Kindle Fire HD...Read...Watch...Listen...With Extreme Pleasure

I have never owned an iPad, though I have used them. I have also used various other tablets, such as the Samsung Galaxy and Google Nexus. I have owed the Toshiba Thrive 10.1” tablet. I must say, for the money, Kindle Fire HD 7” (without special offers) is the hands-down winner for my specific purposes.

I am not a gamer, so I cannot comment on the comparison there. My needs for a tablet device, are, and the review reflects usage, as follows: reading while traveling; easy access of email (my yahoo, Hotmail, gmail personal and my business godaddy accounts) which are all loaded and synched and ready to go; listening to my favorite few hundred songs; to watch the occasional movie; to be able to view my own photos and videos whenever I wish; accessing my facebook and twitter accounts; surfing the web when not in front of my Mac or my laptop.

Yes, I know it may be limited, but those are my parameters. I originally thought my Thrive would replace my laptop but it did not. I believe that I will always have a laptop for various things I need to do. The Thrive was, in essence, my learning curve on exactly what I wanted, and needed, in a smaller portable device to use mainly while traveling. I carry my Kindle and my 15.6” laptop (with all cords, chargers and a variety of other items) in my Wenger 16-Inch Legacy Checkpoint-Friendly Computer Case.

The Kindle Fire HD has fantastic WiFi capabilities; never an issue. Near a hotspot? Connect. Easy as that. I have not yet had it lose a connection. The device has fantastic optics; brilliant colors that are alive and pop. It is a pleasure to show my photos to others on the Fire HD. I did match it directly against the iPad, Thrive and Galaxy and the visual is better than the competition. Dolby Digital Plus definitely delivers the goods. The sound is great. And when you plug in a good (not cheap) headset be prepared to fill yourself full of high quality sonic. Word docs, pdfs, and spreadsheets have all been viewed successfully.

When I got the Thrive one of the reasons is that I thought a 10 inch screen would be better to read books when I travel. And, in many ways, it is. But I am more than satisfied with the Fire HD 7" screen when I read. It is easy on the eyes and the form factor is also more comfortable when reading.

I am getting pretty close to the advertised 11 hours of operational battery time, which is excellent. That means when flying coast to coast I am able to use my Kindle while sitting in the terminal, during the flight, sitting again during a layover, and then the continuation flight, without having to worry about running out of juice (and/or searching the airport terminal for the sometimes elusive outlet).

As the Amazon Kindle PowerFast (for Accelerated Charging) was on sale when I got my Fire HD, I purchased it. I am glad I did. At first I was a bit disappointed that it was not included with the device, but, at this price-point, it makes business sense that it is not. Amazon has delivered an outstanding device. Yes, it is all tied to their content, but that also makes the Fire HD very attractive due to all of that content.

All in all, the Kindle Fire HD exceeds all of my expectations and I highly recommend it to anyone with the caveat that I have not used it with any games.

Kindle Fire HD~ Newest Version~One of my Best Buys

I was just sitting here thinking why not write a review on my kindle. Personally I love it. I received it for Christmas. I personally love it due to being able to do everything I want to do just as on my laptop, I think the only thing you cant do is play the actual games on Facebook directly from the website. "{Like farmville, you can only play the express mode} That is the only thing that the iPod has over this item. This is a great size, not to big, not to small, perfect. I can also save files to my kindle from my college and access them from my app "officesuite". I have noticed that there is a camera but, you have to upload a camera app in order to use the camera. Also there is no option to reverse the camera, such as front view or back view. There is only a front view, not something to easy to use. IN other words, you can only use the tablet holding the screen towards the object and take pics, not from the back of the tablet. Excellent sound, but you cant upload wallpapers, there is no option to change a wallpaper, screensaver or anything. I am still searching to be able to change the fonts. Excellent picture, excellent video, and like I said the sound is great. Reading a book is just wonderful, you can dim the screen if needed. There are anti virus's you can upload to protect your kindle, a good one is "lookout". You will receive notifications just like a phone. You can upload skype, and textplus to keep in contact with friends, plus all social sites. You can shop, play games, read books, play music, and upload music, watch video's, read newspapers, magazines, surf the web, and go into websites just like your laptop would, upload photos, documents, and they will send cute little offers if you want to grab them up. Lock screen, password protected. There are also beautiful kindle covers, cute little pens, screencovers.

Best at: Watching Movies, viewing pics-Worst at: device OS compatibility

Kindle Fire HD 7, my personal review.

STORAGE
This particular model is the 16 Gigabyte model, which to me, even though I do a lot of media: pictures, videos, etc, is plenty of storage. I have about 30 app loaded on my Kindle Fire HD, approx 200 songs, and 100 JPG's, and I'm still not to the halfway point of my storage capacity.

EASE OF USE
The Ease of Use category for the Kindle Fire scored high with me. It runs a version of Android Gingerbread operating system, but with a .apk limitations of using the tension .kdl instead. Once you get over the slight learning curve using the Amazon Marketplace (if you're not already familiar with it), the platform is pretty straight forward and self explanatory. the applications screen is the first screen you come to (after initial setup). All of your apps are displayed in a "carousel" of icons type display, with you 'favorites' easily accessible from the bottom of almost all screens. The categories of the short cuts are mixed together such as apps, bookmarks,and recent history. Apps are very simple to uninstall and delete as well.

CONNECTION
The Kindle Fire HD is capable of WiFi, bluetooth, and MTP connections. I thought they could have made Android Phones more compatible, since it is running an open source Android OS. The Kindle Fire is Not capable of mobile data, but VOIOC is possible.

RESOLUTION
The screen resolution is outstanding, no question is high definition. Very compatible with Netflix and Hulu, but not so much with flash and java while in the Silk browser that comes stock on the device (to which I have found no alternative, free or paid that will run on this system)

CAMERA
The camera has something to be desired, especially since it does not come with a camera program. It has one front facing approx 3mp cam with no flash or auto-focus.

BIGGEST DISAPPOINTMENT
Since like I mentioned the Kindle does run the Android operating system, it does not support Google Play and most of the apps in it. Plus many many more apps cost, even the ones free in Google Play.

Bigger is Not Necessarily Better

I bought the 8.9" HD Kindle, after having owned a first Kindle Fire for over a year. I was thinking it could be a substitute for a laptop. I was wrong, it is just like the smaller kindle, but not "purse size" Yes, it is bigger, but not that much, as the border around the screen is an inch wide. I bough a small bluetooth keyboard, and it works like a phone keyboard, but for someone like me who does not text frequently, the words often came up incomplete and if I made a typing error I would have to take time to edit. So now I basically have two reading devices,and I take the smaller one when I am going out. The bigger one works great, and I can get the same books I purchased on both at the same time, but I wish I had put the money on a laptop instead.

Awesome product at a great value!

I bought this for my mom to finally connect her to the Internet and the outside world. I am a die hard apple user and love my iPad, but I have to say I am truly impressed with this tablet! It is a little small for me, but the value you get for all it does is awesome. I love the cloud feature that saves device memory. It is easy to undstand and use. It has tabbed browsing, easy connect to books, magazines etc. and Skype which my mom loves. My only big complaint is the camera only faces you? Basically must have been made for Skype or FaceTime, not picture taking. Also you can't download Apple apps as iTunes can't be downloaded to the Kindle at this point which effected some of the games we wanted to play against each other, but amazon has a good selection of apps. it plays movies great too! Otherwise does most of the things my iPad does at a action of the cost! I also bought one for my boyfriend who loves it.