[Carmelreader]

Got mine yesterday. My initial impression was that it was a little heavier than I expected. That said, it is a great size and not too heavy. A very compact feeling build. As to the sound. It isn't bad. I would be perfectly content listening to books on it. I am surprised that the speakers aren't louder, but they are sufficient for me. As to music. It is mono but not brassy or tinny. Compared to my 1st mobile music device, a 1962 transistor radio, it sounds great. Compared to the Fire HDX, room for improvement. It was quite good through ear buds though. Also I am not a total fanatic about sound quality, and I listen mainly to Renaissance, world music, baroque etc.

I am not really into games, apps etc. except for Sudoko. Great size for that. I watched one of Amazon's pilots on it, and the screen is great. I was surprised that I didn't mind watching a video on this size screen. I was using the ear buds so the sound was very good, didn't try it au natural.

Reading. Just fine. Very clear. The kindle app seems to work just like on the fire hdx. All of my huge library were there in the cloud and so were my collections from other tablets. I mention the library in the cloud, because that wasn't the case with my audible collection. It got stuck downloading, showing the cloud covers. I didn't have any downloaded to the device. I had to do a restore and reregister to get all the covers to show up in the audible cloud. I have a library of about 200 or so. 125 didn't show the 1st time round. All are there now.

Aside from the Audible glitch, I haven't had any others. It arrived with a 73% battery and went down to 25% by the end of the evening of playing around with it, downloading etc. I probably was only on it for 2 hours all told. The battery on the HDX also seems to drain fast unless I put it in airplane which I do a lot.

Anyway, I am pleased with it. It was an impulse buy and one that I think will be useful. I really do like the size and portability. It won't replace my bigger tablets, but it will have a definite place. I have and love my iPad mini, and fire hdx 8.9 but I don't want to use them in the studio and get either mucked up by accident while listening to a book and the smaller size of the fire is handy too for popping in my apron pocket or setting on my work table. At this price I won't be anxious about it getting damaged or knocked about.

Am quite pleased with it.

Hope this helps someone.