Update coming in less than two weeks for Amazon Kindle Fire

Sure, the Amazon Kindle Fire has been selling like the plate of proverbial hotcakes and is expected to be the top selling non-Apple tablet this quarter. But the growing legion of buyers is turning into a growing number of complaints with users upset with laggy touch-screen responsiveness and poor performance of the tablet in general. There is also no privacy to users of the tablet who can easily see what prior users were up to on the device. As a result, Amazon spokesman Drew Herdener promised the New York Times that an update to repair many of the problems would be sent out within two weeks. Amazon had already updated the tablet to software version 6.2 last month. Additionally, a usability expert by the name of Jakob Nielsen (no relation to the Nielsen ratings company) said that 7 inch tablets like the Kindle Fire, have many flaws.

Unfortunately, some of the criticism has been directed at hardware design issues that were done to save money to keep the cost of the tablet down. The lack of a volume control knob or button can lead to a problem if a given app does not offer a way to control the sound. Some are also complaining about the 7 inch size of the display, which some see as too big for a smartphone but too small for a tablet. These types of hardware issues will have to wait for a new tablet as hardware cannot be changed via an update. There is speculation that a 10 inch tablet will be launched by Amazon early next year. Besides the larger screen size, the new tablet might address some of the other hardware issues as well.

Despite the complaints, the Amazon Kindle Fire could sell as many as 5 million copies this quarter after Amazon increased its order for product. The tablet was launched on November 15th and users rely on Amazon to purchase content, apps and cloud storage. A recent report estimated that the Amazon Kindle Fire will be the best selling Android tablet in the current quarter, trailing only the Apple iPad in overall U.S. tablet sales.

source: NYTimes via electronista