Kindle Fire reviews now coming in.

[Deeko]

Ok, so I got mine. Minimal playtime before I had to go back to work, so only some small first impressions:

1) Hardware is indeed very similar to the PlayBook, except smaller bezels. While smaller is better, I'm slightly sad by this, because I wanted to reuse my existing cover from my PlayBook. It makes for a nice stand for videos. Oh well. Has a good feel to it, screen is bright, good angles, etc.

2) The power button really isn't that annoying - and its in the same place as it is on other Kindles, so if you're an existing Kindle user, this won't bother you.

3) I have no idea who started the whole "no ambient light sensor" thing, because there clearly is one. Its visible on the front of the device and there's an option for "automatic brightness"

4) Home page UI is pretty smooth. The Apps tab automatically populated with items I'd previously downloaded on my Android phones - sure, they weren't actually downloaded, but they had an icon for me to click already. A nice touch.

5) The browser really isn't as bad as people made it seem. No - scrolling/panning is not iOS/WP7/QNX smooth. However, its the smoothest stock Android browser I've used yet.

6) Interestingly, Opera Mobile has been removed from the app store. Sneaky sneaky, Amazon. If you go to Amazon.com you'll see a big "X" next to your Fire. However, luckily Opera has a straight file download from their site, and sideloading worked like a charm - and Opera Mobile is buttery smooth as ever. Also loads MUCH faster than it does on my Vibrant. Will likely be my default browser here.

7) One thing I hated about the Amazon app store on Android was that because all the apps were technically sideloaded, you had to click "ok" to install on the pop up for every app you downloaded. I was hoping this would be removed on the Fire, and I can confirm that that is the case. Whew.

8) Not just apps, but all of my Amazon content showed up in their respective tabs. Cloud drive music, Kindle books, apps, etc - all ready for me to access.

That's about all I've gotten so far. So far, for $200, this definitely seems worth it. My stance on tablets has long been "sure, they're nice, but not worth it"....I'd say that's about to change.

edit: FYI - the Opera Mobile download link - http://www.opera.com/mobile/download/versions/

 

[Puddle Jumper]

OK, its very pretty. Looks like a shrunk Playbook. Black soft touch plastic on the back. Minimal junk on the edges. One button, one plug. Thin little stereo speakers on top, but that means while watching movies in landscape you wont get proper stereo.

As soon as you turn it on it already has your Amazon account logged in (assuming you bought it for yourself). Asks for wifi access and immediately downloads a small update, and restarts.

Screen is gorgeous especially with brightness turned up. Speakers are OK, but for long term listening I'll need headphones. Already did a couple short videos. When you open the Amazon app it displays name and address, so I'll need to delete that. Wish I knew how to use Windows Movie Maker.
My camera is an older Sony and it requires the use of a dock to transfer movies. This may take a bit.

Their interface is similar to iOS in that its all set up to make you wanna buy more stuff from their site. Cloud music playing worked fine, also easy to download to device. But with 6GB free memory and no SD slot, I dont see myself doing that. You can preview stuff in the music and video store. Buying regular junk was easy, the app here is much nicer than their android phone app.

Oh crap, I dont have the movie maker in Win7 Pro. CRAP!

OK, this may be text only, cuz I cant straight upload to Youtube. I need to clip off a few seconds with some personal info and also run them all together.

Windows Live essentials includes movie maker.

 

[shortylickens]

I dunno about sideloading, someone said it could be let me get in to that in time. That will be one of the last things I check.

Videos are super smooth over wifi. Good frame rate, no pixelation, bright colors. Its SD but not super compressed so it looks alright. On a 1024x600 screen I dont think HD would matter much anyway. Super Troopers looks fine.

Interface is super smooth, I dont know what people were complaining about. In fact with default settings it may be too smooth. I kept overshooting when trying to select books. I hope theres a way to change the sensitivity. By default the desktop shows most of the books you own and which apps you used most recently. Its set up sort of like a bookshelf, you can go up and down to different shelves with different things on them (books and mags, music, movies, apps).

The regular Amazon market looks better than on small Android phones but not the same as viewing their site. They push Prime stuff and you have to dig for other products.

Son of a bitch!
Now I cant download the Windows Live Movie Maker. Freakin microsoft! When I had the movie maker under XP I never used it. Now I want it and cant get it.
Forget it. I'll just do a text review now and upload vids tomorrow or later this week. Something tells me the hardcore nerds already have unboxing vids on Youtube as we speak, so I was never gonna be first anyway.

Alright, the stupid Windows Movie Maker 2.6 cant play the standard MPG's from my camera. This will definitely be Text-Only.

Anything you guys specifically wanna know about?

 

[s44]

I realize the lack of buttons might make it difficult, but anyone try installing an alternate launcher yet?

 

[gus6464]

Ok, so I got mine. Minimal playtime before I had to go back to work, so only some small first impressions:

3) I have no idea who started the whole "no ambient light sensor" thing, because there clearly is one. Its visible on the front of the device and there's an option for "automatic brightness

I see the light sensor on the top left of my Fire but I cannot find the option for automatic brightness. Where is it located?

 

[Deeko]

I see the light sensor on the top left of my Fire but I cannot find the option for automatic brightness. Where is it located?

Hmmm...you're right, it seems they disabled it!

When I first opened it up, I did not run the automatic update - and the option was there. After running the update a few minutes ago, it appears that option has disappeared.

That's....odd. I wonder if they were having issues with it, or if this was some sort of curious design decision. Either way, at least the hardware is there. Hopefully it will be re-enabled in an update, and if we ever get modded software, they should be able to support it as well.

 

[shortylickens]

OK, I figured out Pulse. RSS feed apparently. Because of how its layed out you get slightly better features than mere Favorites on a web browser. It came set up with a dozen web sites and you can easily add more.
If for example you have USA set up then you get a side scrolling bar that has all their latest articles for quick viewing and it seems to auto update. Great if you have wifi access, bad if you dont. And there is no cellular version of this product.

Havent got into the actual web yet. But so far everything seems smooth and not at all clunky. Maybe the day one update fixed that.

 

[s44]

LOL, Pulse is a cross-platform app made by Alphonso Labs, not Amazon-specific.

Every iOS or Android user on any device should have it -- best RSS reader out there.

 

[Deeko]

Well, every Fire owner will have it, because its pre-installed.

 

[s44]

Actually, most of the Honeycomb tabs pre-installed it too.

 

[gus6464]

What I love about Pulse is that if you log into it with your facebook account it will backup how it's set up and will look the same across all devices. I have all my feeds on google reader and then I use the facebook account to sync the exact layout of all my feeds within Pulse across all devices.

 

[randomlinh]

What I love about Pulse is that if you log into it with your facebook account it will backup how it's set up and will look the same across all devices. I have all my feeds on google reader and then I use the facebook account to sync the exact layout of all my feeds within Pulse across all devices.

can you do that without facebook?

 

[shortylickens]

Its new to me cuz I never used it. On my phones I just check email and occasionally forums. The last several tablets I owned (playbook, ipad 2, Xoom, Touchpad, cheap Archos models) either didnt have it at all or made it very difficult to find. I heard people talk about it but never bothered to dig it up since it didnt seem too essential.

But now that it comes preinstalled and it sitting right up on top, I like using it. Am sure it will appeal to their target market: The casual user who wants to absorb media.

Had to download the netflix app and log in, but thanks to wifi that was quick and simple. Videos look OK but are not super smooth. Kinda chunky. Actually the frame rates and color were OK, just a bit pixelated. On this device the Amazon vids look a little better. (Big fat surprise there).
Games looked great and ran smooth. I now have a device to use the 101 apps I've downloaded free over the past year.
But since it has limited internal storage and no SD slot, I wont be putting whole album collections and movies on it. Just some books, my favorite apps, and maybe some music. All the rest is cloud and streaming and web based.
It did play the web version of Bloons TD4 ok, but I can tell its chugging along.
In fact any full web page with lots of Flash ads is a bit sticky while trying to scroll quickly back and forth. I can see why they wanted Pulse to be the default method for getting web media, its a lot smoother and less bandwidth intensive.

Its not quite as powerful or smooth as the iPad 2 or Playbook, but of course they never claimed that either. Considering its 200 bucks I think they did really well to put a dual core processor and nice screen in there. In fact its the best bargain you can get right now by far.
Nice simplified interface for absorbing media, more than adequate hardware for the task, and most of the usual bonus Android features too. That makes for a darn good package at 200 dollars. out of all the tablets I've owned so far this is the first one that feels like I actually got my money worth from it. Its not for power users but does more than an acceptable job. Will keep.

 

[preslove]

Anyone know if you can install the B&N Nook reader on it?

 

[Deeko]

Anyone know if you can install the B&N Nook reader on it?

I imagine if you had the apk you could sideload it. I sideloaded Opera Mobile, which was blocked from the Amazon app store.

 

[shortylickens]

OH, there is a setting to allow downloading and installing of unknown apps.

So they arent trying to control your life or purchased products as previously feared.

 

[gus6464]

can you do that without facebook?

Yeah you can you just create a pulse.me account instead of linking it through facebook. I just did it through facebook because there's no point in having another account I have to remember for just one app.

 

[ponyo]

As soon as you turn it on it already has your Amazon account logged in (assuming you bought it for yourself). Asks for wifi access and immediately downloads a small update, and restarts.

What do you mean it already has your Amazon account logged in? That would suck if it did. I didn't specify the item as a gift when I ordered but I never do that for any item. So does that mean Fire I bought is preloaded with my Amazon account?

Also the box it comes in. Is the Fire sitting inside its own separate box or is the small shipping box the only packaging and I shouldn't open that if I'm giving this as a gift. The box packaging is very confusing as it has Kindle Fire printed on it and has the Amazon Frustration Free packaging symbol written on it.

 

[shortylickens]

What do you mean it already has your Amazon account logged in? That would suck if it did. I didn't specify the item as a gift when I ordered but I never do that for any item. So does that mean Fire I bought is preloaded with my Amazon account?

Also the box it comes in. Is the Fire sitting inside its own separate box or is the small shipping box the only packaging and I shouldn't open that if I'm giving this as a gift. The box packaging is very confusing as it has Kindle Fire printed on it and has the Amazon Frustration Free packaging symbol written on it.

Not preloaded as such. Pre logged in. No special software but the default software is kinda useless without an Amazon account. Much like normal android devices require a Gmail account and apple devices require an apple account.
You need a place to keep track of all the crap you downloaded and purchased and set up.
But yes its already logged in to the purchaser. So if you bought it as a gift you need to go in, log yourself out, and make sure the next person has an Amazon account and then logs themself in.
Yes, I can already understand your complaints but this is a content viewer, not a full computer. The idea is you keep buying more crap from Amazon and they give you one convenient place to access it all.
Good news is Amazon has assloads of junk for free so its still better than the ipad with their 5 dollar apps that dont do any more than a free app on android.

 

[gus6464]

What do you mean it already has your Amazon account logged in? That would suck if it did. I didn't specify the item as a gift when I ordered but I never do that for any item. So does that mean Fire I bought is preloaded with my Amazon account?

Also the box it comes in. Is the Fire sitting inside its own separate box or is the small shipping box the only packaging and I shouldn't open that if I'm giving this as a gift. The box packaging is very confusing as it has Kindle Fire printed on it and has the Amazon Frustration Free packaging symbol written on it.

Just like all Kindles if you did not specify that it was meant as a gift it will come with your amazon account loaded on the device. If that's the case a simple hard reset will clear everything and then you can put whatever account you want.

 

[Deeko]

Note - you don't need to open the box to do that. You can deregister from the website.

Your Account -> Manage Your Kindle -> Manage Your Devices -> Deregister

 

[manly]

Also the box it comes in. Is the Fire sitting inside its own separate box or is the small shipping box the only packaging and I shouldn't open that if I'm giving this as a gift. The box packaging is very confusing as it has Kindle Fire printed on it and has the Amazon Frustration Free packaging symbol written on it.

you haven't yet seen the new TV ad w/ the hot chick going home and finding a delivery box from Amazon? Beats B&N's James Patterson IMO. 😉

IMO there's no way that the KF box is the shipping box, otherwise it'll just get jacked.

edit: per shortylickens, I'm wrong!

 

[shortylickens]

Oh, and since I cant upload my vids yet (freakin windows 7) I cant show you my unboxing.
Much like the original Kindle the shipping box is also the product box. If you wanna gift this in its box you will need to peel off your UPS shipping stickers.
Yes I know its ghetto, but Amazon is all about value. Apple is the company that charges you an extra hundred dollars for their cute logo and fancy box.

There is nothing else inside beside the AC charger, which uses a standard micro-USB port. The owners manual is on the device under your Documents, which are easy to find from the home screen.

 

[ponyo]

Note - you don't need to open the box to do that. You can deregister from the website.

Your Account -> Manage Your Kindle -> Manage Your Devices -> Deregister

good to know. thanks.

Much like the original Kindle the shipping box is also the product box. If you wanna gift this in its box you will need to peel off your UPS shipping stickers.
Yes I know its ghetto, but Amazon is all about value. Apple is the company that charges you an extra hundred dollars for their cute logo and fancy box.

thx for confirming my suspicion. kindlefire logo on the shipping box along with certified frustration free packaging logo raised the red flag for me.

 

[shortylickens]

Well it doesnt actually say Kindle Fire on the box, but the shape is pretty distinctive so I dont think it will be too long before people figure it out.

Moving on:
This sucker is all about easy access to Amazons stuff. When you watch a movie or show under their program, it pops up on the desktop as a Most Recent item, making it easy to pin as a favorite or just find quickly when you are on the home screen. Ditto all books and mags and even web pages (with preview of course). Yup, I think for casual users this is pretty much perfect. Power users will be glad for a low cost, powerful device they can root. Am sure this will be popular with the modding crowd but most of the press over the next month will be about how the everyday person is so pleased with it. For me, I will choose to view it as a super enhanced Kindle that replaces my desire for a traditional tablet.

I have several videos but unless I can edit them I wont bother with Youtube. Sorry. Will post again much later.