amazon Prime movies, which is only available through the Amazon app store for Amazon devices. Don’t know why they’d support iOS but not general Android, but apparently they don’t.

  3. Hey Chris, thanks for that. I knew Android wasn’t supporting Flash any longer, but I didn’t realize it was because they were trying to move users to Adobe Air. As for watching Amazon Prime videos, you can actually watching them on just about any desktop or laptop computer.

    I have a really old Dell laptop, for instance, and my fiancee has a really old Sony laptop, and we can both watch Prime content on those machines. (You can also use set-top boxes like the Roku box and the ASUS Cube, and you can also use Internet-connected gaming devices like Xbox 360, the PS3, Nintendo Wii, and the Wii U.)

    It’s really only with mobile devices that you run into problems. And you’re right: It’s funny that iOS is supported by Nexus tablets aren’t. Literally, the only compatible mobile devices are the Kindle Fire, the iPad, the iPhone and the iPod touch.

    Here’s the list, if anyone’s interested:
    http://www.amazon.com/gp/video/ontv/devices

    My thinking, though, is that there MUST be a work-around. There are tons of YouTube videos explaining how to watch Prime videos on a Nexus mobile device, but none of those work-arounds seem to work. (Sigh.)

  4. @Dan, sorry, but I’ve also done some looking, and I haven’t found any way to do it either. I still can’t believe Amazon hasn’t released an Android app, and I’m hoping they will. The screen on the Nexus 7 is so nice for HD video. Under the Dome would have looked so good on my 7. 🙁

  5. RE: Amazon Prime Video on Android – I thought alternate browsers supported Flash still? Several folks with shiny new Nook HDs have commneted on watching Amazon video with a browser called Dolphin?

    I’m wondering when Amazon is going launch Free Time for iOS? I’d rather not buy a Fire, no matter how cheap, when the kids have the old iPad 1 they could use instead. And if they won’t support iPad 1, then that will just “force” me to upgrade my iPad 2, won’t it? 😀

  9. Juli – No way! Are you serious?! Oh man … you have no idea how happy that makes me! (Actually, I guess you probably do. But you know what I mean.)

    Incidentally, I think I actually got pretty close myself yesterday. I was watching a bunch more YouTube videos that explained how to do it, and eventually found one that not only seemed legit, but was also pretty new; it was made after Android stopped being able to support Adobe Flash. The problem was that it was just too complicated. I got as far as opening the Developer Options in my Settings tab and downloading the Flash apk file onto my laptop. But I wasn’t quite sure how to drag the apk file onto the Nexus, and I also didn’t want to do anything that would permanently screw it up. So I stopped.

    Anyway, I’m sure I speak for many people when I saw I will very much look forward to your how-to post….

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