HDX Kindle Fire HDX - First Impressions

Originally Posted by Blossom

Not off topic it's part of the tablet experience really. I think you probably used the free version from SlideMe back when you had a Kindle Fire. You can no longer get the newest app from their only two places Google Play or Amazon.

The personal documents on the HDX are a joke! Amazon has changed it to where the Pdocs are more like office docs now not books. No TOC. No cover view and no covers!

What I am doing is sending a pdoc mobi version of the book to my HDX and sideloading the AZW3. When done reading on the AZW3 I open the pdoc version and go to the same location and then sync so I can read it later on my other Kindles that use the pdoc version without any problems.

Huge hassle but it works as for missing covers I just hide the carousel and pretend it doesn't exist.

I noticed last night that the Kindle for Android now includes the Carousel feature from the Fire. Yuk, that is one feature they could have left out. I would rather see the Collections like in the iOS app. It is strange how each Kindle app and device can be so different from the others. I wonder if the devs ever even communicate with the other dev teams?

[sirmaru]

Originally Posted by jswinden

I noticed last night that the Kindle for Android now includes the Carousel feature from the Fire. Yuk, that is one feature they could have left out. I would rather see the Collections like in the iOS app. It is strange how each Kindle app and device can be so different from the others. I wonder if the devs ever even communicate with the other dev teams?

The Home Screen on the HDX 2013 can be modified to hide the Carousel. By moving the screen with a finger it can be moved upwards and remain hidden all the time. Then only one's apps show at the Home Screen. Apps not used much can be removed from the Home Screen and only accessed in the Apps Menu.

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by jswinden

On my Nexus 7.2 I noticed an oddity last night that is apparent in both the Kindle app and in Cool Reader. The right margins are 1/4" larger than the left margins! I noticed it in Cool Reader first and thought it was just a setting issue, but then I saw it in Kindle too! I'm wondering if this is Nexus 7.2 thing or an Android thing or just a weird coincidence. @Tubemonkey, have you noticed this issue on your Nexus 7.2?

Not a problem for me. Margins are equal in Kindle, Nook, and Aldiko.

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

Not a problem for me. Margins are equal in Kindle, Nook, and Aldiko.

Well, that is odd. Perhaps there is some obscure menu setting hidden away somewhere I haven't found. See attached photos: Left is Kindle app and right is Good Reader. It also does this in Mantano Free too.

.....

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by jswinden

Well, that is odd. Perhaps there is some obscure menu setting hidden away somewhere I haven't found. See attached photos: Left is Kindle app and right is Good Reader. It also does this in Mantano Free too.

.....

I'm definitely not getting the margins as shown in those pics. Mine are quite equal.

Maybe it's time to call Asus?

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

I'm definitely not getting the margins as shown in those pics. Mine are quite equal.

Maybe it's time to call Asus?

It may well be time to call them. My WiFi on it is pathetically slow and stutters a lot. WiFi on my computers and iOS devices is blazingly fast. I've got an OTG cable coming tomorrow. If I cannot connect the Nexus 7 to my camera then the Nexus 7 is going bye-bye.

I'm getting uber annoyed by all the Google crap anyway. Things like trying to connect me to chats without asking, etc. I got so fed up with it that I went into my GMail and deleted all my contacts to ensure none of them get signed up for Google sh*t without my knowing about it. I never used them anyway since I now use the Apple cloud for contacts. IMO, Google is slimy and evil beyond description for all the back door crap they pull with our personal information.

[Blossom]

Originally Posted by jswinden

Well, that is odd. Perhaps there is some obscure menu setting hidden away somewhere I haven't found. See attached photos: Left is Kindle app and right is Good Reader. It also does this in Mantano Free too.

.....

Is this happening in all books? It could be simple style sheet problem.

I can tell you the HDX and style sheets are complicated then I like. I spent last two days fixing 12 books to not look like they have gigantic text! Bug? I'm not sure but anything over 1em is pretty big. The epubs with the same CSS do not have this problem. When I open up the CSS I see some crazy like 1.4777em. What's that about? It seems changing it to 1.4em fixes the problem.

Man this is alot of work. I have 100 books left to fix that are on my other Kindles. Covers sometime show the blue pretty one and sometimes a cover with no text at all. I can't figure out how to fix this..... I'm thinking maybe if I run the epub through Kindle PReviwer first then run the AZW3 is generates through Calibre I might get the blue cover.

I've been too ill to play with it but feel a little better today.

Originally Posted by Blossom

Is this happening in all books? It could be simple style sheet problem.

I can tell you the HDX and style sheets are complicated then I like. I spent last two days fixing 12 books to not look like they have gigantic text! Bug? I'm not sure but anything over 1em is pretty big. The epubs with the same CSS do not have this problem. When I open up the CSS I see some crazy like 1.4777em. What's that about? It seems changing it to 1.4em fixes the problem.

Man this is alot of work. I have 100 books left to fix that are on my other Kindles. Covers sometime show the blue pretty one and sometimes a cover with no text at all. I can't figure out how to fix this..... I'm thinking maybe if I run the epub through Kindle PReviwer first then run the AZW3 is generates through Calibre I might get the blue cover.

I've been too ill to play with it but feel a little better today.

Sorry you're feeling bad! I hope you start feeling better soon.

I agree with eBooks being to complicated. There is no reason to include all the HTML and CSS in an eBook. I liked the way Palm made a scaled down markup language for Palmdocs years ago. They basically included paragraph, heading, lists, and block quote tags, and very little else. The people that create the ePub standards should do likewise--just include the bare essentials as far as HTML tags go. They should force people to use a very strict tag allocation where headings have to be in a H# tag, paragraphs have to be in P tags, lists in UL or OL tags, and do away with DIV, SPAN, and 98% of all the other HTML tags.

[Blossom]

Originally Posted by jswinden

Sorry you're feeling bad! I hope you start feeling better soon.

I agree with eBooks being to complicated. There is no reason to include all the HTML and CSS in an eBook. I liked the way Palm made a scaled down markup language for Palmdocs years ago. They basically included paragraph, heading, lists, and block quote tags, and very little else. The people that create the ePub standards should do likewise--just include the bare essentials as far as HTML tags go. They should force people to use a very strict tag allocation where headings have to be in a H# tag, paragraphs have to be in P tags, lists in UL or OL tags, and do away with DIV, SPAN, and 98% of all the other HTML tags.

Thanks I am slowly feeling a tad better today.

Check out this CSS sheet I just pulled from an Amazon book!

Spoiler:

a {text-decoration: none}
span.sz {}
p.tc {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-align: center; text-indent: 0.0px; font: 135% 'Times New Roman'}
p.tcd {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 0.0px; font: 100% 'Times New Roman'}
p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 7.2px 0.0px 0.0px; text-align: center; text-indent: 23.8px; font: 100% 'Times New Roman';}
p.p2 {margin: 0.0px 7.2px 0.0px 0.0px; text-align: center; text-indent: 23.8px; font: 100% 'Times New Roman';min-height: 21.0px}
p.p3 {margin: 0.0px 7.2px 0.0px 0.0px; text-align: center; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 100% 'Times New Roman';}
p.p4 {margin: 0.0px 7.2px 0.0px 0.0px; text-align: center; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 100% 'Times New Roman';min-height: 21.0px}
p.p5 {margin: 0.0px 7.2px 0.0px 18.0px; text-indent: 18.0px; font: 100% 'Times New Roman';}
p.p6 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 100% 'Times New Roman';min-height: 21.0px}
p.p7 {margin: 0.0px 7.2px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 100% 'Times New Roman';}
p.p8 {margin: 0.0px 7.2px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 100% 'Times New Roman'; }
p.p9 {margin: 0.0px 7.2px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 100% 'Times New Roman';  min-height: 21.0px}
p.p10 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-align: center; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 100% 'Times New Roman'; }
p.p11 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 100% 'Times New Roman'; }
p.p12 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 100% 'Times New Roman';  min-height: 21.0px}
p.p13 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 100% 'Times New Roman';}
p.p14 {margin: 0.0px 7.2px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 23.8px; font: 100% 'Times New Roman';min-height: 21.0px}
p.p15 {margin: 0.0px 7.2px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 23.8px; font: 100% 'Times New Roman';}
p.p16 {margin: 0.0px 7.2px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 23.8px; font: 100% Symbol;}
p.p17 {margin: 0.0px 7.2px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 23.8px; font: 100% 'Times New Roman';}
p.p18 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 0.0px; font: 100% 'Times New Roman';}
p.p19 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 0.0px; font: 100% 'Times New Roman';min-height: 21.0px}
p.p20 {margin: 0.0px 7.2px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 23.8px; font: 100% Symbol;}
p.p21 {margin: 0.0px 7.2px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 23.8px; font: 100% 'Times New Roman';min-height: 21.0px}
p.p22 {margin: 0.0px 7.2px 0.0px 0.0px; text-align: center; text-indent: 23.8px; font: 100% 'Times New Roman';}
p.p23 {margin: 0.0px 7.2px 0.0px 0.0px; text-align: center; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 100% 'Lucida Grande';}
p.p24 {margin: 0.0px 7.2px 0.0px 0.0px; text-align: center; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 100% 'Times New Roman'; }
p.p25 {margin: 0.0px 7.2px 0.0px 0.0px; text-align: center; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 100% 'Lucida Grande';min-height: 21.0px}
p.p26 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 21.6px; font: 100% 'Times New Roman';}
p.p27 {margin: 0.0px 7.2px 0.0px 0.0px; text-align: center; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 60% 'Times New Roman';}
p.p28 {margin: 0.0px 7.2px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 0.0px; font: 60% 'Times New Roman';min-height: 11.0px}
p.p29 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 0.0px; font: 60% 'Times New Roman';min-height: 11.0px}
span.s1 {font: 60% 'Times New Roman'}
span.s2 {text-decoration: underline ; color: #011585}
span.s3 {text-decoration: underline ; }
span.s4 {}
span.s5 {}
span.s6 {text-decoration: underline}
span.s7 {}
span.s8 {font: 100% 'Lucida Grande'; text-decoration: underline ; color: #011585}
span.s9 {font: 100% 'Lucida Grande'}

I've got my work cut out for me on this one!

Originally Posted by Blossom

Is this happening in all books? It could be simple style sheet problem.

And right you are! I switched books and the margin issue went away. I guess I was so annoyed by Google and Android messing with my contacts and mail that I simply didn't think to change books. D'uh!!!

The Fires are probably shielded from a lot of the Google crap. On the Nexus 7.2 Google automatically grabs your gmail contacts and puts them in who knows how many other places within apps. I opened Hangout to see what it was and immediately saw several of my contacts and their photos from my contacts listed in the start conversations. That was the final straw. I immediately signed into my gmail account on my computer to delete all my gmail contacts. When I got into the gmail app I had several chat request boxes pop up from let's say women of questionable character! I'm no prude, but I'm also no idiot. I deleted all contacts so they cannot get sent to databases across the internet. I deleted the chat boxes and selected the option to be invisible to them, but it would not let me do that because it said I had signed into Google Talk on my Nexus 7.2. I never signed into Talk. Long story short, I deleted every GD Google service and app I could find on the Nexus 7.2 with the exceptions of the Play Store and Maps.

EDIT: I have many professional and civic leaders among my contacts and as friends. The last thing I need is for Google to give/sell my contact info to an unscrupulous company and have that company start sending them junk, or doing even worse things with the info.

[mewmartigan]

So I rented Pacific Rim from Amazon today. They let me download the rental in full 1080p. The screen on the HDX is absolutely fantastic and the speakers are great too.

I streamed it over my PS3 too but my old PS3 has a slow wifi card so a lot of the finer details were lost. Watching it again later on the Fire, the details were amazing.

[Japes]

Wondering if someone can tell me if there is still a 4gb file size limitation like on their earlier generation Fire tablets? I own ALOT of 1080p content that is larger than 4gb and hate to have to convert. Thanks in advance to anyone who might be able to let me know.

[Blossom]

Well I just got through with May Day then a Kindle Specialist. My HDX is showing a flickering when I am in Books. It doesn't happen when I am reading a Doc or when I am in Mantano or any other part of the Kindle just when I am reading a Book. Non Amazon or Amazon.

It reminds me of the CRT monitor flicker if you are old enough to remember one. They downloaded my logs and are going to look into it. I could tell they were stumped. Me too.

Replacement will be here on Monday.

Now here's the kicker! When the May Day window was up it didn't flicker at all but as soon I closed it the flickering started. This just started today and I restarted three times, Turn auto bright on and off it still happening so either I activated a bug lucky me or My device is defective.

Originally Posted by Blossom

Well I just got through with May Day then a Kindle Specialist. My HDX is showing a flickering when I am in Books. It doesn't happen when I am reading a Doc or when I am in Mantano or any other part of the Kindle just when I am reading a Book. Non Amazon or Amazon.

It reminds me of the CRT monitor flicker if you are old enough to remember one. They downloaded my logs and are going to look into it. I could tell they were stumped. Me too.

Replacement will be here on Monday.

Now here's the kicker! When the May Day window was up it didn't flicker at all but as soon I closed it the flickering started. This just started today and I restarted three times, Turn auto bright on and off it still happening so either I activated a bug lucky me or My device is defective.

If it only occurs when running certain apps, then it might be a FW issue rather than hardware. Bummer though as you will have to set up another Fire to your liking, at that takes time.

[Blossom]

Originally Posted by jswinden

If it only occurs when running certain apps, then it might be a FW issue rather than hardware. Bummer though as you will have to set up another Fire to your liking, at that takes time.

Yeah I've been too sick to do too much so it shouldn't be to much of hassle to transfer.

They did mention the blue haze and how that's normal. I said yeah I got that but it doesn't bother me but the flickering when reading does. I don't want to get a migraine from it.

The May Day guy was young and clueless didn't even know where to find the Help app or what a CRT flicker is but the Kindle Specialist was great he knew exactly what a CRT flicker was and found it humorous I describe it like that because LEDs don't flicker!

I agree I think it's bad firmware because it only happens in Books, Not docs or any other app. I know I am sick as a dog right now but I am not seeing things. If I was I would see it in Docs and other pages. It doesn't happen on the white theme, it happens on Sepia and the night theme.

I stuck a blanket over my head and then you could really see the flicker. It was flickering what I was talking to the Kindle support but not while the May Day window was on. If I go to docs no flickering. This just started today I would have notice it sooner before it started I notice the screen would go black before it loaded my Books.