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Kindle Fire reviews now coming in.

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I do not associate with people who change socks bi-monthly. They is gross.

Also, it seems like all Amazon digital magazines have a 2 week grace period on subscriptions, which is good cuz the American Maxim does not impress and they dont have Playboy.
 
Ok so found one thing that has annoyed the crap out of me with the Fire. I have a NY Times subscription which gives me access to newspaper on my the iPad app but you cannot link it to the kindle one. So that means if I want NY Times I have to subscribe to the specific kindle version. I think that is going to be a deal breaker because right now I am only paying $7/month for NY Times and Amazon is charging $15.
 
Got my KF this evening and spent the last 45 minutes playing around with it before the wife started to get angry because I was hogging it (it's technically hers). I can honestly say that reading the reviews of this device was the worst thing I could've done, because they were way too critical. Given the current state of the tablet market, this thing is pure genius.

The hardware feels really great in the hands. It's a bit smaller than I was anticipating but I love the fit and finish. The whole package is really tight. It's not too thin, not too thick. It does feel like it will get a bit tiring after a bit of holding it while reading with and using it, but I think it will be manageable. The screen looks really good and is perfectly acceptable given the price point. I very much dislike where the power button is, though. I'm constantly getting close to it. It extrudes enough to where an accidental press is possible just resting the bottom of the tablet on your fingers. I have big hands so it's not difficult for me to get my pinky/ring finger to it.

The software is better than I was expecting. Navigating the main interface is quick. Scrolling thought most things in the store is a bit laggy but I wasn't as bothered by it as I thought I would be. The lagginess seems to be more because of how it's loading the data into memory, though, more so than it being a lack of hardware. I love the layout of everything though, initially it seems like it is going to be easy to access anything you want.

A quick scan of the app store showed pretty much anything I'd want access to. I recently switched from iOS to WP7 for my phone, so I obviously don't mind a smaller store. I don't get too esoteric with my app tastes, so I'm perfectly happy here so far.

I did download a trial of ESPN The Magazine and was a little disappointed. The screen resolution isn't good enough to read in any orientation, requiring a zoom-in on anything you'd want to read. I was looking forward to possibly picking up a couple of subscriptions but it initially seems like it'll be too much work with zooming and panning constantly.

I'll provide more thoughts later.
 
gus6464 said:
Ok so found one thing that has annoyed the crap out of me with the Fire. I have a NY Times subscription which gives me access to newspaper on my the iPad app but you cannot link it to the kindle one. So that means if I want NY Times I have to subscribe to the specific kindle version. I think that is going to be a deal breaker because right now I am only paying $7/month for NY Times and Amazon is charging $15.
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If you have an ipad you dont need this.
 
Anybody seeing issues with having to press the back arrow 2 or 3 times a lot just to go back? I know I'm pushing it because it's visibly depressing/highlighting. At first I thought I just wasn't being patient so I started slowing down, but I'll push it, wait, push it again, stare at the screen, then push it again and it'll finally go. This happens quite often and doesn't seem to matter where I'm at in the OS.
 
It happened to me once in the browser, that's it so far. Ps - I disabled "accelerated browsing" - presumably Silk - and it actually feels faster.
 
Just got it today. So far it's a great experience, I have no idea what was up with those negative reviews.
 
JD50 said:
Just got it today. So far it's a great experience, I have no idea what was up with those negative reviews.
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For absolutely no good reason people were expecting the second coming of Jesus.
Amazon never marketed this as an ipad killer or the greatest Android experience or the next wave in mobile technology.
Where people got that impression I cannot imagine.
 
slightly OT, but is the kindle fire appstore and the amazon app store for android interchangeable? like, if I buy an app via amazon for my android phone, will I also be able to use that same app on my fire?
 
Kindle Fire rooted is a good thing. A rooted nook that allowed you to have the android market and amazon market on it would be even better......
 
blurredvision said:
Anybody seeing issues with having to press the back arrow 2 or 3 times a lot just to go back? I know I'm pushing it because it's visibly depressing/highlighting. At first I thought I just wasn't being patient so I started slowing down, but I'll push it, wait, push it again, stare at the screen, then push it again and it'll finally go. This happens quite often and doesn't seem to matter where I'm at in the OS.
Click to expand...

It definitely has issues, I've seen it mentioned in reviews + mine does the same thing.

I'm liking the size of this thing, it's a nice alternative to the Xoom. What I think I really want is to put Honeycomb/ICS on this. I don't care for the Kindle layer, but simple/cheap hardware running the full OS? That would get my attention.

Viper GTS
 
loki8481 said:
slightly OT, but is the kindle fire appstore and the amazon app store for android interchangeable? like, if I buy an app via amazon for my android phone, will I also be able to use that same app on my fire?
Click to expand...

Yup, it will be there, listed in the cloud until you download to your device.
 
If I knew I was gonna be gone from the house for a while, I'd much prefer a laptop with at least 200 gigs over any tablet, SD card or not.
A few albums and two movies would be more than enough for me. Since it cant do HD that would mean 700 meg DivX flicks.
 
gus6464 said:
Ok so found one thing that has annoyed the crap out of me with the Fire. I have a NY Times subscription which gives me access to newspaper on my the iPad app but you cannot link it to the kindle one. So that means if I want NY Times I have to subscribe to the specific kindle version. I think that is going to be a deal breaker because right now I am only paying $7/month for NY Times and Amazon is charging $15.
Click to expand...

i thought i just heard someone on a cnet radio infomercial say that apple is trying to fix this sort of problem with at least their music side to start with. something along the lines of you pay apple $25 a year, and they will give you an itunes copy of any song that you bought with a different service, like amazon.

it sounded like a really nice solution honestly. i mean if anything, id like to see a copyright law put in place that says if you paid for a song from a service, you dont have to pay for the rights again just to get that same song on a different medium (whether thats from a different service or not). basically, if you paid $10 for a cd album, and then you went to amazon to buy that same album in digital mp3 form, you would not have to buy the songs again- you would just be paying amazon for the service, which would be a tiny fraction of the normal cost.

which is basically what apple just announced, only they are doing it themselves and not waiting for laws to change.
 
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So I have gmail, google music, reader, and google+ fully working on my Fire right now. Android market runs but it crashes when I go to download an app but the XDA guys are working on it. It's also worth mentioning that I have it all running without having to root.

For the nook tablet folk it seems the bootloader is now locked so it's going to be a lot trickier to root. Fire forums at XDA have a lot of traffic right now whereas NT is for the most part dead.
 
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