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Amazon Tablet Sets Fire to Book, Movie and Music Sales

The iPad is certainly, in part, designed to help Apple sell books, movies, music and apps. Fortunately there is a lot you can do with an iPad without shelling out big bucks for books, movies, music and apps. And that more than justifies its $500 base price.

Amazon's approach is the opposite. Its new Android-based Kindle Fire tablet sells for only $200, but barely does a lick unless you load it up with books, movies, and music --which cost money.

I like my books the old fashion way: on a shelf. I can get plenty of movies on basic cable, HBO, or Netflix. Heck, I even drive to the cinema every now and again. And with decades' worth of 8-tracks, LPs, cassettes, CDs and my two iPods, I have music enough to get me through a life sentence.

I don't want to give Amazon $200 for the privilege of giving them more money in the future just so I can use my tablet.

But for Kindle fans, I can see this as a neat upgrade -- these folks already enjoy stashing books on one small device and don't mind paying for the right.

In which camp are you? Let us all know how you feel at [email protected].

Posted by Doug Barney on 09/30/2011 at 1:18 PM


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