亞馬遜Kindle Fire：是新星還是流星？

????Kindle Fire并非劃時代的革命性產品，但它確實是亞馬遜公司（Amazon）有史以來最重要的產品。

????亞馬遜積17年之功，終于推出了Kindle Fire這款產品，填補了亞馬遜公司龐大發展版圖上缺失的一環。1994年，首席執行官杰夫?貝索斯首次在車庫里創建商店，成為公司發展的雛形。此后，公司推出了各種服務，但它們互不相干、缺乏協調。Kindle Fire的問世終于將這些服務融為一體。Fire能閱讀電子書，在線購物，還能下載電影和音樂。它采用的是一款依托于云的網絡瀏覽器瀏覽網絡。并且，它的定位忠于其制造者敏銳的零售嗅覺，售價要比其最大的競爭對手，蘋果公司（Apple）的iPad，要便宜至少300美元。

????最大的疑問在于，它的優勢體現在哪兒？

????Fire的機身模仿了黑莓（Blackberry）的PlayBook平板電腦，只不過做工更精致。它機身更窄，按鍵更少，邊框也更窄。這也絕非巧合：這兩款產品是由同一家公司生產的。Fire不會贏得像iPad 2那么高的回頭率，但拿在手上也不會顯得掉價。它像是一件晚禮服，裁剪精致又風格低調，無意于表現自己是如何時髦炫目。

????和以往的Kindle一樣，Fire也差不多是一本較薄的中等尺寸的平裝書大小。它比巴諾書店（Barnes & Noble's）的Nook Color更輕盈，長時間握持也不會感到疲勞。它擁有一塊防刮擦的7英寸彩色屏幕，機身后部的漆層觸感柔軟、猶如橡膠。機身的頂部是兩個小型揚聲器，音量大小足以觀賞電影（前提是離得夠近）。

????機身內部擁有一顆雙核的1G處理器，512MB緩存，足以實現流暢自如的運行。Fire還自帶8G儲存空間，可用來存儲書籍、電影、文檔和軟件。亞馬遜公司稱，WiFi關閉狀態下，電池可用8小時；一直看電影的話，電池可用7.5小時，這聽起來還算不錯。如果打開WiFi，那就得多充幾次電了：根據我的經驗，如果運行日常各種任務，如瀏覽網頁、觀賞電影及閱讀電子書，那就得每隔6.5小時充一次電。這種表現還算不錯。但是，iPad在WiFi打開的情況下待機時間是10小時，Nook平板電腦則宣稱WiFi關閉下，它的待機時間長達11.5小時，與這兩者相比，Fire就處于下風了。

????The Kindle Fire isn't a revolutionary device, but it is Amazon's most important product ever.

????The culmination of 17 years of work, the Kindle Fire is the missing piece of the company's vast corporate puzzle, bringing into harmony nearly every discordant service the company has built since CEO Jeff Bezos first set up shop in his garage in 1994. The Fire reads e-books, shops online, downloads movies and music. It surfs the Web with a cloud-based web browser. And, true to its maker's sharp-nosed retail roots, it undercuts its biggest competitor, the Apple (AAPL) iPad, by at least $300.

????The big question is, is it any good?

????The Fire's case resembles the BlackBerry (RIM) PlayBook tablet, only more refined. It's less wide, has fewer buttons and a thinner bezel. That isn't a coincidence: they're made by the same company. Amazon's (AMZN) Fire won't turn as many heads as the iPad 2, but you won't be ashamed to bandy it about either. The Fire is like a tuxedo, finely tailored even if it doesn't announce itself as something flamboyant.

????Like Kindles past, the Fire is roughly the size of a thin, medium-sized paperback. Lighter than Barnes & Noble's (BN) Nook Color, it's easy to hold the Fire for long periods of time without getting tired. A scratch-resistant 7-inch color display takes up the front, while the back is covered in a soft-touch paint that feels almost like rubber. Up top, two small speakers produce solid volume for watching movies (at close range).

????Inside, a dual-core 1GHz processor and 512 MB of RAM keep performance snappy. The Fire also comes with 8 GB of built-in storage for books, movies, documents and apps. The company says you'll get 8 hours of battery life in between charges with WiFi off and 7.5 hours of battery life of straight movie-viewing, which sounds about right. With WiFi on, expect to plug the Fire in more frequently: in my experience, a mix of daily activities like web browsing, movie watching and reading meant recharging every 6.5 hours. That's acceptable, but not exceptional when compared to the iPad 2's 10 hours with WiFi on or the Nook Tablet's touted 11.5 hours with WiFi off.