Kindle vs iPad is an Apples vs Oranges comparison, but people will still want the comparison. When I refer to the Kindle I am talking about the devices Amazon have announced for the UK, which is the £89 entry level device and the £110 to £150 Kindle Keyboard. The Amazon Fire is a whole different type of device which has not been announced for the UK.
You can buy a basic Kindle for around a quarter of the price of an iPad, so that will be a comparison stopper for many people. The iPad is a general purpose Tablet computer and the iPad is a dedicated eBook reader. The Kindle attempts to be an almost single purpose device for replacing printed paper. The iPad is a general purpose computer for multimedia enternainment and communication. The iPad is a more glossy premium feel product than the Kindle, which has a hint of the utilitarian about it. The iPad has a gorgeous intuitive touch screen that builds on decades of interface research. The Kindle has no touch screen and is its basic but functional interface is controlled through physical buttons.
The battery on a kindle can last up to a month between charges (Amazon actually claim two months but I would take that with a few Kg of salt). The iPad will usually last at least a day without charges. The Kindle is much lighter than the iPad (170g vs 600g), and you can just about fit the smallest kindle into your pocket if your jeans are not too tight. The iPad would only fit in a clowns pocket.
The iPad is excellent for watching video, the Kindle is monochrome and doesn’t do video (though it does do audio). But don’t let that put you off the Kindle screen, as it uses eInk screen technology which makes reading large amounts of text feel like reading from paper and it is much better in daylight than any standard computer screen.
Despite the huge resources of Apple and the well established slick machine that is iTunes, the Kindle offers a wider range of reading material than the iPad. Note that the Kindle system is not limited to the Kindle hardware. You can download the Kindle software for most computing devices, so you can read your content on an Android Phone, an iPhone or an iPad. By contrast iTunes is available on fewer devices.
The Kindle has a feature that no other similar device has. The 3G version has built in cellular networking that is not charged for. Let me repeat that, it allows you to connected using cellular phone networks without any charge, i.e. no monthly bill or pay as you go charges. The catch is that this service is designed to be used mainly for buying digital content online from Amazon, so the data charges are recovered by the margins on what you buy. But note the word mainly, the kindle also has “experimental features” including a basic web browser. This means you can browse basic web sites over the cellular network wherever you are without charge, and if you have ever experienced the shock of an international roaming bill, check out the following statement
“Kindle 3G (Free 3G + Wi-Fi) comes with built-in Free 3G wireless connectivity with coverage in more than 100 countries and territories”
You can see a map of the coverage at
http://client0.cellmaps.com/viewer.html?cov=2&view=intl
If you do a lot of international travel, having a Kindle could pay for itself even if you use some other device for paid internet access.
So in summary, if you want a substitute for paper, go Kindle, if you want a general entertainment device go iPad.
The Amazon Kindle eBook reader is the first truly successful product in this category. Sony have had an eBook reader since at least 2006, but it was not a big hit as you needed a connection to another computer to get content for it.
The Kindle has an amazing screen that they call eInk. When seeing the screen for the first time one person asked, “is it on”?. The display is so similar to the appearance of printed paper it can look like one of the shop dummy computers you see in stores like IKEA. It has the steady flat appearance quite unlike any other type of computer display.
But the real advantage of the Kindle was that you could buy a vast selection products without having to connect to your main computer in any way. Many people are already comfortable with buying from Amazon as a trusted brand, so buying for the Kindle is not a great leap. Amazon has deals with major publishers and there is a growing cottage industry of self publishing where people write primarily for the Kindle market. You can buy a wide range of quality magazines and newspaper, generally at a discount on the cost of the paper version. Amazon reported in 2010 that eBook sales had exceeded paperback sales.
It’s important to understand the difference between the Kindle and tablet computers like the Apple iPad. Tablet computers tend to have a much shorter battery life (typically a single day) as opposed to several weeks with the Kindle. Also even though the iPad has an excellent screen for general computing it is not designed reading large amounts of text and the Kindle is much, much better when reading in sunlight.
You can now order a new type of Kindle in the UK for £89, as opposed to the £109 previous cheapest model. It has a shorter battery life than the older models, doesn’t do audio and has less memory and no keyboard. However it weighs a third less and has the same size and type of screen as the older models, and that got rave reviews.
Note that this is not the same as the Kindle Fire that is available in the US. The Kindle Fire is Amazons low cost take on an Android tablet, custom built for buying their digital content. The Kindle Fire is considered a game changer in the US as its US$199 price is expected to put pressure on the other Tablet makers such as Samsung to bring down their prices.
However, I am not convinced that the £89 UK Kindle is a particularly step forward. For example, one of the cool features of the original Kindle was that the 3G version came with subscription free international cellular access. This meant you could get on a plane to most of the worlds major cities, and get unmetered 3G access. This was mainly for buying content from Amazon, but it also came with “experimental” web browsing. The browsing experience is slightly limited but if you have time to kill when far from home, the ability to browse the web without worrying about connection charges is very attractive. Assuming you are going to use any eBook reader for a few years the price difference of £60 between the classic Kindle and the new model may seem a false economy.
However there is a whole new generation of young people who just “don’t get paper” and want to read everything from some type of computer. The monochrome screen and emphasis on “proper books” of the Kindle makes it attractive to people who are suspicious of “I found it on the Web”. Add to that the price point of the new Kindle, and it may be attractive to older people as the perfect Christmas present for children or grandchildren.
By law you must have car insurance, but it can be startlingly expensive. Insurance is like gambling with less excitement and where every “win” comes with a loss. Although it seems very expensive, it is a competitive market with each company desperate to get new customers and there are things you can do to minimise the cost.
Choosing insurance is a case of working out the chance of something happening and what the impact will be if it does happen. If you don’t insure your house against fire and it burns down the impact is truly awful. If you don’t have third party motor insurance and you crash into a shiny new Rolls Royce, the impact will be very expensive. Years ago one of the ways to minimise your premium was to go for “third party fire and theft”. Your insurance would pay out on claims against you by a third party and would pay if your car was stolen or burned out but that was it. If you drove into a wall yourself you were on your own. This type of insurance has become rare, as it seems the insurance companies have worked out that that anyone economising that much on insurance is probably not a good bet.
Insurance companies like to tempt customers with “freebies” but things are almost never free. If one company can throw in free rescue service, a free pen, a set of steak knives or whatever then another company can simply offer you a lower premium. Remember there is no such thing as a free lunch. Insurance companies assess your risk partly on the basis of what you do for a living. The more boring your line of work the lower risk you are considered. So accountancy and teaching are considered low risk but actors and musicians are considered high risk. It can seem a bit unfair if you are a very careful and cautious musician. However many people have more than one line of work and if you are a musician who also works as a bookkeeper you would be better off listing bookkeeper as your profession. Don’t lie about your line of work however, or you could find you are without insurance when you most need it. Remember insurance companies will take any legal opportunity not to pay out.
A less obvious way to save on insurance is to increase the excess, the first bit you will have to pay in the event of any claim. Most quotes will factor in a standard excess such as £100, but if you are willing to accept a bigger excess the price of the premium can come down significantly For the insurance company any claim will have a minimum over head cost. So for example if you made a claim for £50 it might still cost them £10 worth of administration. By setting the excess the low cost claims are filtered out.
As a general rule the bigger the excess the smaller the premium. But if the excess is truly excessively high you might think it would reduce the value of the insurance to you. However if you have a low value vehicle are in the low risk categories, i.e. over 40 with full no claims discount the main reason to have insurance is mainly for the statutory requirements for 3rd party insurance.
Say for example you have not made a motor vehicle claim in 30 years and your car is worth less than £1,500. Is it worth the risk of increasing your excess from £50 to £250 on the basis that will give you a discount on your premium. What is the chance after all this time that you are going to have a big claim? How badly would it affect you if you had to stump up that extra £200. So to quote my favourite philosopher Clint Eastwood, “do you feel lucky punk?”. I’d suggest it is a risk worth taking based on past experience.
The other money saving trick is to never accept the automatic offer of renewal without shopping around. Insurance companies know that many people just cannot be bothered to do the research, just cannot be bothered to save money. Do you want to give money away unnecessarily.
Choosing a smartphone
It can seem like half the population is distracted by poking at their little screens or have a far away look as they listen to music. Phone calls and text messaging is no longer enough. Having the web with you constantly is not just a fashion statement it can change your life like the when you got your first mobile phone. In a shop and not sure if something is a bargain, a few clicks and you can check the prices elsewhere. Need to find an address, a few clicks and you can be looking at a map or a view of your destination from a satellite. But selecting a smart phone is a bit like selecting a computer a few years ago, megabytes, gigabyte, gigahertz, blue-tooth, WiFi, HiFi, what does it all mean? There can be a fear of buying features you don’t need or missing out on essential capabilities. Google Android and Apple iPhone are not the only choices but they are the main ones so how do you choose?
Knowing the background to Apple and Google can help explain the differences between the iPhone and Android phones. Apple used to be a computer company that produced very stylish, easy to use but relatively expensive computers. They never gained more than about 10% of the market as most computer used to be bought by business that were more concerned with service and flexibility than style. For years Apple tried to convince business that it was worth paying extra for a computer that was better looking and easier to use but the accountants kept ignoring them.
Move forward a few decades and the Apple iPod turned the Cassette Walkman into an antique. The iPod was stylish, easy to use and relatively expensive but they are mainly bought by individuals not businesses. The key piece of software for the iPod was iTunes that made it oh so easy to buy music online. In fact iTunes might be more important to apple than the iPhone itself, as it means that most people continue to spend money with Apple after buying the hardware.
So when the very stylish, easy to use but relatively expensive iPhone was introduced with the ability to also be an iPod it quickly took a significant but not dominant market share. Again Apple continued to make money from most buyers as they bought songs from iTunes.
Shortly after the iPhone the first Google produced its Android system and the first phones arrived. They were not as stylish or as easy to use as the iPhone but they were slightly cheaper and came with the backing of web giant Google. While you can buy music using an Android phone it is not as easy or as obvious as using the iPhone, but some people want to use a phone as a phone and occasionally browse the web.
If the iPhone does music better than anyone else then Android phones do the web and Googles version of the web better than anyone else. The standard iPhone cannot view web sites that use a technology called Flash which is used to create pretty animations, the Android has no problem with these sites.
Battery life is an issue with smartphones and information tends to be unreliable as people use them in different ways. Some people may complain that they can hardly get to the end of the day without having to recharge and others will report that they only charge every other day. Battery life depends strongly on how you use networking features such as WiFi. It can even depend on where you are when you use your phone. If you are a long way from the nearest phone mast your phone may drain its battery as it uses more power to get a signal.
Because the hardware on each Android phone is different the battery life can vary wildly. A bette screen or faster processor can mean a shorter battery life. Pictures look nice on a better screen but a smartphone with a dead battery is not very smart at all.
Both types of phones support Apps, small low cost programs that can be downloaded and installed very easily. These can be anything from restaurant guides to games. Historically there were more Apps for iPhones than for Android but Android is rapidly catching up.
Because there is only one manufacturer of the iPhone there is a vast array of accessories for them such as docking stations and cases. Because there are so many different manufacturers the choice for Android owners is more limited.
So in summary, if style, accessories and downloading music are important to you the iPhone could be the right choice.
If you already make use of Googles services and want a slightly more complete web experience then Android could be the right choice.
iPod Touch vs iPod Classic
After years of resistance I recently bought my first iPod of any type. The idea was that I would rip all my CD’s, put them in a box in the attic and free up some shelf space. The choice was between an iPod Touch and an iPod Classic. The iPod Touch is like an iPhone without the phone bit. It has the internet in the form of WiFi and it can download and run Apps like the iPhone but you just cannot make calls on it. The iPod classic by contrast just does the classic iPod job of playing music, but it stores it on a “traditional hard disk” rather than the flash memory used by the other iPods, and hard disks are more fragile than flash memory as they contain small parts rotating at high speed. The classic doesn’t connect to the internet, has no touch screen and no speakers. You can play video but the small screen makes it rather unsatisfactory. The classic is much fatter and heavier than the touch and you would notice it in your pocket unlike the slim and sleek Touch. So if the classic is so limited why would you choose it over the iPod Touch? There is a simple answer cost and storage.
For the cost of a 32Gb iPod Touch you can buy a 160GB iPod Classic. Ahh but do you need more than 32Gb of disk space. Well I’m not the worlds greatest audiophile and I have over 32GB of music and I am still in the process of acquiring more. Of course you could just put your favourite music on a touch and keep the bulk on a hard disk until you wanted to use it, but for me the attraction of a music player is that I have it all in one small device and I can use it whenever I want. If you are buying an iPod for listening in your living room you will have to factor in the cost of some type of docking station and you get what you pay for in terms of sound quality.
The reality of technology prices mean that the cost of 160Gb of flash memory will be the same as a hard disk within the next few years, but if you cannot wait and can live without games and the internet, the iPod Classic solves the problem of a single device for storing and playing all your music.