[tomsem]

I like having TTS, and was disappointed that the feature got dropped from the Paperwhite (especially as it was correlated with the storage reduction). It was serviceable enough on previous models, I can't say that everyone can get used to it but I did.

Ivona has much better quality voice synthesis and I use it with reading apps on my Android tablet. The Fire may use Ivona, but I don't think you can install additional voices (male/female, other languages or inflections of English) and that's one reason I prefer stock Android.

The Kindle iOS app has a very good VoiceOver implementation and I use that from time to time also. It is not really TTS, but rather a screen reader, so you cannot lock the screen and have it keep reading, and there are little noises that tell you the page is turning etc.

But I find that listening to audiobooks, having someone read to you, or listening to TTS is a skill. You have to develop a capacity of attention with it before you can really appreciate or enjoy it fully.