Amazon’s $50 Fire Is the Paperback of Digital Entertainment - WSJ

Excerpt from a better-living-through-lowered-expectations tablet market dynamics snapshot

"Using the $50 Amazon Fire for the past week, I wasn’t drafting presentations or burning through email. It doesn’t have anywhere near the necessary speed or screen resolution for serious work. Performance is almost beside the point. Instead, the Fire seizes on the reality that, for many of us, tablets are entertainment—a means to read novels, binge on Netflix in bed and sling Angry Birds.

Half as powerful as an iPad but one-eighth the cost, Amazon’s tablet is cheap yet good enough to have fun. And like a checkout-aisle thriller, it won’t mind getting battered at the bottom of a gym bag or even dropped on the floor."

Amazon’s $50 Fire Is the Paperback of Digital Entertainment - WSJ