what can the ipad do that other cheaper tablets can't?

I was thinking of getting one but they cost £399 at the cheapest model but the new kindle fire will cost £129 as one example.

wave said:

I was thinking of getting one but they cost £399 at the cheapest model but the new kindle fire will cost £129 as one example.

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If price is the issue…you could consider a used iPad 1 or iPad 2.

- Nick

You mean, apart from running a vastly superior operating system with the world's largest, most diverse and best app store; that takes better pictures, runs faster and gets updated more regularly; runs the thousands of apps that are iOS only, and being a quality product that's made of glass and aluminum rather than plastic? A tablet where the OS is controlled by a company that is interested in delighting you rather than a company that is primarily interested in obtaining your personal data so as to target advertising at you?

Hmm ... apart from that, nothing I guess ... depends on what's important to you, I suppose.

Besides what Chas and others said, the Web Browser in the iPad is a much better application than what Kindle uses. since the Web is very important in todays world, that could make the price worth it alone!

Ditto on what has already been said and it integrates with the rest of your Apple products.

If price is an issue...... the Nexus 7 is a better option than the Kindle.....IMO

However..... perhaps (if rumours are true) it's worth hanging back for a few weeks and seeing if the iPad Mini appears....

Kindle is designed and controlled by Amazon - which is also tightly controlling everything about that tablet. The downside is the Amazon app store is not the entire Google Play store. The upside is since it is controlled by Amazon there aren't a bunch of willy nilly apps that could contain malware.
Malware went undiscovered for weeks on Google Play | Security & Privacy - CNET News

The Kindle App runs on pretty much any device and Prime Videos is available for the iPad. The Kindle lending library is not available on anything other than a native Kindle device. (All of this is only useful if you have an Amazon Prime membership.)

If you don't have any other Apple device or media then one could argue there isn't much difference for media consumption. If you do have Apple DRM media then any iOS device can play it. Plus if you have Apple TVs or other Macs there Airplay which allows you to stream media from one device to the other. There are other 3rd party solutions like Plex to do streaming but it isn't as integrated and not always bi-directional. (If anything new has developed in this arena I'd like to hear about it)

Apps - if you haven't bought any then again not much difference. I have bought many apps over the years so making a switch to a different device would require a repurchase of similar apps. Apps are available across all iOS devices you own - so I bought the expensive GPS app - and now everyone in my immediate family that has my App Store login has that expensive app and has turn by turn directions.

iCloud and iCloud integration has become quite usable with the latest version of OSX and iOS. Pretty much all native apps save to iCloud so you can access the data from any device logged into your iCloud account. Google has google drive and Amazon has cloud storage but they don't make their own Office software - whereas iCloud is integrated into iWorks (among other native apps)

TL ; DR - if you are looking for a media consumption device then the Kindle Fire HD is quite good for the price. The Nexus is a very good 7" tablet that is general purpose. The 10" iPad has a lot more Apps available - and can still be used as a media consumption device.

(Note I kept the discussion to stock devices, you can jailbreak iOS and root android and open a lot of other possibilities)

wave said:

I was thinking of getting one but they cost £399 at the cheapest model but the new kindle fire will cost £129 as one example.

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What can the iPad do that cheaper tablets can't?

Answer: put a smile on your face . . . ..

All joking aside, that is really my answer. I have a few really good knives, far more decent knives and a few crappy cheap knives (kitchen cutlery). All of them will chop, slice, dice and julienne. The good knives make it a pleasure.

The iPad is a joy to use (mostly); I haven't found that to be the case with any of the cheap alternatives I've tried. But, if you try them and they put a smile on your face then they are a good and cheaper alternative.

While the iPad is most definitely the superior device, the Kindle Fire is a pretty nice little tablet for the price. I have both a Kindle Fire and the iPad1. Haven't touched the iPad in at least 3 months - but, I have a MacBook Air I use for most things.

mrplow said:

If price is an issue...... the Nexus 7 is a better option than the Kindle.....IMO

However..... perhaps (if rumours are true) it's worth hanging back for a few weeks and seeing if the iPad Mini appears....

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Agree with Mr. Plow on this. The Nexus 7 is vastly superior to the Kindle Fire.

The Kindle App runs on pretty much any device and Prime Videos is available for the iPad.

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Which is what I like about the Kindle app. I have it on my iMac and while it's pretty much limited to the books that are available in the Amazon library, the price is right and the books are inexpensive when compared to the paper copy. Besides, I have a nice large screen to sit back and read from.