Kindle Fire

Its been a while since I blogged, I had a whole host of computer issues while I was away. Good thing I do a weekly backup of my Macintosh hackintosh. That’s a post for a different day. Anyways the Kindle Fire arrived a few weeks ago and I got a good amount flight time with it. The reason for my purchase of the Kindle Fire was its price, at $199 USD, it’s almost a impulse buy. I am currently looking for more work so I also found the kindle as a need, for my design career. Literally on the first night I loaded a new PDF portfolio of all my current work and pieces, and took it to a job interview the next morning. It was great having my interviewers swiping through the pages and asking my questions relating to my designs. The screen is very vibrant and from what I was told has more DPI (dots per inch) than an Ipad2. I was totally impressed by how my portfolio looked on the Kindle, my illustrations came in very sharp and bright. The kindle’s UI is super easy to use and works with the Amazon prime, cloud service. You can read books, watch video, listen to music and various other media. This is a e-reader on steroids in the fact that it can do all these great things for viewing different media. And this is also where I feel that this is a case of you get what you pay for.  At its cheapest the Ipad2 cost $500 USD, $300 more than the kindle. But the Ipad has a better section of apps and the UI is really polished compared to the Fire. This is where I feel like if I had an extra $300 I would go ahead and buy the Ipad2 just for the user experience that is unmatched by Apple. This is not to say the kindle is Terrible, its a great little machine, but put it side by side with the Ipad, the Ipad runs circles around the fire.

The Fire is great for a casual internet machine, I love keeping up with my blogs while laying in bed or sitting on the couch. The kindle feels great in one hand, but after 20 mins or so I had to switch hands or put it down on my lap or table. That being said the kindle has good weight to it making it feel solid and not cheap like other similar priced tablets. The custom app store that has a fair amount of apps that range in different categories, it is just okay compared to Apples selection of apps, but I’m hoping that changes as more people buy the kindle for the holidays.  The things I would ask that amazon puts in the next kindle is that I would like to see a camera installed… I would have loved to skype using this thing. I understand that a camera would have made the kindle more expensive, but I just wished it was there. Also a separate volume buttons would be great, at its current state the fire only has a power button, You would have to tap on the top right corner and open up the settings, then slide the volume to the appropriate level. It gets very annoying.

With all the negatives described, I still feel like $199 is well spent on the kindle. Its the perfect size to take anywhere; bigger than a phone and smaller than a laptop. It Just has enough apps to keep you happy for now. Its great to watch movies on long trips, and I find it as a great portable portfolio for clients. The Fire is by no means a Ipad Killer, It’s probably the best semi-android tablet you can buy, heck you can buy 2 kindle Fires 2 cases and screen protectors for 1 Ipad2. So if you want the luxury of casual computing the kindle fire will be a great purchase, If you want a super sleek app crunching machine that all the hipsters have, then get the Ipad2