A Few Tablet Thoughts After a Day With the Kindle Fire

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A Few Tablet Thoughts After a Day With the Kindle Fire - by Linda Holmes/MonkeySee/Technology/NPR.org


Richard

 

[dougp26364]

While tablets have never really been a serious thought for purchase due to their size and the fact I just don't need another computer, the smaller tablet versions offered by Kindle and Barnes and Noble do have my attention. But I think I'm going to wait another year and let them work the bugs out first. My wife pre-purchased her B&N Nook Color a couple of years ago and, while she loves it, it probably would have been best to wait another 6 months until they had the bugs worked out.

 

[bryanphunter]

Nice honest review of the Kindle Fire. Just ordered mine this week. It has shipped and will arrive in the next couple of days.

The Fire appears to be the ideal compliment to my IPhone and IPad. I was in the market for an e-reader and the fire has enough "extras" to make it work for me.... especially at $199

I joined amazon prime and will track all the gifts I buy for x-mas to see how much money I save. I think this will nearly pay for the prime membership every year.

 

[dwojo]

My niece loves the kindle fire I bought her. She downloaded her school books on to it and uses it for quick searches for information. the size of it is what she likes the most. It is slightly slower than she would like but having her books and internet search capability makes it more than worth while to her. The best thing for her was I paid for it.

 

[Elan]

Nice review. Thanks for posting.

 

[Ken555]

I agree, it's great to read a balanced review of a new tech product. The Fire definitely has promise (along with Amazon's rumored phone...).

 

[irish]

i generally don't buy a "FIRST GEN" anything.. so i will wait till at least the "2nd gen" and more likely the 3rd.

 

[dwojo]

i generally don't buy a "FIRST GEN" anything.. so i will wait till at least the "2nd gen" and more likely the 3rd.

I usually wait myself but the one I purchased for my niece was an incentive. She wanted one and I agreed to get it for her if she went back to college and completed her last year. She finishes next month.

 

[bryanphunter]

i generally don't buy a "FIRST GEN" anything.. so i will wait till at least the "2nd gen" and more likely the 3rd.

At $199 why wait if you are in the market for an e-reader? I don't have one and thought this is a great way to start. If the 2nd or 3rd gen is remarkably better, I'll give this one to one of my kids.

 

[GrayFal]

Good review, thanks for posting the link.
We already have an iPad an iphone and two kindles in the family but this could fit the bill as a travel companion for me as DH uses the iPad for business. I am the iPhone user so would have a mobile hotspot if needed.

Not rushing into it but very intrigued.

 

[CapriciousC]

Thanks for posting this! I've been tempted by the Kindle Fire, but reading this article has made me think twice, mostly because of the backlighting issue. I would primarily use it as an e-reader, and as someone who sits in front of a computer screen for 8 hours a day reading documents/lines of code/e-mails, I definitely notice eye fatigue after a while. My husband has the original Kindle, and it doesn't seem to cause nearly the eye strain that reading on a backlit screen does.

 

[dmharris]

I usually wait myself but the one I purchased for my niece was an incentive. She wanted one and I agreed to get it for her if she went back to college and completed her last year. She finishes next month.

You are a very good aunt!!

 

[PStreet1]

Thanks for posting this! I've been tempted by the Kindle Fire, but reading this article has made me think twice, mostly because of the backlighting issue. I would primarily use it as an e-reader, and as someone who sits in front of a computer screen for 8 hours a day reading documents/lines of code/e-mails, I definitely notice eye fatigue after a while. My husband has the original Kindle, and it doesn't seem to cause nearly the eye strain that reading on a backlit screen does.

We're both had Kindels for quite a while, one big one and one little one, and we had a Kindle Fire as long as we could stand it. We finally gave up on it and returned it. It simply wasn't as responsive as we thought a tablet should be, and frankly, it couldn't do much. For $50.00 more, we bought an Acer tablet the same size. We downloaded the free Kindle app and it works in all the ways the Fire really didn't. The Acer has a GPS; the Acer takes pictures front and rear; the Acer actually responds instantly when we are on line; the Acer is--for us--very intuitive, and the Fire was not. In addition, we disliked the "shiny" screen on the Fire when using it as a reader. The Acer also has a shiny screen, but it does the other things the Fire couldn't. For us, the Fire simply doesn't complete as a reader or as a computer, or even as a tablet.