So that's a quick tour of the kindle fire. Here's what that service looks like on the kindle fire. We use it a lot in our home on our mac mini (sure wish it was available on Boxee). It is pretty sparse right now from what I saw.Īmazon Prime Instant Video is a pretty awesome service. I used kindle fire to watch a youtube video in full screen mode on the treadmill this morning and it worked great (with headphones on). I use the web to access everything else on that list (and much of the video I watch is also on the web). The only tabs that interest me on that list are apps and videos. In addition to books and web, the kindle fire has tabs for newstand, music, video, docs, and apps. It seems less functional and a bit slower. I do have a few issues with the way Google Maps works on the Kindle Fire browser. Here's the Gotham Gal's blog on the kindle fire. That said, I do not have any issue reading on the kindle fire for long lengths of time (same with iPad). But because it is a smaller device and the same weight, it feels heavier in the hand. It is heavier than a kindle, about the same weight (I think) as an iPad. Here's the book library and the book reader.Īs a book reading device, kindle fire works great. This is a kindle with an OS and a modern browser.

The best part of this device is the kindle functionality. The Netflix app is a native kindle fire app. I think that's a huge mistake on Amazon's part. One of the things I don't understand is why the kindle fire doesn't run android apps natively. Those Twitter and Facebook apps are web apps, not android apps or kindle fire apps.

So with all that said, here's a quick tour. Graphics rich applications like Google Maps do seem to be slower on the kindle fire though. Again, I'm mostly using it for reading and light browsing. So that is why I hit the pre-order button immediately when Amazon announced kindle fire.Ī number of critics have said that kindle fire is slow. I like something a bit smaller for reading on the couch, plane, or in bed. But the 11' form factor of the iPad isn't ideal for me. I've solved that problem by moving all my reading from the kindle to the kindle app on the iPad. My biggest frustration with the kindle is that I can't jump out of the book and do a quick map lookup, wikiepedia lookup, google images lookup, etc. But if you, like me, are looking for a kindle with a browser on it, this could well be the device for you. If you are looking for a less expensive iPad, then this is not for you. So I thought I'd post a few thoughts.Ī lot of what you think of kindle fire will depend on what your use case is. I received mine on Tuesday and I've been playing with it for a few days. When Amazon opened up pre-orders for the kindle fire, I bought one immediately.

A visit from the goon squad kindle