MobileRead Forums - View Single Post - So, on a scale of 1 to 10

Doc109 · 11-30-2011, 03:48 PM

I am apparently not Amazon's target consumer, as I purchased the Fire with little desire to watch movies on it. I love my Kindle 3 and have no illusions that the Fire will provide a better reading experience.

So why did I get a Fire? My spouse and I are sharing the K3 and that doesn't always work. And I figured that the Fire could perform a few useful features.

PDF reading/annotating. 8.5/10
Well, the K3 kinda sucks at handling pdf's - especially multi-column documents. The Fire, on the other hand, is great so far. The stock .pdf reader is okay. No annotating features, though, so it's useless for my needs. For a few bucks, I added Repligo Reader and it is fantastic at displaying pdf's and allowing for easy annotation and highlighting that transfers to Acrobat on my desktop. I read a lot of pdf's for work and I don't always love sitting at a table with the laptop banging away on the keyboard, so the Fire is a good solution here.

Web Browsing/Email 7/10
The browser is reasonably fast - I tried Dolphin HD and it doesn't seem any quicker than Silk. Haven't yet tried Opera. I don't find the 7'' form factor to be ideal for browsing, but it'll do for short-term looking around. The email app is fine. Nothing too pretty to look at but it gets the job done.

Reading 7/10
If I didn't have an extensive Kindle library and was not locked into Amazon, I might have gone for a Nook Color or Nook Tablet. Nooks offer several additional background colors that I think make for easier LCD reading. That being said, the Fire is fine for reading - but it can't hold a candle to e-ink. Page turns are quick and it's easy to annotate. I love that Fire has Georgia and Lucida fonts as options. I sometimes tire of the fonts on the K3, so the Fire offers more options here.

Night reading - I don't like it so much on the Fire so far. The screen is far too bright, even at minimum brightness in night mode. But the Screen Filter app (see must-have apps thread) makes this much more bearable, though still inferior to the K3.

Apps 7.5/10
The Amazon app store lock-in is a pain, though several clever members of this forum have provided good instructions for how to get around the Amazon app store without going through the trouble of rooting the Fire. Evernote and Repligo were both in Amazon's app store. Pandora is also one of my main apps and I just plug the Fire into my old-school stereo's accessory input and life is suddenly good. Dropbox is easily sideloaded and it makes the Fire into a potentially legit small-time productivity device. The various office suites offer very limited formatting options and there are many reports that they butcher formatting from Word/Excel/Powerpoint - but for simple documents, the Fire could work. Looking forward to trying that out. I'm not into games, so no comment there.

Responsiveness 9/10
Sometimes the menu/options button is a bit of a pain, taking multiple taps to activate. I have had essentially no delays when opening programs, accessing menus, or moving between pages in books or pdf's. I cannot attest to the movie playback responsiveness outside of a couple trailers that loaded quickly and looked great except for the glare.

Screen 9/10
Text looks fabulous in books and .pdfs. Webpages look nice as well. But the glare is sometimes brutal and can be distracting. So one has to watch the screen angle to minimize glare. A minor pain, but a pain nonetheless.

Interface 7.5/10
Ok, the Carousel sucks. I concur with most others here. It scrolls too quickly and most sideloaded apps have horrendously ugly icons when stretched massively to fit into the Carousel. But the tabs at the top of the homescreen (Apps, Docs, etc.), along with the (clumsily implemented) favorites on the homescreen have made navigation and easily accessing apps/books/web pretty easy.

I've found that the keyboard is very responsive, something that never seemed to happen on the Nook Colors I played with. It seems about as good as you can get for typing on a very small keyboard. It's much better than typing on my 4'' Windows Mobile device.

Body 8/10
It's a brick. Feels heavier than it actually is. This doesn't bother me, but my spouse thinks it's way too hefty. I find it neither unattractive or pretty. Seems very solidly built. Yes, I would've liked volume buttons - just like everyone else. But I have not accidentally hit the power button yet, which is a common complaint.

Value 10/10
In November 2010, I wouldn't have dreamed that a device as capable as the fire would cost $199 - I got mine for $192 after some discounts at Target. A ridiculous amount of functionality for the price. Not sure how the likes of Acer, HTC, Toshiba, and Asus will respond. I really liked the HTC Flyer, but for the price, the Fire was too good to pass up.

Overall 8.5/10
Really enjoying it so far.

11-30-2011, 03:48 PM	#192
Doc109 Enthusiast Posts: 25 Karma: 487210 Join Date: Nov 2011 Device: Kindle 3, Kindle Fire, Kindle Fire 2 (non-HD), Kindle Paperwhite	Value, Functionality I am apparently not Amazon's target consumer, as I purchased the Fire with little desire to watch movies on it. I love my Kindle 3 and have no illusions that the Fire will provide a better reading experience. So why did I get a Fire? My spouse and I are sharing the K3 and that doesn't always work. And I figured that the Fire could perform a few useful features. PDF reading/annotating. 8.5/10 Well, the K3 kinda sucks at handling pdf's - especially multi-column documents. The Fire, on the other hand, is great so far. The stock .pdf reader is okay. No annotating features, though, so it's useless for my needs. For a few bucks, I added Repligo Reader and it is fantastic at displaying pdf's and allowing for easy annotation and highlighting that transfers to Acrobat on my desktop. I read a lot of pdf's for work and I don't always love sitting at a table with the laptop banging away on the keyboard, so the Fire is a good solution here. Web Browsing/Email 7/10 The browser is reasonably fast - I tried Dolphin HD and it doesn't seem any quicker than Silk. Haven't yet tried Opera. I don't find the 7'' form factor to be ideal for browsing, but it'll do for short-term looking around. The email app is fine. Nothing too pretty to look at but it gets the job done. Reading 7/10 If I didn't have an extensive Kindle library and was not locked into Amazon, I might have gone for a Nook Color or Nook Tablet. Nooks offer several additional background colors that I think make for easier LCD reading. That being said, the Fire is fine for reading - but it can't hold a candle to e-ink. Page turns are quick and it's easy to annotate. I love that Fire has Georgia and Lucida fonts as options. I sometimes tire of the fonts on the K3, so the Fire offers more options here. Night reading - I don't like it so much on the Fire so far. The screen is far too bright, even at minimum brightness in night mode. But the Screen Filter app (see must-have apps thread) makes this much more bearable, though still inferior to the K3. Apps 7.5/10 The Amazon app store lock-in is a pain, though several clever members of this forum have provided good instructions for how to get around the Amazon app store without going through the trouble of rooting the Fire. Evernote and Repligo were both in Amazon's app store. Pandora is also one of my main apps and I just plug the Fire into my old-school stereo's accessory input and life is suddenly good. Dropbox is easily sideloaded and it makes the Fire into a potentially legit small-time productivity device. The various office suites offer very limited formatting options and there are many reports that they butcher formatting from Word/Excel/Powerpoint - but for simple documents, the Fire could work. Looking forward to trying that out. I'm not into games, so no comment there. Responsiveness 9/10 Sometimes the menu/options button is a bit of a pain, taking multiple taps to activate. I have had essentially no delays when opening programs, accessing menus, or moving between pages in books or pdf's. I cannot attest to the movie playback responsiveness outside of a couple trailers that loaded quickly and looked great except for the glare. Screen 9/10 Text looks fabulous in books and .pdfs. Webpages look nice as well. But the glare is sometimes brutal and can be distracting. So one has to watch the screen angle to minimize glare. A minor pain, but a pain nonetheless. Interface 7.5/10 Ok, the Carousel sucks. I concur with most others here. It scrolls too quickly and most sideloaded apps have horrendously ugly icons when stretched massively to fit into the Carousel. But the tabs at the top of the homescreen (Apps, Docs, etc.), along with the (clumsily implemented) favorites on the homescreen have made navigation and easily accessing apps/books/web pretty easy. I've found that the keyboard is very responsive, something that never seemed to happen on the Nook Colors I played with. It seems about as good as you can get for typing on a very small keyboard. It's much better than typing on my 4'' Windows Mobile device. Body 8/10 It's a brick. Feels heavier than it actually is. This doesn't bother me, but my spouse thinks it's way too hefty. I find it neither unattractive or pretty. Seems very solidly built. Yes, I would've liked volume buttons - just like everyone else. But I have not accidentally hit the power button yet, which is a common complaint. Value 10/10 In November 2010, I wouldn't have dreamed that a device as capable as the fire would cost $199 - I got mine for $192 after some discounts at Target. A ridiculous amount of functionality for the price. Not sure how the likes of Acer, HTC, Toshiba, and Asus will respond. I really liked the HTC Flyer, but for the price, the Fire was too good to pass up. Overall 8.5/10 Really enjoying it so far.