When we talk about the biggest names in the tablet industry today, we often disregard that we have Amazon, which is also known for making the Kindle line of tablets that are quite popular among different people. Two of the Amazon tablets you might be familiar with are the Fire and the Kindle. However, one of the things you have noticed is the price disparity between the two. So, why is Kindle Fire cheaper than Kindle?
The Amazon Fire is cheaper than the Amazon Kindle because Fire is a general all-purpose Android tablet with plenty of competition and can be produced at lower costs. Meanwhile, the Kindle is an E-reader, which doesn’t have a lot of competition in the market and comes with specialized components.
So, when you look at it, the reason why the Fire is cheaper than the Kindle can be attributed to economics and how the market dictates the cost of production and the prevailing price for each product. However, we also have to look at the different features that make the Fire and the Kindle different from one another not only in terms of their price but also in what they can do as tablets.
What are the differences between Kindle Fire and Kindle?
If you love the different products that Amazon has to offer, you might be willing to look at the tablets that this company has in store for you. We often forget that Amazon is still one of the prominent names when it comes to developing tablets as we usually look at some of the more popular companies in the mobile smart device industry.
So, when you take a good look at the tablets that Amazon has to offer to the market, the two names that come out are the Fire and the Kindle. The Kindle has been one of the more well-known names in the entire tablet industry as it has been around for a very long time and even before the iPad broke into the market. But not all of us are quite familiar with the Amazon Fire, which might not be as prominent and as well-known as the Kindle but is still very much a good tablet coming from a great company.
With all that said, what makes the Fire and the Kindle different from one another? Let’s look at some factors one by one.
Design and display
The first part we need to discuss when looking at the differences between the Fire and the Kindle is their design and display. That’s because these tablets are actually designed to be different from one another even though most tablets come with almost the same look.
One of the key differences you can find is their screens. The Fire tablets are made to be general all-around Android tablets in the sense that their screens are quite similar to any other screen you can find in most other devices such as televisions, smartphones, monitors, and other tablets. This means that their screens were made and designed to be used for games and watching videos.
However, the Kindle has an entirely different screen in the sense that its screen is meant for reading. The Kindle is not a general all-purpose tablet but is actually an E-reader. This means that it uses a screen that is dedicated to reading and is quite different from the usual LCD screens that you see on most other tablets.
The Kindle comes with what they call an E-Ink screen, which is basically a screen that tries to replicate or mimic the experience you get when you are reading actual books. The electric signals on the screen appear to make the words look like actual ink. Meanwhile, these screens are also monochromatic and don’t come in different colors so that the Kindle can actually mimic the same reading experience you get when you are reading a real book.
Design-wise, the Fire and the Kindle actually look similar because they are both made from durable plastic that is capable of surviving through a few bumps and drops. But they are not the best in terms of their overall looks as they pale in comparison to the more expensive and more premium tablets that you can find on the market.
Of course, both the Fire and the Kindle come with their own ports for charging. The Fire traditionally comes with a micro-USB port but it won’t be rare to find a Fire that comes with the newer and better USB-C port. Meanwhile, the Kindle still comes with the traditional micro-USB port because there is no need for it to switch to the USB-C port as of this writing.
Meanwhile, because the Fire is made to be an all-around tablet that you can use for watching videos and listening to music, it was made and designed to have a 3.5mm headphone jack where you can insert your headphones into. But since the Kindle was not made to be able to play media files and is meant strictly for reading, there was never a need for it to have a headphone jack. The only exception is the Kindle Oasis, which allows you to listen to audiobooks.
Finally, let us look at how they are designed in terms of their cameras (or lack thereof). The Amazon Fire, like all tablets, comes with both a rear and a front camera that can be used for taking pictures, selfies, or video calling. These cameras are not the best in terms of quality but that usually isn’t an issue when it comes to tablets.
On the other hand, the Kindle doesn’t come with any camera whatsoever because it was never meant to be a general all-purpose tablet that can take pictures. Instead, it is an E-reader. In that case, you can cross this one out of the Kindle’s list of capabilities.
Battery life
One of the most amazing parts about Amazon tablets is that they come with a battery life that is actually pretty great in comparison to their competitors. This allows you to use them for an extended period of time.
The Fire tablet is similar to most tablets in the sense that it may last longer but won’t be able to last for a very long time because of how the screen and the different components of a Fire require plenty of power to run. Still, you can expect a Fire tablet to survive for about 12 hours, which is a good number for any tablet.
On the other hand, the battery life of a Kindle is amazing because of how it actually doesn’t require a ton of power to run properly. That’s because all it needs is enough juice to allow the E-Ink screen to run, and it doesn’t need as much power as most LCD screens do. As such, a Kindle can last up to six weeks on one single charge if you are reading for about two hours a day. In a sense, that you don’t even have to bring a charger with you wherever you go.
Software and performance
At the end of the day, what the Fire and the Kindle are capable of doing boils down to their software. That’s because the software is what dictates the things that these tablets can do and cannot do.
In that case, the Fire tablet runs on the popular Android operating system, which is the most widely used OS in the tablet industry today. However, Amazon added its own user interface on top of the Android OS to give users a more unique kind of experience when using this tablet.
That said, because of how the Fire is actually an Android tablet, it comes equipped with almost everything that any other Android tablet can do such as browsing the internet, watching movies, listening to music, streaming videos, and playing games. It really is a general all-purpose tablet just like any other tablet is.
In a sense, the Amazon Fire is a portable entertainment device that can do almost everything you might demand a tablet can do. This is what makes it the more versatile device when compared to the Kindle.
On the other hand, the Amazon Kindle is almost purely designed for reading only, and that means that what you can do with the Kindle is very limited. You can only buy and read books when you are using your Kindle but you won’t be able to do much of anything other than reading books and documents.
The Kindle allows you to not only buy books but also upload your PDF documents into the device so that you can read school or work stuff on a good E-reader that mimics the actual feeling of reading a real book or document.
So, in that sense, the Kindle is a device that was meant and designed only for reading and nothing else. You can watch movies, listen to music, or play games with the Kindle. This makes it a device that is limited in terms of what it can do.
Price
Now, down to the meat of the article, we have to understand that these devices are priced differently because of how they come with different capabilities and different niche markets that they are trying to target.
The Fire, for one, targets the general all-purpose tablet market that has a lot of different players. Meanwhile, the Kindle targets the market that wants to use tablets solely for reading and nothing else.
In that regard, one of the things you will immediately notice that the base price of a Fire tablet is actually cheaper than that of the base price of the most affordable Kindle. The Fire 7 retails at a very affordable price of about $49.99 while the Kindle’s cheapest tablet comes with a $109.99 price tag.
Meanwhile, the premium versions of each device also have a similar price disparity. The more expensive Fire HD 10 comes with a price of $159.99 while the Kindle Oasis costs $249.99, which has a $90 difference from the Fire HD 10.
So, with that said and done, the Kindle is actually pretty much more expensive than the Fire despite the fact that the Kindle is very limited in terms of what it can do as a tablet.
What is Fire cheaper than Kindle?
Now that you see the differences between the Fire and the Kindle not only in terms of what they can do but also in terms of their prices, you might be wondering why the Fire is a lot cheaper than the Kindle.
So, for starters, it all boils down to basic economics when you want to understand why the Fire is much more affordable than the Kindle despite the fact that the latter has plenty of limitations in what it can do.
The market that the Fire is in is actually a very congested market that is full of different players. That means that the Fire has plenty of different competitors that are all great in their own right and are probably much better in terms of popularity and specs in comparison to the Fire.
So, when you look at it, the only way for the Fire to actually excel and make a name for itself in the market is by having an identity of its own because it can’t compete with the likes of the iPad and the Samsung tablets in terms of pure specs and performance. As such, the Fire was made to be a more affordable tablet option for those who are merely looking for a standard entry-level general-purpose tablet that people can use for a wide variety of different tasks.
On top of all of that, it really is much more affordable for Amazon to produce the Fire tablet because of how there are plenty of Android tablet manufacturers all over the world that they can tap. The parts and components for these entry-level tablets are so cheap due to how competitive the market is. And that is why Amazon can afford to have the Fire at such low prices.
Meanwhile, the market for the E-reader is actually is not as congested as the general tablet market is. There aren’t plenty of different E-readers out there, and that is why the Kindle can excel in terms of its name and popularity when you only factor in E-readers and not all of the other tablets. Of course, the Kindle is also the best E-reader the market has to offer, and that fact alone allows Amazon to command higher prices for their Kindle devices.
On top of that, because of how there aren’t plenty of manufacturers that offer the parts that a Kindle needs such as its E-Ink screen, it will be more expensive for Amazon to produce the Kindle in comparison to the Fire, which has different manufacturers vying for the lowest prices in a taker’s market.
All that said, the fact that the Kindle has its own niche market that it dominates is what makes it the more expensive product of the two even though it does have plenty of limitations in comparison to the Fire. Meanwhile, because the Fire is a small player in a very large and congested market, it has to pull its production costs and selling prices down so that it can stand up against the bigger competitors and attract people who are more willing to buy cheaper tablets that are already good enough for all-around purposes.