So, on a scale of 1 to 10 - ARE YOU HAPPY?

[ucfgrad93]

Originally Posted by asb2164

I would go to XDA and ask for your money back.
Most people who develop things on these devices do it for free or accept donations, To say someone did a poor job for something that is offered for free is flat out rude.

So, because they did it for free we can't criticize the work? While I have never used anything by XDA, jswinden's post is the first time I have heard anything negative about their work. That said, just because they do it for free doesn't mean they are above criticism.

Originally Posted by asb2164

I would go to XDA and ask for your money back.
Most people who develop things on these devices do it for free or accept donations, To say someone did a poor job for something that is offered for free is flat out rude.

Rude no, but it is flat out true. Since when does truth equate to being rude. I guess the current generations of kids in USA are rewarded for everything, including mediocre work or total failure. In my generation if your work was below par people pointed that out. XDA is a prime example of why great firmware cannot be written by committee. I'm sure if the XDA guys turned out work like that for a real company someone would point out that it was inferior.

[asb2164]

Originally Posted by jswinden

Rude no, but it is flat out true. Since when does truth equate to being rude. I guess the current generations of kids in USA are rewarded for everything, including mediocre work or total failure. In my generation if your work was below par people pointed that out. XDA is a prime example of why great firmware cannot be written by committee. I'm sure if the XDA guys turned out work like that for a real company someone would point out that it was inferior.

My gut hurts from laughing at that, Tell us what happened between you and XDA did you get banned over there?
Most of the people over there just develop the stuff to make their personal devices perform better and will stop development when they get a different model of phone/tablet.
I am glad they exist I learn a lot over there.

[afv011]

Originally Posted by jswinden

I cannot imagine going for a tiny "walled garden" like the Blackberry then having to rely on those guys at XDA to rewrite the firmware. IMO they did a lousy job on the NookColor. They never adequately addressed major issues like battery drain.

7.0.x had a battery drain bug, which was fixed in 7.1.0. I can leave it on suspend overnight and in the morning it shows exactly the same battery level it did the previous night.

[abookreader]

After playing around for a week I'm going to up my score to a 7.5

What it is works very well and I greatly appreciate that. I'm tired of products that don't work well. I need two things from Amazon:

1. Password/PIN Protect buying. My son accidentally rented a movie in the first 4 minutes it was in his hands. I'll just say, he's special needs and no I can't just tell him not to buy. But he loves watching movies and playing games on it which has me really excited. I actually got him to sit for a whole 30 minutes this week, which is something big around here. I've solved the problem by turning off WiFi, but that disables streaming. Plus, I don't want to be turning it off and on all the time.

2. 8GB, Not Big Enough!!!

But overall, for $199 this thing is a really good value.

[Blossom]

Originally Posted by abookreader

After playing around for a week I'm going to up my score to a 7.5

What it is works very well and I greatly appreciate that. I'm tired of products that don't work well. I need two things from Amazon:

1. Password/PIN Protect buying. My son accidentally rented a movie in the first 4 minutes it was in his hands. I'll just say, he's special needs and no I can't just tell him not to buy. But he loves watching movies and playing games on it which has me really excited. I actually got him to sit for a whole 30 minutes this week, which is something big around here. I've solved the problem by turning off WiFi, but that disables streaming. Plus, I don't want to be turning it off and on all the time.

2. 8GB, Not Big Enough!!!

But overall, for $199 this thing is a really good value.

I use an app to Turn on/off WiFi with a simple touch of an icon. It works great! See the Must have apps thread.

Still I can see your concerns. I have my account set to not let auto buying happen. I have to buy my stuff from the Website because I have no designated card set as default in any of the Amazon stores just in default account area on the site. It works well for me.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by abookreader

After playing around for a week I'm going to up my score to a 7.5

What it is works very well and I greatly appreciate that. I'm tired of products that don't work well. I need two things from Amazon:

1. Password/PIN Protect buying. My son accidentally rented a movie in the first 4 minutes it was in his hands. I'll just say, he's special needs and no I can't just tell him not to buy. But he loves watching movies and playing games on it which has me really excited. I actually got him to sit for a whole 30 minutes this week, which is something big around here. I've solved the problem by turning off WiFi, but that disables streaming. Plus, I don't want to be turning it off and on all the time.

2. 8GB, Not Big Enough!!!

But overall, for $199 this thing is a really good value.

Turn off the one-click buying.

Interesting that for the TV app (on my Vizio TV) does have a Pin# required to purchase.

[abookreader]

Originally Posted by kennyc

Turn off the one-click buying.

Interesting that for the TV app (on my Vizio TV) does has a Pin# required to purchase.

I turned off one click buying and took my credit card off for about a day. And that was the day that I wanted to buy a bunch of things on the Amazon website and have them shipped here. So then they went right back on because I'm really lazy about having to put all that in to check-out. I'll check out the WiFi control app, that sounds like a good idea.

[Blossom]

Originally Posted by abookreader

I turned off one click buying and took my credit card off for about a day. And that was the day that I wanted to buy a bunch of things on the Amazon website and have them shipped here. So then they went right back on because I'm really lazy about having to put all that in to check-out. I'll check out the WiFi control app, that sounds like a good idea.

Once you remove the credit card then re add it you can use it on Amazon's site. You can keep it stored in your account. No need to type it out each time.

Just go into each payment settings for Kindle books, apps and movies and make sure it's not set as default payment.

This way you buy from the Site within two clicks but no one click buying from the site or device now.

[baggyrinkle]

The Fire is my first experience with a tablet. I also have Kindle K3 and K4NT. Before my Mareware C.E.O. Hybrid folio leather cover arrived I had trouble handling the Fire but the cover solved that problem nicely, even though the cover was expensive $44.95 http://tinyurl.com/7xfplmm it is well worth the price IMHO. I not sure how I will use it over time, but for now I like the Facebook app, Weather, web surfing, and some reading. Comics look nice but I have trouble with the small print in the "balloons". I like the Audible app but wish the Fire had bluetooth. A big minus since the speaker volume is so weak, and I would love to use my Plantronics Backbeat 903+ head phones with it. I'm a gadget freak and a Ham anyway and one of those "first adopters", LOL. I'll give the Fire a 7 overall. I"m not sure I have the patience to watch a whole movie on it. Oh yeah, Amazon Prime is a good deal and well worth the cost if you buy a lot of stuff from Amazon, which I do.

[lear2003]

no living in the uk so do not have access to appstore or cloud.

[Doc109]

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.

[Blossom]

Originally Posted by Doc109

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.

Good review! If Amazon adds the brightness bar back to the Kindle app they took out. I think it will help with the night time reading.

They have a feedback app on the Fire. I use that to send them all my complaints and suggestions. I suggest everyone do the same so we can get some changes!

[jocampo]

Originally Posted by Doc109

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.

Well, you need to understand that you are side loading an app, something that we not designed for the Carousel ... so I would not complain about it. Good enough is that we can see it there. On the Nook Tablet, you need to change the launcher or use the "find" feature.

But agree, the whole Carousel concept should be revised. It would be nice for books only, but visible at will, not always there.

[murraypaul]

Originally Posted by wizwor

I wonder too how these people feel about the 7" form. Apple once said that there was no market for a device between the iPhone and the iPad. Is this still true?

If there had been a 7" iPad available, I would have bought one to go alongside the bigger version. But it would definitely be the secondary tablet.
Personally I use my 7" tablet for reading (normal text) only, everything else I find better on the bigger tablet. Magazines, games, web browsing all make good use of the bigger screen.
(And that has nothing to do with the different brands of the tablets, to try and cut off a holy war)