Monday, November 21, 2011

The Kindle Lights a Fire.

We just received our purchased Kindle Fire. We bought it as a gift for Abby's 8th birthday on this upcoming Thursday.

Quick impression: Amazon has a real winner here, it gives an Ipad a run for its money on looks and features.

A more detailed impression:

Right out of the box, the Kindle was easy to get started. There is a manual on the Kindle, but its rarely needed as the device itself is so intuitive to use. You only need to refer to the manual on rare occasions or to get acquainted with the device.

The color screen is excellent, with the awesome readability we've seen on prior Kindles. At 7 inches it is perfectly viewable and the small overall form factor makes this an easy device to carry along.

WiFi works perfectly, as does direct transfer of media such as Abby's favorite songs to the Kindle to get it ready for her big day. The small speakers are quite adequate for nice sound, and there's an earphone jack for the future when we want her to keep the noise to herself.

Web surfing is fast and flawless, and downloading Android apps is done with ease through the Amazon store on the Kindle.

Battery life seems very good, better and longer lasting than on my Droid phone.

It could use a physical "back" or home button to quickly get out of a selection, but the software buttons do come up eventually, or you can flick the power switch.

Amazon's decision to use the universal micro USB connector for both power and data transfer is very helpful. No need to buy yet another cable type to get the Kindle to charge or accept data.

For Droid users, the Kindle Fire is a snap to use and I have no doubt Abby will quickly master it.

At about half the cost of an IPad, the Kindle Fire is going to quickly carve out a market for itself.

For basic surfing, reading, basic document reading and editing, and playing games like Angry Birds it is more than capable.

In addition, my local library supports the Kindle so Abby can download books to read to her heart's content.

Natasha likes it so much she's contemplating getting a Kindle Fire for herself.

In summary, the Kindle Fire exceeds expectations.

2 comments:

Boat Guy said...

Wife was very pleased with her Kindle until last night when she went to load another book last night. Amazon took her money (charged her card) and instead of a book download she got a message telling her it would take 1-3 days. UNSAT. Total BS.

Aaron said...

That's strange and it sucks. Must be some weird glitch or maybe the ebook isn't ready yet or something.

We haven't loaded a book onto the Kindle yet so we'll keep an eye out for the problem.