Amazon Reports Selling Millions of Kindle Fire, Other Kindle Versions for the Holidays
As reports indicated that U.S.-based shoppers have splurged tens of billions in online shopping during the busiest weeks of the holiday season, Amazon reported on Thursday that its bestselling products, both the original Kindle and Kindle Fire, sold more than one million apiece. REUTERS

Amazon's Kindle Fire and Barnes & Noble's Nook Tablet have found a nice little home in the under $300 tablet world, and that's in part due to the fact they more like muscle-bound e-readers than full featured tablet computers. While both devices run the Android operating system, they run customized versions that do not allow either device to gain access to the over 500,000 apps in the Android Market. Kindle Fire gets its apps from the Amazon Appstore, and the Nook uses Nook Apps. That brings us to the first reason Kindle Fire is better than the Nook Tablet. While both use customized versions of the Android system, only Kindle Fire has taken that customization to another level. Specifically, the Web browser on Kindle Fire is made for faster load times and is supposed to take less time to connect to sites around the Web. That is partly a product of Amazon's enormous server capacity but also due to the way the Kindle Fire compiles Web sites and their component programming languages. Amazon calls it the Silk Browser, presumably because it runs as smooth as, but it's split browsing capability is geared toward fast surfing, and that should help in a Wi-Fi environment.

The second way Kindle Fire is better than the Nook Tablet is that it's $50 less. Nook Tablet is $250, but it's the same size as the Kindle Fire. Third, the Nook Tablet only has a tiny amount of storage for any content not purchased from Barnes & Noble. You get about 1000 MB of storage on Nook Tablet compared to about six gigabytes on the Kindle Fire. Next, Kindle Fire gives you quick access, naturally, to the incredible array of products for sale on Amazon.com, so it's much more than just as souped up e-reader. Finally, Kindle Fire is better than Nook Tablet because you get a free month of Amazon Prime. With Prime, you get access to the Kindle Owners' Lending Library where you can borrow books for free, including New York Times Bestsellers. The limit is one book per month. Let us know in the comments if you've perused either of these devices or if you think another tablet is comparably better.

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