Google Nexus 7 pushes the Kill button for the Kindle Fire

The Google Nexus 7 is the latest entry in the short list of Android Tablets to grace the market. While these 7-inchers generate awesome sales, it was not nearly enough to rival the success of the iPad. Just a few months ago, if asked which Android tablet sold the most, one could say it was the Kindle Fire. Now, many of their users felt like they should have waited a bit more.

The Kindle Fire is Amazon’s brainchild. It was the cheapest and greatest of its time. It highlighted the convenience and pu rpose of the 7-inch tablets as the best size to enjoy reading. It was light, fast and small enough to be as portable as a real book. In that form factor, you are able to carry such a huge library of books that you can read anytime and anywhere.

The only thing that bothered most Kindle Fire users was the version of Android that it sported. The Kindle Fire uses a watered down version of Android, where the Google services and full power of an Android device is missing. It is then replaced by Amazon services which left some things to be desired. This has led a lot of hackers to take matters into their own hands by modding the Kindle Fire to sport more of Android’s features, to as much as the hardware could handle. It was popular, cheap and did the job that it was meant for.

In comes the Google Nexus 7, the latest in the Nexus series of devices. The Nexus 7 is also in the 7-inch form factor. It also highlights its portability, light weight and low price. In fact, it is priced at exactly the same price the Kindle Fire is in: $200. It also allows you to use Amazon’s Kindle apps, but that is as far as the similarities lie.

The Google Nexus 7 is the most powerful 7-inch Android tablet to date, with the latest version of Android: Jelly Bean. It has a front facing camera, NFC support, a smaller and lighter chassis, double the RAM, better screen resolution, a much more powerful processor, a microphone, Bluetooth, GPS and a slew of Google features that the Kindle cannot natively have. There is virtually no reason anymore that anyone will choose the Kindle Fire over the Google Nexus 7. The list says it all.

If there is any area that the Kindle Fire can take an advantage, is the total integration that it has with Amazon resources. That is of course countered by plenty of 3rd party solutions like Netflix, Google’s own Play Store, and even the Amazon’s own Kindle app for Android.

The bar has been set for the 7-inch tablets, and it is quite a high bar at that. A low price, high power tablet enters the 7-inch space, and suddenly, all the rest fail to matter. What’s more, Google has direct responsibility for the device’s software management, so you are assured of the latest and greatest Android OS, whenever that may come.

Can anyone else think of a reason to get a Kindle Fire?

Image sources: amazon.com, play.google.com, gizmowatch.com, allthingsd.com