Amazon has jumped on the tablet bandwagon by announcing the launch of its tablet that has been aptly christened as ‘Fire’. The only thing, probably, missing from this ‘Fire’ is a credible competition to IPad. But, in the battle that has just begun, the ‘Fire’ must be considered as the first shot by Amazon, and things will definitely bristle pace in the coming months.

For now, though, the ‘Fire’ needs to come up with better features if it has to compete against the IPad. The Amazon product has a few bottlenecks that need to be resolved before we can consider it strictly in the same family as in the IPod.

1. Missing Camera – The ‘Fire’ lacks even a basic camera. Not that the Apple’s camera is something to write about either, but at least it has the functionality that allows you to capture the moments from both, the front as well as the back cameras.

2. Missing GPS – The ‘Fire’ does not offer any GPS abilities in the handset, while the IPad comes with GPS capabilities on its 3G enabled sets. If we have to talk about the future technology, then the ‘Fire’ has some ground to cover up before posing any challenge to the market of IPad.

3. Missing Bluetooth – Many would consider the missing bluetooth in the ‘Fire’ as a potential deal-breaker. And, at this level, certain things are expected to be made available without caveats, and the Bluetooth is one of them. I am sure that the ‘Fire’ would have Bluetooth functionality available in future variants.

4. Smaller Display – Tablets are about display and performance. While both the ‘Fire’ and the Ipad come with same processors, the smaller display of the ‘Fire’ will affect the user experience when it comes to watching presentations, graphics of any other visually-intensive material. The display of the ‘Fire’ is 7 inches and the IPad’s current version has a display of 9.7 inches, with enough indications of the next generation IPad being even more liberal in terms of the display size.

5. Lower Storage – The ‘Fire’ comes with 8 GB storage from the factory. IPad has multiple options starting at 16 GB and extending up to 64 GB. Undoubtedly, the IPad is way ahead as far as storage ability is concerned. And, it is a little bit of a dampener to note that the ‘Fire’ has a strict limitation of 8 GB. Hopefully, they can resolve the storage issues in the future versions.

6. Missing GSM, CDMA capabilities – For someone who uses his IPad to communicate over the GSM networks or the CDMA networks, the’Fire’ lacks the GSM and CDMA capabilites. This essentially means that your tablet can be doubled up as a mobile device, and you would need to carry a tablet and a cell-phone if you wish to buy the ‘Fire’.

Given the fact that the Amazon Fire is the first offering of the tablet from the Amazon group, we need to consider that the competition between the ‘Fire’ and the ‘IPad’ is a little unfair at this point of time. While the Ipad is an established product with a proven performance and architecture, the ‘Fire’ is the first such offering that has the potential to develop as a full-bodied competitor for the Ipad in the coming months. The features that seem to be missing from the ‘Fire’ at this point of time could probably be added in the next few variants of the ‘Fire’. Technically speaking, these sort of technical features do not require much research or efforts to be incorporated in the final product.

Behind Amazon Fire could be a smart ploy to offer a stripped down version of the ‘Ipad’ that is based on the Android architecture and then to prepare grounds for a more premium version of the ‘Fire’ to take the battle heads-on. It does seem like the ‘Fire’ in its current avatar is just the mock dress-rehearsal for the final tablet-war to be waged sometime very soon. I can definitely see customers smiling 6 months down the line.

This evaluation of the Amazon Fire is brought to you by Rob Smith. Rob is a professional SEM analyst and he works on the campaigns that affect a business’s fuel card planning and execution. Rob has had considerable experience working in Europe for the European Fuel Cards project.