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Originally Posted by afv011
There is an extensive review at The Wall Street Journal. They are not terribly impressed.
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I'm not terribly impressed by the review. For starters, "the best tablet at any price" is their 4g, 8.9 inch, 64g model. Was anyone else confused by Bezos' claim?
He pans the Fire for lacking "polish, fluid, and versatility" compared to the iPad, but only quantifies that 30,000 apps is a fraction of 500,000 apps. My subjective tastes find the Fire to be sufficiently polished, fluid, and versatile.
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Originally Posted by Mossberg
The Fire HD also assaults users with ads occupying the entire screen every time they start or resume using it. You have to pay Amazon another $15, using an obscure setting on a Web page, to escape these ads. And there are pitches to buy more content on many other screens, even those displaying your already-purchased content.
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Hyperbole much? I don't have a FireHD, but my Kindle/SO doesn't 'assault' me. Occasionally, I take advantage of an SO. Still, it's not like the $15 discount is what makes the Fire less expensive than the iPad, right?
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Originally Posted by Mossberg
The main user interface has changed. Instead of a series of faux shelves displaying recently used apps and content, there is now a carousel, a scrolling horizontal array of these items. Across the top is a horizontal menu of categories, like Games, Apps, Books, Music, Videos and so forth.
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I guess we know that Walt has never used a Fire. I'm looking at my F1 and a screenshot of the F2HD and I think the user interface has not changed much. Walt's description of the 'array of items' is just wrong. F1 had a carousel. The 'faux shelves' were favorites not recently run items -- which seem to remain absent the shelves. And the horizontal menu looks exactly the same.
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Originally Posted by Mossberg
The Fire is really a hardware entry point to Amazon's massive, unmatched selection of books and other content. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos introduced the Fire HD saying it shouldn't be thought of as a gadget. "The Kindle Fire is a service," he said.
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This paragraph suggests that Bezos admitted that the Fire is nothing more than an entry point to Amazon's store and a tool for 'tapping Amazon's large collection of content' -- which is absurd. If Walt watched the launch, he completely misunderstood or misrepresented what Bezos was saying. 30,000 apps for accessing Amazon.com? Netflix, Crackle, and Playon say hello, Walt. Aldiko and the Kobo reader are waving you you. The Fire is a tablet. Get over it.
He actually says some nice things about the Fire if you read to the end...
- I found the screen to be crisp, clear and vivid
- I found its speakers far better than those on the iPad and Nexus
- [Amazon] content...is much better integrated into the Fire
- [The Fire is] much lighter than the larger iPad
and lauds the Amazon Lendning Library, Immersion, and X-Ray.
If you follow this guy back to AllThingsD.com, you will see that he writes about a lot of things -- but not Amazon or its products. For the most part, his discussion of 'things d' is in the context of Apple. It may be that no contributor to the WSJ has ever used a Fire. That's OK. Leave the reviews to those who have.