Inexpensive tablet wars: Lenovo IdeaPad A1 vs. Amazon Kindle Fire

Challenge

The tablet market is gliding to new pastures. After the supremacy of numerous expensive tablets like Apple iPad and Samsung Galaxy Tab, the world is now witnessing some low-priced gadgets. Companies like Amazon and Lenovo have recently announced inexpensive tablets, respectively Kindle Fire and IdeaPad A1. Amazon Kindle Fire, an Android 2.3 Gingerbread tablet comes out of wraps after long tumors over its build and features. It was largely presumed that Kindle tablet would be an ideal iPad killer; but when realized it does not look like so. Lenovo IdeaPad A1 is also an Android Gingerbread tablet. Here is a comparison of Amazon Kindle Fire and Lenovo IdeaPad A1 to ease your confusion over purchasing one.

Lenovo IdeaPad A1 vs. Amazon Kindle Fire

Comparison Attributes

Processor

Amazon Kindle Fire is equipped with a 1GHz TI OMAP 4 dual core processor to make sure high performance. You can watch movies, read contents and surf the web with no clutter or performance fallback thanks to the Texas Instruments’ dual core processor on Kindle Fire. Lenovo IdeaPad A1, at the same time, sports a single core 1GHz TI OMAP 3622.

Winner: Amazon Kindle Fire wins over Lenovo IdeaPad A1 with its dual core processor.

Operating system

Operating system gives life for a tablet. Both Amazon Kindle Fire and Lenovo IdeaPad A1 play on Android 2.3 Gingerbread. It is indeed frustrating that both the tablets do not feature Google Android’s tablet-customized version Honeycomb.

Winner: There is no winner in this category, because both the devices run on a same operating system.

Screen size

Most of inexpensive tablets of the market are up with 7-inch displays. So are Amazon Kindle Fire and Lenovo IdeaPad A1. In reality, a tablet becomes more portable if it is with a small display. IdeaPad A1’s 7-inch multi-touch capacitive touchscreen has a resolution of 1024 x 600 pixels. Meanwhile, Kindle Fire is to appear with a 7-inch IPS LCD gorilla glass display that supports 16 million colors. With its 169 pixels per inch (ppi), Kindle Fire even beats iPad’s 132 ppi display.

Winner: With a narrow edge of IPS LCD Gorilla Glass display, Amazon Kindle Fire wins over Lenovo IdeaPad A1.

Camera

Quite amazingly, Amazon Kindle Fire, the so-called iPad killer, does not sport any cameras. You cannot take images and even video chat with your friends on the Kindle tablet, which seems to be constructed mainly for eReading and Web surfing. But Lenovo IdeaPad A1 is up with a 3-megapixel rear camera and a VGA camera for video chatting.

Winner: Lenovo IdeaPad A1 is the indisputable winner here, because a vast majority of tablet customers want cameras, at least the front facing camera, on their devices.

Connectivity

Amazon Kindle only has Wi-Fi for connectivity, but its Lenovo rival offers Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and GPS.

Winner: Lenovo IdeaPad A1

On-device storage

Amazon Kindle tablet is to come with 8GB on-board memory. It is very meager when compared with its chief rivals in the market. Unfortunately, the device does not also support microSD slot for memory expansion. Lenovo IdeaPad A1 is with only a 2GB internal memory, but it stands out with microSD slot.

Winner: IdeaPad A1

Weight and dimension

Both the devices are leading lightweight tablets. Kindle Fire is with a density of 11.4mm and weight of 414 grams. IdeaPad A1 is lighter with a thickness of 11.95 and weight of 400grams.

Winner: Lenovo IdeaPad A1 is lighter than Kindle Fire, so it is the winner.

Content availability

The main purpose of Amazon behind its Kindle Fire is a complete multimedia tablet for eReading. In other words, Kindle Fire is actually a full-fledged tablet version of its famous Kindle eReader series. The famous content publishing company integrates a vast collection of its eBooks, films and music on the tablet. On other hand, IdeaPad A1 from Lenovo is a just a tablet on Google Android platform.

Winner: Amazon Kindle Fire

Verdict

We have profoundly compared two leading low-priced tablets in the market. Amazon has presented its much-rumored Kindle Fire tablet as a multimedia solution for eReading. That is why the company has dropped camera and other features on the device. But considering tech specs and features, Lenovo’s IdeaPad A1 is the ultimate winner of this comparison. You can buy both the tablets for just $199.