[Andrew H.]

Originally Posted by wizwor

No. I have not seen much hate here (I haven't looked for it). Most of the conversation here is polite.

During the month and a half between between announcement and availability of the Fire, I read all there was to read. First thing I noticed was that most of the previewers -- and there were a lot of them -- had not touched the hardware. Wondering why people who had not used a Fire would bother to demean it, I started googling the 'authors' and found most had a long love affair with the iPad.

This is not a conspiracy. Something like 90% of tablets sold are iPads. People who review tablets are probably going to compare it to the iPad.

Weeks after launch, a lot of the reviews seem to be intended to show that the Fire is lacking in some way or that it is not an iPad. When you google the 'author' these people are still iPad champions.

It is lacking in a lot of ways. And this is probably the most important thing for reviewers to point out, since it was not clear at all how the fire would run. With the big question for a lot of people (myself included, as I had one on preorder for a while) was whether the Fire was going to be something like a smaller iPad. Or, put another way, could you spend $200 and get something smaller but generally equivalent to the iPad? Or were there other tradeoffs.

Personally, I cannot fathom why a person in love with an iPad would even consider purchasing a Fire. Yet it seems that all of them have and most of them have blogged that the iPad is better.

You need to get over the idea that because a reviewer like the iPad, he or she is biased and incapable of objectively reviewing another device. The iPad is completely dominant in the tablet world, and you would be hard pressed to find a reviewer who *didn't* like it. And, as I mentioned above, the no. 1 question about the Fire was how it compared to the iPad. (With the No. 2 question probably being how it compared to the NC).

Even on MR, I could not find objective reviews at launch.

There were plenty of objective reviews on launch, especially on MR, whose denizens are not overly fond of Apple products, by and large.

[I decided to buy one and see what I thought. Personally, I have not found the Fire lacking. To be fair, that comes from the perspective of one who has never driven an iPad or a Galaxy. To be even more fair, I probably have less than ten hours at the wheel of the Fire. But I have watched movies using eMIT, Prime, and Netflix -- all very satisfying. I've listened to internet radio and checked my email and browsed the web. I installed the Nook app via a nonAmazon app store (which I found educational and challenging). I've downloaded documents and periodicals using Calibre -- works. I've played a couple games and texted.

It's good that you like the Fire. But this doesn't mean that the reviews pointing out shortcomings with the the Fire were wrong. In fact, most of the reviews I read pointed out certain shortcomings, but also noted that it was find for certain uses, and certainly a good deal at $200. And also more convenient to carry around than an iPad.

I prefer to sit in front of dual 23" screens with a keyboard and mouse, but have retired to the couch with the Fire to watch TV (IMDB more than ESPN).

My wife uses the fire the most. She has dialysis three times a week and it accompanies her. We put a spreadsheet on the Fire to track her care -- it's a convenient place to track the info since she always brings the Fire with her. She likes the radio and netflix, plays games, and reads to kill her time. Zero complaints out of her. In fact, she loves the Fire. Again, never having used an iPad.

I guess you could say that my 'mini review' doesn't talk about specs (still trying to tie back to the original post). They are in there -- it's just subtle. The Fire is fast enough to play video, small enough to fit in my wife's purse, and cheap enough that I didn't have to think much about buying one. The battery lasts long enough that I didn't even think of it when reviewing the device and there is enough storage that it's not an issue -- despite four people with diverse applications sharing a single device.

Yes, I think your mini review is definitely a non-spec review. And the reason why non-spec reviews are popular: they are actually useful to normal users who care about what they can do with the device in question.