The Tame Apple press has been churning out bad reviews for the Kindle Fire. The New York Times and Wired, which have been acting as Apple's unpaid press office for a number of years now, have all turned out reviews which say that you should not buy the Apple rival and instead should sink your cash into something twice the price from Apple.

While you should not be surprised by such blatant bias from Wired and the New York Times, their reviews have been picked up by Associated Press, here, as evidence that the Fire is getting “mixed reviews.” Wired said that on Jon Phillips had to admit that the Fire “wasn't a dud”, but its real-world performance and utility match neither the benchmarks of public expectation, nor the standards set by the world's best tablets [read Apple 2]. "Fire is a fiendishly effective shopping portal in the guise of a seven-inch slate," Phillips said. "It does nothing very well, save video playback, running various Android apps, and making the business of Amazon shopping alarmingly fun and easy."

The question is that other than running apps, reading, watching movies, buying stuff what is left for a keyboardless netbook to do? David Pogue at the New York Times, said the $US200 price tag would attract some buyers, but "the Fire does not have anything like the polish or speed of an iPad. "You feel that $200 price tag with every swipe of your finger," Pogue said, adding that the Fire is "not nearly as versatile as a real tablet".

Since when did a reviewer compare a product with the top of the range model? It is like saying that a bog standard PC is rubbish because it does not go as well as a high performing Intel Core i7 with a high spec gaming graphics card on board. We have already seen the extent that Apple is going to close down Android tablets with its patent trolling, now it seems that it is really terrified by the prospect of having a tablet which ordinary people can afford on the market.

Less biased is Sam Biddle of technology blog Gizmodo. Gizmodo used to be big fans of Jobs Mob until Steve Jobs sued them and sent its tame police around to steal the servers of its Editors claiming it had stolen an iPhone 4 prototype. Biddle said that the iPad "finally has serious competition" and that Apple should "be afraid". "Reading, watching, browsing, and listening on the Fire are all tremendous, easy fun," he said. "It's not as powerful or capable as an iPad, but it's also a sliver of the price."