Kindle Blackjack
Kindle Blackjack

A new mobile blackjack game has just been made available at the Amazon Kindle Store, but is it worth downloading?

Amazon’s Kindle e-reader is one of the most popular devices in its class, but sometimes Amazon tries to make it more than it is. It is primarily designed for e-books, and its gray scale e-ink display does not do much for other media, especially when complex images or photographs are involved.

While the device does offer internet browsing capabilities and basic app support, the lack of a touch screen interface and the slow refresh rate of the screen definitely limit its usefulness for tasks beyond basic reading.

Last week, Amazon launched a play-for-fun blackjack card game that is free to download for Kindle subscribers. It includes all the basic blackjack elements like splits, double down, surrender and insurance, and it allows players to customize the game to and play with a variety of different blackjack rule variations.

Unfortunately, the new Kindle blackjack game is far from ideal. It must be played using either the Kindle’s d-pad or keyboard, and its gray scale graphics leave a lot to be desired. But most importantly, the game cannot be played for real money.

In many respects, the Apple iPad offers what the Kindle cannot. Its backlit LCD display is not well suited for long hours of reading black-on-white text, but for color images, web surfing and casual gaming, the iPad is far superior to the Kindle. Plus, the mobile blackjack games available at iPad casinos accept real money bets, and offer real cash payouts.

As far as mobile blackjack games are concerned, the iPad beats the Kindle hands-down.