Amazon attacks Apple in a campaign on the retailer’s popular home page, mocking the shortcomings of the iPad Mini when compared to the Kindle Fire HD 7.
Amazon launched its campaign, featured on its home page, before the first iPad Minisreach those who pre-ordered them; delivery is expected November 2. Amazon’s newKindle Fire HD 7-inch tablet is available now, and the 8.9-inch version is scheduled to ship November 20.
The Amazon ad offers a feature comparison of the tablets, pointing out that the $329 iPad Mini has a 7.9-inch display with 1024-by-768-pixel resolution at 163 ppi pixel density, while the $199 Kindle Fire HD has a 7-inch display with 1280-by-800-pixel resolution, at 216 ppi pixel density.
The better display on the Amazon tablet enables it to play HD movies and TV shows at 720p HD resolution, while the iPad Mini’s screen would not display them at full resolution.
Amazon points out that its tablet has dual stereo speakers, while the iPad Mini has a mono speaker. The ad also runs a quote from Gizmodo that counters Apple CEO Tim Cook’s claim that tablets smaller than the iPad Mini are a compromise: “…your [Apple's] 7.9-inch tablet has far fewer pixels than the competing 7-inch tablets! You’re cramming a worse screen in there, charging more, and accusing others of compromise? Ballsy.”
What Amazon’s ad doesn’t mention is that the iPad Mini is both thinner and lighter than the smaller-screen Kindle Fire HD, and that it also has dual cameras; the Kindle Fire HD has only a front-facing camera. Apple said when it introduced the iPad Mini that the tablet has access to more than 250,000 iPad-optimized apps, while Amazon’s offerings are significantly fewer.
As my colleague Melissa J. Perenson points out in her iPad mini comparison with Android tablets, you are not buying just buying pixels and storage, but also buying into the manufacturer's application ecosystem, which is currently led by the iPad.
So, while other manufacturers won’t find it hard to highlight the higher resolution of their tablet screens, it will be hard for them to claim they have a healthier ecosystem of quality apps than Apple.
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