It's not too hard for a regular user of these things to be able to tell right off the good and the bad. So, here goes.
Good: Nice bright screen, with dense pixels. The system is quick, without any glitches. It's cheap. Setup is easy, it was up and running and connected to the internet in about a minute. Web pages load quickly, email is simple. Colors are bright and photos look good.
Neither good nor bad, but worth noting: It's small, smaller than you might have thought. And it's dense, it's heavy for its size. It's certainly big enough, though you might wish for it to be a little bigger.
Not so good: It's wifi only, no 3G/4G. So when you're away from home, you'll need a hotspot. There's no camera, so no Skyping. There's no Bluetooth. You're limited to Amazon Market for apps, no Google Play (Android Market). The launcher is horrible (solved by sideloading Go Launcher EX). Its hardware video decoding is limited (solved by sideloading a software video decoder). (Sideloading: the act of downloading the app to your computer, then transferring it to your tablet via the USB port.)
If you're looking for a cheap iPad, this isn't it. Cheap, yes, but not even close to an iPad in functionality. In fact, it's not even close to your iPhone or Android phone in functionality.
On the other hand, if you're looking for a pretty darn good content consumption device that is small and handy, and can surf the internet adroitly, this is what you want. I can very well see taking this on vacation instead of the laptop and the Kindle; it will adequately do both services for short periods of time. It was a stone cold steal at the $139 (refurbished with full 1 year warranty), it's a decent deal at $169 (refurbished with warranty), it's right at "should I/shouldn't I" at $199 new.
Good: Nice bright screen, with dense pixels. The system is quick, without any glitches. It's cheap. Setup is easy, it was up and running and connected to the internet in about a minute. Web pages load quickly, email is simple. Colors are bright and photos look good.
Neither good nor bad, but worth noting: It's small, smaller than you might have thought. And it's dense, it's heavy for its size. It's certainly big enough, though you might wish for it to be a little bigger.
Not so good: It's wifi only, no 3G/4G. So when you're away from home, you'll need a hotspot. There's no camera, so no Skyping. There's no Bluetooth. You're limited to Amazon Market for apps, no Google Play (Android Market). The launcher is horrible (solved by sideloading Go Launcher EX). Its hardware video decoding is limited (solved by sideloading a software video decoder). (Sideloading: the act of downloading the app to your computer, then transferring it to your tablet via the USB port.)
If you're looking for a cheap iPad, this isn't it. Cheap, yes, but not even close to an iPad in functionality. In fact, it's not even close to your iPhone or Android phone in functionality.
On the other hand, if you're looking for a pretty darn good content consumption device that is small and handy, and can surf the internet adroitly, this is what you want. I can very well see taking this on vacation instead of the laptop and the Kindle; it will adequately do both services for short periods of time. It was a stone cold steal at the $139 (refurbished with full 1 year warranty), it's a decent deal at $169 (refurbished with warranty), it's right at "should I/shouldn't I" at $199 new.
