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Tech News & Commentary
Karina in Miami, Florida listens via the FREE “Into Tomorrow” App asked us: “I’m interested in getting an eReader. Can you tell me if the Kindle Fire is the best and what makes it different?”
Karina, The Kindle Fire is a tablet, it can do much more than just display books, it can play movies, music, browse the internet, play games, and more.
If you want something like that, a more full featured device, then the Kindle Fire is a good choice, they’re fairly inexpensive, powerful enough, and they have access to a good enough library of content, however, if what you want is an eReader and you don’t care about the rest of the tablet features, a regular Kindle is far superior.
The screen of a Kindle is very paper-like and easy to read under normal lighting conditions, inside or outside, the Kindle Fire does a decent job of displaying content even under bright conditions, but it’s nowhere near as good at displaying plain text as regular Kindle eReaders are.
If what you’re looking for is just an eReader, go for a Kindle, if you want the extra tablet features, a Kindle Fire is for you.
Now while we’re comfortable telling you that the Kindle, especially the Paperwhite Kindle, is the best eReader in our opinion, if you expand your focus to include tablets like the Kindle Fire or Kindle Fire HDX, then we would be remiss if we didn’t mention the excellent reviews the new Apple iPad Air is receiving. The iPad Mini with Retina display uses the same hardware with a smaller screen. Although pricey, the fifth generation iPad and second generation iPad Mini are extremely high quality, well supported tablet computers that do much more than simply work as an eReader, although they do that well.
On the Android side, there are a lot of compelling tablets. One that we like for its excellent value is the Google Nexus 7. It’s fast, with an excellent screen, and since it’s Google’s own tablet it always runs the latest version of Android without a lot of crapware shoveled on top of it. It’s priced very well, you can find it as cheaply as $229. Compare that with the $399 for the second generation iPad Mini and you see why we say the Nexus 7 is a terrific value.
There are also a number of tablets from Lenovo, ASUS, and Acer running the Windows operating system. They’re priced about the same as the iPad Air base models but typically have larger screens than the iPad does. One caution, however, is to be certain you get a Windows tablet running Windows 8 and not Windows 8 RT. As we’ve said on many occasions, RT stands for Really Terrible.
For more information tune in to Hour 2 of our podcast.
“This Week in Tech History” Weekly Feature with Chris Graveline
Joshua in Sparta, Tennessee listening on WTN 99.7 asked us: “I wanted to let you know that I sent an email to the developer. I sent one to them for your stay bright app you were talking about. Give it about a month and they will have it working on your note 3. 9 times out of 10 they have fixed the problem. Also like to ask about your opinion of the best smart TV to use”
Joshua, Panasonic SmartTVs are pretty popular, largely because they usually have very good image quality and because their home screens are less cluttered than some of the other brands, however, Panasonic seems to think it’s a good idea to ship their very expensive TVs with ads built in and turned on by default, so you may have to dig through the options and disable them if you buy one of theirs, otherwise you will be seeing an ad every time you turn it on or adjust the volume.
LG TVs are also pretty well regarded, their home screens are a little less clean, and less intuitive to use in general, but their users seem generally satisfied.
Samsung is probably a distant 3rd, since they’re still stuck with pretty complex screens and with solutions to get around that that are considerably better on paper than they are in reality, like a remote that acts as 3D mouse that you can wave in the air, it sounds like a decent solution but it’s not very easy to use.
You do have another alternative though, you can always go for a ‘dumb’ TV with something like a Roku box, that would give you access to internet streaming media, and it would have a far better chance of ever being updated.
TV manufacturers abandon models all the time and don’t release an awful lot of updates, Roku and it’s competitors will likely try to stay as competitive as possible and push out updates, since they don’t have a toaster branch, a TV branch, and a vacuum cleaner branch, their whole business is media delivery to the TV and nothing else.
Blu-ray players are another option, they’re not super expensive and they typically come with streaming media capabilities.
For more information tune in to Hour 2 of our podcast.
Guest Segment:
Mark Weinstein, CEO – Sgrouples
private collaboration platform that groups your real life communities in one convenient place.
Jim in Idaho Falls, ID listening on 1260 AM asked: “Trying to get together with Raspberry Pi and needed a new monitor. Was wondering if there was a small 20-30 inch TV that would work as a monitor when I wanted to use it on occasion. Hopefully inexpensive.”
Jim, The Raspberry Pi has an HDMI output, so any TV that takes an HDMI input should work just fine with it. And of course, many new TVs offer several HDMI ports these days, so you can even leave it connected if you’d like.
The biggest problem you’re going to find is finding a TV that small.There are a few still around, you can buy a 24 inch refurbished RCA set for $140 on Sears’ website, and it does come with one HDMI port, so if you only want to use it with the Pi and TV, it should work for you.
Best Buy is currently selling 24” Haiers and 22” RCAs for around $130, and those would work for your purposes too.
The Raspberry Pi is a very interesting computer. For those not familiar, it’s a credit card sized single board computer running the Linux OS and selling for around $25. It’s not designed to run your corporate offices, it’s usually part of a specialized system rather than a general purpose computer. We’d just love to know what you’re using it for. Why not share that with our listeners? Call us back and let us know!
For more information, tune in to Hour 2 of our podcast.
This Week’s Prizes for Our Listeners
Bits Limited: Mini Squids — Travel-Sized surge protected power strips
Datawind: UBISLATE 7Ci, 7″ Android tablet with Wi-Fi, internal microphone and camera, and expandable MicroSD memory.
PURE: Jongo Wireless Adapters — Allows you to stream all your music wirelessly to your home audio system.
“Into Tomorrow”: Microfiber Screen Cleaning Cloths with Dave’s cartoon on them, for all your smartphones, tablets, TVs, camera lenses and computer screens!
Magellan’s: RFID-blocking Ridged Aluminum Wallets – in RED for Valentine’s Day – prevents identity theft with expandable pockets that can hold up to 12 credits cards as well as cash and receipts