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Is the New Kindle Fire’s $49 a Year 4G Plan Really Cheaper Than the iPad’s?

Kindle Fire

In Amazon’s new 2012 lineup of Kindle Fire tablets, the top of the line model is the Kindle Fire HD 8.9-inch 4G LTE Wireless … and, yes, that is its full name. And its signature feature is unbelievably cheap 4G wireless data.

How cheap is it exactly, and is it really better than the new iPad’s 4G plan? Let’s find out.

By the numbers

The 4G Kindle Fire HD sells for $499, the same price as the Wi-Fi only iPad. And its 4G wireless Internet plan costs only $49 per year for 250 MB of 4G wireless data a month, compared to $180 a year for the same amount of 4G data for a new iPad on AT&T.; (Verizon’s cheapest plan for the iPad is $240 a year for 1 GB of wireless data a month, and both carriers let you add an iPad to an existing smartphone data plan for $120 a year.)

Adding it up

If you keep your iPad for two years, AT&T;’s 250 MB plan would cost you $360 for two years, on top of the 4G iPad’s minimum $629 cost … $100 less if you get last year’s 3G iPad 2 instead. So that’s about $900 to $1,000 over 24 months in total.

The Kindle Fire HD would cost about $600 for the same amount of data, over the same time period. That’s $290 cheaper than owning a 3G iPad 2 for two years, or $390 cheaper than a 4G iPad. But does that factor in all the costs? Here are some things to consider:

250 MB may not be enough

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You’re not going to be watching HD videos on your Kindle Fire HD on a 250 MB data plan … not for very long each month, anyway. According to AT&T;’s online calculator, you’ll have just enough time to watch a single 1-hour episode of an HD TV series.

An Amazon press release says that you’ll be able to upgrade to 3 GB or 5 GB plans. It doesn’t say how much they cost, though, or if you’ll pay iPad rates for them … and iPad owners currently pay $30 or $50 a month for those plans, respectively. So depending on how much they cost and how much data you end up needing, that $49 a year plan might well be bait on a hook.

You’re paying $200 more up front

That’s the price difference between the Wi-Fi only 8.9-inch Kindle Fire HD and the 4G model (plus $15 if you pay to remove the ads). The 4G iPad costs $130 more than the Wi-Fi only model. Even if the Kindle Fire HD’s 4G wireless is a lot better and faster than the iPad’s (which isn’t necessarily the case), that extra up-front cost is another thing to factor in when you see the $49 a year price tag.

The Kindle Fire HD isn’t an iPad

This should go without saying. But not only is the Kindle Fire HD’s hardware and software behind the iPad’s, in terms of being slower and laggier, it also doesn’t have access to the hundreds of thousands of iPad apps in the App Store … or even the apps in the Google Play store. It has its own selection, which includes some of the more ubiquitous apps like Evernote, Facebook and Dropbox. But many of the more fun and unique apps don’t work on the Kindle.

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Of course, as Amazon’s product page points out, the Kindle has its own advantages. Plus, that $49 yearly fee includes 20 GB of online Cloud Drive storage and a $10 credit towards apps, neither of which are included with the iPad’s 4G subscription. Is it worth it? Your call.