This battle was inevitable two tablets both packing extremely high value, and of course were priced the exact amount. A perfect recipe for disaster. So lets jump right in and let these tablets show what they got. In this comparison we will be comparing the long awaited Nexus 7 and the king of budget tablets: The Kindle Fire, which tablet will come out on top? Click your way past the break to find out.
Specs and User Experience:
The Kindle Fire features specs comparable to a mid range smartphone, featuring a dual core processor, half a gigabyte of RAM, and a 7 inch 1024x600 IPS display. While the Nexus 7 features specifications comparable to a high end smart phone. Packed in to this device is a quad core nvidia Tegra 3 clocked at 1.2GHz, 1 gigabyte of RAM and a 7 inch 1280x800 IPS display, meaning the Nexus 7 has a higher dpi of 215 compared to the Kindle Fire's 169 dpi a substantial increase, and for comparison the iPad 3 has a dpi of 263 dpi. Both tablets have 8GB of storage with a 16GB model available for the Nexus 7 for $249, but the amount of storage actually available to the user for the Kindle Fire is 6GB. Now for media consumption tablets that's pretty low right? The reason the amount of storage is low is due to the fact that all content bought on their stores is stored in the cloud, basically forcing you to buy movies and other content on their stores. Plus there is no MicroSD for expandable storage on either of these tablets. In terms of user experience the Nexus 7 will have smoother transitions and faster app start ups due to the fact of "Project Butter" being incorporated in to Jelly Bean meaning everything will run at 60fps which is pretty high and due to the fact of all the graphics capabilities of nvidia's Tegra 3. While the Kindle Fire runs Android 2.3 "Gingerbread" which doesn't have all features of Jelly Bean, but Amazon makes up for this by running their own custom skin which totally changes Android in a good way and a bad way. First the good: Amazon's custom skin makes everything run incredibly fast even due to the hardware constraints, now the bad: Amazon does remove most of the features of Android and forces you to use their version of Android.
For this round the Nexus 7 wins.
Media
Both of these tablets were aimed at media consumption and both of them deliver. The Nexus 7 offers Magazines, TV shows, apps, eBooks, and movies. And for now Google is relatively new in the respect of magazines and tv shows and their collection of movies isn't that mind blowing either. But you have to remember that Google has just entered this market and they are bound to expand. Amazon offers their huge selection of magazines and of course eBooks, and a plethora of movies and TV shows. But in Google's defense the give you a free copy of Transformers: Dark of the Moon and $25 of store credit to use in their Play Store. But when you go and try to use those $25 you won't find much to spend it on due to the fact that there aren't many tablet optimized applications on the Play Store and that Google's selection of other content is low. In this comparison the Fire wins.
Size and Portability
Both of these tablets are 7 inch meaning they are both relatively portable. But in terms on size the Fire measures in at 190 mm x 120 mm x 11.4 mm while the Nexus 7 comes in at 198.5 x 120 x 10.45mm meaning that the Nexus 7 is slightly longer, but also slightly thinner. In terms of weight the Fire weighs in at 413 grams and the Nexus 7 weighing in at a substantially less 340 grams. Plus the Nexus has a slightly dimpled back with a soft touch finish meaning the device won't slip out of your hand easily where as the Kindle Fire has a flat back with no texture. So the Nexus 7 wins again.
Wrap Up and Winner
Both these tablets pack a lot of features and both being sold at the same price it really comes down to priorities, so if you are a huge media consumer you may want to look in to the Fire since it features a lot of media content, but if you want to see a lot of developer support and the most bang for your buck you may as well choose the Nexus 7 due to the fact that you get high end specs for a low end price and due to the fact that Google will be getting a lot more content in the future since they have already partnered up with a lot of companies. So in the end we pick the Nexus 7 just because of the fact that it ships with stock Android Jelly Bean and due to massive value it packs and the media selection that Google has.
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