

A human review of the Kindle Fire - zdw
http://www.marco.org/2011/11/17/kindle-fire-review

======
jonknee
I actually like mine quite a bit. I had't previously made use of the Amazon
Prime free streaming content, but it's great on the Fire. Marco compared it
negatively to Netflix, but Prime is $6.50 a month and the streaming stuff is
just a small part (it was actually added on after--Prime was a good deal
before any streaming content). Complaining about free streaming content is not
a great way to start a review. How's the streaming content that Apple
provides?

The size and weight are great, the iPad feels bulky after using the Fire. It's
great for reading while holding in one hand, something I don't do much with
the iPad because of it's size and weight.

I'm not sure why hardware volume buttons would help much, the software
controls are always one tap away. I'm not a fan of the only physical button
(power)--it's small and on the bottom, but I'm probably just used to the one
on the upper right of iOS devices.

It's two days old, there isn't a lot of software written for it yet. That's
not surprising since most developers just got theirs two days ago. The app
experience on iPad wasn't great at first either, remember all the double sized
iPhone apps? The focus of the Fire isn't apps, it's Amazon's content. Remember
when it was announced and people were guessing whether or not Apps would even
be allowed?

It's easy to use, arrives configured (and personalized--the Fire knowing who I
am when I opened it was a lot better than the "plug into iTunes" message my
iPad(s) came with) and seamlessly hooks into the Amazon ecosystem. It's
exactly what I expected.

Update: I just tried the PDF reader, by emailing a document (again, try that
on an iPad). It worked great. I added the email address to my address book and
now can send docs to my Kindle without having to think. Lovely.

~~~
potatolicious
> _"Complaining about free streaming content is not a great way to start a
> review. How's the streaming content that Apple provides?"_

I'll bite. I really don't like the Prime free Videos thing. It's not the lack
of selection (though that is an issue), it's that there is _zero_
discoverability.

Amazon's concept of "recommendations" is quaint and still entirely obsessed
with the concept of a physical product, and fails dramatically when put
alongside modern recommendation engines like Netflix, or any number of smaller
startups that deliver better content recommendations. Netflix's content
selection isn't terribly awesome either, but it doesn't _feel_ lacking because
the system does such a fine job of finding you something to watch.

And it's not that Amazon _tries_ to build out a good discoverability
system,and it just isn't any good. It simply _doesn't have one_. When you drop
into the Video Store, almost none of the things it shows you are meant to be
relevant to you. We see global bestsellers. We see new releases. We see
nothing relevant to the user, and that's a pretty big problem for a device
whose mission is to help customers discover content and buy it.

The same applies to the MP3 Store. Where Apple has Genius, Spotify/Rdio have
social features and tastemaker-based recommendations... the Music Store on the
Fire has... nothing.

I'm really disappointed with mine. The out of box experience is _so good_. You
pull it out of the box and power it on, it's _already_ registered to your
Amazon account. You're led through a simple setup process as good as iPad with
iOS5. You even get these cute chalk-mark-scribbles tutorial overlays when you
first land on the home screen.

And then you drop off a damn cliff, and 20 minutes later you realize the
device is pretty vacuous. About the only part of the entire device where I
don't have serious issues is the e-reader, thank God.

~~~
jonknee
I think they're still working on recommendations, the app is still quite
basic. It shows similar products well, but doesn't try and tell me what I
want. To be fair, I have not bought/watched much video content on Amazon and
on the website the recommendations are pretty sparse because of that (I have
bought Curb Your Enthusiasm and Seinfeld DVD sets, so the recommendations are
mostly from those).

When I go to the Music store on Kindle it has recommendations for me on the
front page (I haven't bought music on Amazon for a while so they are a bit out
of date, but it took me a second to figure out why all the top albums were so
good). If I uploaded my music to Amazon Cloud I'd expect the recommendations
could be better--Amazon currently only knows a very small part of my music
collection.

For a comparison, I just logged onto the music store from my iPhone and the
"Genius" recommendations on there are as bad as they could be, despite Genius
working great on my desktop. Apple has the benefit of knowing all my music, so
this is a little disappointing. It seems they go by artist mainly and don't
weight by play count (I have some popular albums, albeit mostly un-listened
and they drove almost all recommendations.) I would heavily weight by play
count, that's the best tell that the music is actually enjoyed.

~~~
potatolicious
> _"If I uploaded my music to Amazon Cloud I'd expect the recommendations
> could be better"_

On the contrary, I think it gets far worse. Think about your _entire_ music
library. How much of it do you actively listen to? How much of it do you still
care about? Or is it left over from those 6 months when you just can't get
enough hiphop, and now you can't stand it anymore?

Tracking _recent_ purchases will make for strong recommendations, since that's
a good measure of where your tastes lie _right now_. Using your entire library
(which is the _only_ recommendation the Kindle can do) will inject a lot of
noise, which is what happened to me (my entire library is on Cloud Player).

The whole thing _desperately_ needs a Genius-like recommendation system. We
_know_ Amazon has the tech to do this, so why isn't there anything even
remotely like it? Why is it that when I listen to music the UI is sparse and
empty, and I'm _not_ being upsold on relevant music?

Genius suffers from the same library-wide problem, but the difference is if
you select a song, it will give you recommendations based solely on it. I've
used this to discover new music a _lot_ , and it works really well. Amazon
desperately needs the same thing.

> _"I think they're still working on recommendations, the app is still quite
> basic."_

That really describes the entire device. You can see what they're getting at,
but it's fallen so far short of the goal that it's sometimes infuriating how
big the squandered opportunity is. Everything is "quite basic", and
considering this is supposed to be the electronic gateway to all video, audio,
periodical, and textual content... it does a _really_ poor job _everywhere_ of
pushing content to you.

~~~
jonknee
> On the contrary, I think it gets far worse. Think about your entire music
> library. How much of it do you actively listen to? How much of it do you
> still care about? Or is it left over from those 6 months when you just can't
> get enough hiphop, and now you can't stand it anymore?

Amazon right now doesn't know what I have or what I listen to. If they know
what I have, it can't hurt things. They get listen data from your usage and
can pick up further listen data from iTunes (the playcount data there is a
great record of what I actually listen to).

Genius is great at finding similar stuff if I give it stuff I like, but the
recommendations at the store are crap.

------
nhangen
I'm really disappointed with Marco's review because, quite frankly, it feels
like he came into the purchase expecting to be disappointed, and colored his
review as such.

Yes, it's not an iPad, we all get that. Stop reviewing every device as if it
were.

I have an iPad, and love it to death. However, I bought the Fire because I'm a
developer and I wanted to use my experience with it as a test to determine
whether or not I should develop for it. My conclusion? Yes I should.

It's not perfect. Some of the hardware buttons seem like an odd choice. The
back button does indeed fail sometimes, but that's it.

I think the touch works better than on any Android device I've used in the
past, and I thought the mail app was just fine. Media is decent, and the
Amazon Music/Video integration is awesome.

The screen size is a strange one, but I got used to it. The only thing I have
really gotten used to is the weight, but I suppose that I will in time.

In short, it's not an iPad, but I didn't expect it to be.

~~~
MaxGabriel
Sure, but you're an edge case: most people don't buy tablets so they can
develop for them. From a consumer perspective, its very much more a comparison
to existing tablets, and especially the iPad (being the leading tablet).

There are arguments in favor of the Fire over the iPad--price comes to mind--
but I very much think a comparison is appropriate.

~~~
nhangen
True, but Marco didn't even mention price. The KF price is just 40% of the
iPad price, and while the iPad has certainly raised expectations, it's unfair
to expect a $199 tablet to perform at the same level of the iPad.

Marco has his mind made up on the Android, and though I'm not an Android fan
(some would call me an Apple fanboy), I don't think he is giving this device a
fair shot.

~~~
ricardobeat
Why is it "unfair" to compare to the iPad? _What else is there to compare to?_

It sounds like you were the one expecting him to cut some slack for the Fire -
"it's a cheap Android device after all" - not the other way around.

~~~
davidw
> What else is there to compare to?

No tablet at all, of course! Those are the people this is targeting.

It's sort of like comparing a Fiat 500 (the original ones) to a Ferrari. No,
it's not as good. However, it's probably better than nothing for most people
buying one.

------
larsberg
This review mirrors my experience almost exactly.

I would also expand it and mention that PDF reading is pretty terrible. I
tried the built-in reader and all of the paid applications. Only one of them,
ezPDF, was even able to decently render a two-column ACM paper. And that one
had page turns only slightly faster than my e-Ink Kindle Keyboard, and the
Fire became hand-scorchingly hot after just a few minutes of using it.

He also didn't mention it, but the device doesn't feel very nice in the hand.
Despite the presence of a plastic back, they didn't make it "sticky" enough
that you could lightly hold it and not worry about it slipping out due to its
heavier weight than the e-Ink devices. So, in practice, you have to be just as
careful while holding it as you do with the toe-seeking iPad.

The only thing that worked well was the Crunchyroll app, which streamed and
displayed asian video content quite handily.

~~~
keidian
> and the Fire became hand-scorchingly hot after just a few minutes of using
> it.

And the true reason for the name is discovered? :)

~~~
ConstantineXVI
Tested our app on mine; unsurprisingly it identified it's model as "blaze".

------
there
i've had mine for 24 hours now and my review is pretty much the same. too many
software quirks make it annoying to use, and the lack of physical hardware
buttons may be a fatal flaw. i do like the size of it, and it's easy to hold
in one hand. i think the asymmetrical size of the screen bezel is so that it
can be held in one hand without having your fingers/palm on the screen, and
maybe that is also why there are no backlit-buttons under there like on many
android phones.

i have a kindle 3 and bought the kindle fire as a general-use tablet (so no
book reading on it) and my first tests were with the netflix and plex apps
(plex had to be side-loaded since it is not in amazon's store). amazon's
native video app has on-screen volume control, so adjusting it is pretty
simple. any other app, however, expects there to be hardware volume buttons so
changing the volume in an app like netflix or plex means:

\- tapping once to take the video out of nearly-full-screen (every non-amazon
app doesn't go full-screen, there is still a small bar at the bottom to bring
up the soft back/home buttons)

\- tapping again at the top to bring down the quick control panel, which makes
netflix and plex pause (probably because they interpret it as another app
getting focus)

\- changing the volume is done by sliding the control in large steps (there
are only like 8 steps for a control that goes across the entire width of the
screen), which then plays the system default beep at that volume

\- tapping again to focus the netflix app

\- then tapping the app's play button to resume playing. since the video was
paused, you won't know if the new volume setting is ok until you do all that
and resume playing.

the power button being at the bottom makes me think i'm going to accidentally
press it when the device is resting on something. the headphone jack there
seems to be a poor choice as well. also, the charge led is very bright, so
when it's charging on my nightstand, there is a bright orange glow pointing at
things.

~~~
yequalsx
I second your comments. I'll add a bit to them.

The web browser is very slow. It's really bad. I try to scroll and sometimes
have to really press hard with my fingers to get it to respond. Sometimes no
response.

I thought reading a book would be easier. Looking up a word can be hard.
Sometimes I hold my finger on a word and a whole line of text is highlighted
and thus I can't look up the definition.

Browsing my queue on Netflix is a pain and searching for movies on Prime isn't
great either.

Overall, I rate the device 2 stars out of 5. I wish I had not bought it. Wait
for version 3!

------
zmmmmm
Kind of reminds me of how I like coffee (bear with me). I used to get coffee
just about anywhere and thought it was good coffee. Then I started making it
myself. Through thousands of repetitions I slowly learned all the distinct
tastes - a little burnt, a little over extracted, a little weak ... I learned
to taste and tell all the subtle flavors and overtones.

And now I can barely get drinkable coffee anywhere.

So what is my point? Marco just left his favorite fine restaurant and showed
up at Burger King instead for a gourmet meal. Unsurprisingly, he declared the
food inedible. And yet, mysteriously: _Burger King does just fine_.

~~~
epo
I think you are backing him up. Marco didn't say it wouldn't sell, he said it
wasn't especially good. The consensus of the reviews I've read is that the
Kindle Fire is probably OK if you have low enough standards.

~~~
ctdonath
Of the people I know with various non-Apple readers/tablets, a recurring theme
is making a purchase thinking it will be "good enough", then finding it isn't,
and making another similar purchase or two to find a "good enough" that is ...
spending enough cumulative $$$ to warrant just buying an iPad that they tried
so hard not to.

~~~
todsul
There's a HUGE difference between an eReader and a tablet. People who don't
regularly read don't understand this. Many people think the iPad is a good
eReader. But that's like saying a Koenigsegg is a good commuting car.

Think about what makes a good eReader:

    
    
      * Very light
      * As small as possible (while retaining page size)
      * Long-lasting battery
      * Good reading screen
    

With this in mind:

    
    
      * iPad as an eReader = fail
      * Kindle Fire as an eReader = fail
      * Most tablets as eReaders = fail
      * Standard Kindle as an eReader = excellent
    

Personally, I can't justify a tablet, but I can absolutely justify an eReader
for actual reading. As soon as I saw the announcements for the new Kindles, I
saw that the $79 version was the smallest and knew it was the best of the
bunch. The Touch is somewhat interesting, but every gram matters when you hold
the device for 2, 3 or even 4 hours straight.

~~~
microtherion
I bought an iPad 2 this year and haven't gone back to my Kindle DX since I got
it.

The Kindle has a huge advantage in battery life and some advantage in weight,
but neither of those are critical in my experience (iPad battery life is
sufficient for a day's use, which is good enough for me, and weight is close
enough).

e-Ink and LED screens each have advantages in some lighting environments. For
my purposes (indoors, airplanes, low light), LED works better.

The iPad has a huge speed advantage over the e-Ink Kindle, which comes into
play for any activity with an eBook that goes beyond "read a page/turn the
page". Finally, the iPad has better fonts; especially for technical material,
the fixed-width font on the Kindle is incredibly annoying (with e.g. the dot
on the "i" near-invisible).

[Full disclosure: I work for Apple, but in non-iOS engineering]

------
tapsboy
The author is in general fixated to love anything Apple and "hate" anything
Android (rightly for the usability reasons). He prefers not to develop an
Android version of his superhit app 'Instapaper', while every other iPhone
only app is now being migrated to Android. With such bias, I was not expecting
a fair review from him.

However, let's face it, if like phones, Android picks up on Tablets, cheap or
expensive, Amazon or Google, market would have its say. 35-40 million current
owners of iPad are just a fraction of world population who want to own a
Tablet.

Btw, I have been playing with my Fire since a couple of days. Yes, there is a
little lag during transitions, especially orientation changes, probably due to
Android 2.2's lack of hardware accelerated graphics, but using various apps
was easy and video streaming on Netflix and Prime was neat. Pulse, HuffPo,
Kindle and Amazon's other default apps were smooth.

However, Silk gave me trouble when I chose the Desktop view for websites, with
"Accelerated Page Loading" on. I got script not running errors when I loaded
my the browser with tabs from gmail, facebook and g+

It is an absolute value for money and yes in that sense, especially when you
think it gives you the same hardware and a much better experience than
playbook.

I would venture to say that Kindle Fire just might be the trigger towards the
end of the era of iPad dominance.

~~~
sharmajai
Sorry to disappoint you, but it is not the same hardware as the playbook.
Playbook doesn't lack two cameras and a microphone and an ingenious
functioning bezel.

Also if all the software quirks are true, then playbook has none of them, it
being extremely responsive. I can bet you have never used a playbook.

~~~
tapsboy
I don't own a playbook, but did play around with it in a best buy. I don't
think it beats iPad either and the price tag back then was not justified.

Also, agreed the hardware is not exactly same, though my reference was more to
the processor, RAM, etc that contribute to performance. But am definitely sure
those 2 cameras and a microphone are not worth the extra $300

------
bethling
I have to admit, I'm actually enjoying my fire a lot more than I thought I
would - I work for Amazon and got a chance to try a pre-release version of it
and was less than excited. The interface still isn't quite as smooth as I'd
have hoped (hoping they fix this or at least improve on it in a future
update), but tolerable.

I used it on a cross country flight to read a book and watch a couple of
videos, and it really did grow on me over that time. The size and clarity of
the screen was great for watching a video, and the form grew on me in time for
reading (it's still a back lit device, so it's not as nice as e-ink, but I
didn't have any problems reading on my flight) - page turning needs work, but
that's a software issue that (again) hopefully can get worked out.

It's not the iPad - but as someone who was already a prime customer - it does
feel like a good device to me, maybe a little rushed.

~~~
initself
I think for reading books and especially for watching videos on Youtube, it's
stellar. I also enjoy watching my 1 year old daughter carry it around. I think
when Steve Jobs declared the 7 inch form factor DOA, he wasn't thinking about
a < 2 year old target market.

------
yock
My wife and I got our Fire yesterday...and it's going back to Amazon. My two
biggest disappointments:

1\. No Gmail app (very obviously) and the built-in email client doesn't seem
to support Google's 2-factor auth. It doesn't accept your account password nor
will it accept an app-specific password. The web interface works fine, but the
icon you get with a www bookmark is generic and boring. I know that sounds
like a nitpick, but a favorites tray full of generic-looking icons does not a
good experience make.

2\. Scrolling sucks. It sucks in every sense of the word. At no time does
scrolling through a web page, an app, or even the UI begin immediately and
smoothly. And if that weren't bad enough, turning pages in Kindle books is
equally frustrating. This is supposed to be the primary purpose for which the
device is designed, and pages turn slowly and jerky, never glued to your
fingertip. It makes the entire experience seem to lag behind your every move,
and constantly waiting for the device to catch up to where you were a second
ago gets annoying very fast.

Beyond that, every little thing seemed disappointing in some way.

My wife was hopeful that this would be an affordable alternative to a Galaxy
Tab. I didn't expect it to be perfect at all, but I definitely expected more.
My wife inherited my Kindle 3, so I'll be trading in the Fire for a Kindle
Touch and saving my pennies for a real tablet...someday.

~~~
EponymousCoward
Point 1 just isn't right. I have 2FA on my gmail and am reading it with the
default mail client just fine. "yr doing it wrong."

~~~
yock
My only explanation is differing versions of software. I entered and re-
entered both passwords to no avail, and for the app-specific password I did so
with and without spaces (which they say doesn't matter). I'm quite sure I did
it correctly, and that it didn't work.

------
vijayr
I agree with everything he says. I'm returning it. It is very unpleasant to
use - sluggish interface etc. I guess it was my mistake to order it before
actually using it. I looked at the nook tablet today, 2 mins of using it at
the BN store, I can tell you it is far better than the Fire.

Amazon had an amazing chance, but they blew it. My guess is the next version
of Fire would be better, but I'm skeptical.

~~~
warmfuzzykitten
Funny thing is, I bought a Kindle before and I hated it. Buttons!? Up-up-up-
up-left-left. Pah! But when the Fire came out I put it on my wish list and got
one for my birthday. It's so much better than the old, flashy B&W Kindles, I
kinda like it. (And I also have an iPad.)

The article isn't wrong about the dumb placement of the headphone jack, but I
have to say the cloud music player sounds great. I've bought a lot of Amazon
MP3s over time and it's great to have them instantly playable on my lap.

I like it well enough as a book reader, too. It's much easier to hold for
sustained periods than the iPad.

My take: Fire has some bugs but they are all software, which can get better.
Meantime, for $200, I'm keeping mine.

------
hinathan
My wife played with hers for about 15 minutes: 'Meh, you can have it'.

The UI just isn't pleasant to use. Might make a decent Netflix machine but so
far we're leaning toward returning it.

------
ja27
We got one for my tween daughter. All things considered, it's one of the nicer
cheap Android tablets. The screen has great viewing angles. The lack of
hardware volume controls is a pain. I didn't notice any video quality problems
from Netflix or Amazon Prime but I wasn't expecting killer HD video from it,
just something watchable. The reader seems servicable. I've been reading
mobile ebooks since I had a Palm III, so I'm not real picky on the display,
but to my eyes the text looks as good as it does on my better laptops.

The lack of the full app catalog is kind of a pain and would be a bigger
problem if I bought one expecting to use it as a laptop replacement tablet,
but I would never expect it to be that. It's a device for consuming media
(books, movies, music, and I guess casual games) and isn't the top of the
class device for that.

I could almost see adding one to my already full bag of gadgets, but I don't
need to carry another wifi-only device unless I finally get a mobile hotspot
device. It's the same complaint I have about the very nice looking ASUS
Transformer tablet. I want those devices but with the iPad's contract-free
AT&T deal.

It could be a great device for teens, tweens and even younger kids, but a lot
of parents won't like the lack of parental controls. I keep saying there's
room in the market for a decent kid-oriented tablet with parental controls.
(There's also still a great opportunity for easy-to-configure wifi access
point or other network device that can apply parental controls.)

~~~
ricardobeat
OpenDNS can do filtering for you: <http://www.opendns.com/web-filtering/>

------
rjknight
Am I the only one who finds the use of the term 'human' here to be really
annoying? Like, anyone who actually enjoys using a Kindle Fire is somehow less
human? The implication that 'humans' like a certain kind of device that works
in a certain kind of way, and that 'humans' could not possibly like devices
that fall outside these parameters is somewhat insulting to people who would
like to make that choice for themselves. This review is Marco Arment's review
of the Kindle Fire, not the final verdict of the entire human race.

(Disclosure: I own an iPad 2 and an old-style Kindle and won't be buying a
Kindle Fire).

~~~
MatthewPhillips
Yes, I also found that peculiar. I wish he had explained what he meant by
that. Are all of the other Kindle Fire reviews not from humans? I'm confused.

------
stevenwei
I totally agree. As a competitor to to the iPad, I find myself entirely
underwhelmed by the Kindle Fire. The UI is not as intuitive, responsive, or
smooth. For _me_ , given the choice between the iPad and Kindle Fire, I would
take the iPad every time.

However, the Kindle Fire is not a direct competitor to the iPad. It's less
than half the price. And if you're not willing to pony up $500 for an iPad,
the Kindle Fire is _good enough_. Which is why they're going to sell millions
of units this holiday season. And which is why I, as a developer of a fairly
popular iPad app, will be developing a Kindle Fire version too.

~~~
r00fus
Kindle Fire is gunning for the iPod Touch market. Yes, it's only got 8GB, but
it costs the same as the lowest-tier iPod touch.

If I were Amazon I'd be courting the casual game developers _heavily_ to
promote their games on Fire.

------
joebadmo
Not an unfair review, but seems like he missed the killer feature: price tag.

Which should also color your expectations of the device. I don't think there
are many people wouldn't rather have an iPad, or maybe even a Honeycomb
tablet, but $200 with Christmas around the corner?

edit: Also, the complaints about interface seem very similar to ones about
Android in general. Not to say that he's biased or wrong, just that those are
things you can get used to, as many Android users will tell you. It's also
something that a lot of full-time iOS users can't get past, which is
understandable.

~~~
gamble
There are lots of bad $200 Android tablets out there. The Kindle Fire was
supposed to be a good tablet, sold at low cost because it was tied closely to
Amazon's digital products. Instead, the reviews are suggesting that it's just
another bad $200 Android tablet, albeit one that aggressively pushes Amazon's
products at you.

~~~
joebadmo
I've played with another $200 Android tablet. It wasn't bad. It was terrible.
Awful. I wouldn't take it for free. If the Kindle Fire is as bad as that, then
this review wasn't nearly bad enough.

------
metalsahu
I suspect most of the buyers of the Kindle Fire are going to be 1st time
tablet users unlike Marco who bought it just to compare against his iPad. I
have been using the Fire for the last 2 days and I felt that it has really
nailed what a tablet means to me - a consumption device. I started reading my
books, watching tv shows, listening to music as soon I switched on the device.
The browsing of some websites ( _cough_ techcrunch) was surprising quick too.
Some of the software and hardware quirks were annoying but I didn't notice
because it opened a new way for connecting with content for me....and I paid
just 200bucks! There is a lot of focus on usability even compared to my Galaxy
Tab with the Honeycomb build. The Kindle Fire is truly an equal to the iPad in
an entirely different space -- inexpensive, smaller form-factor, relatively
good content & ecosystem -- a space where Apple does not necessarily want to
play in.

------
bstrand
There are plenty of legitimate criticisms to be made of the Fire, but Ament's
review fundamentally amounts to "I'm used to the iPad/iOS, and this isn't
that."

My capsule review: it's got some rough edges, but it has a few big things that
I enjoy already built-in, working out of the box. At $200 I will have no
compunction using it in the kitchen, bathroom, cafe... wherever. And as an
Android user, most of my familiar apps translate directly. It's a fine value.

------
smgoller
Maybe I'm missing something, but I got mine and I like it just fine, for what
it is. I have an iPad, and a galaxy tab 10.1. It's a tablet designed to work
with Amazon content. That, it does just fine.

I streamed some Amazon Prime video content, and it did okay. I agree that
volume control is wonky (it couldn't have been that hard to put a volume
scrubber under the time scrubber, could it?) but performance wise it was just
fine. Netflix streamed with nary a hiccup at all, perhaps Marco's network was
a bit clogged at the time?

Music worked great. I didn't set up email because I use Gmail and I know all
the Google services integration has been ripped out. I also have enough other
things to read email on that I don't need to acknowledge notifications in yet
another location.

Honestly though, I'm surprised that Amazon didn't do something like throw in
more Prime membership time (A month doesn't seem like enough)...or maybe
subsidize the membership price (make it $50/yr if you own a Fire)

In the end, if I could only have one tablet, this wouldn't be it. But I think
it's well worth the price I paid.

------
baddox
His indictment of the tablet category is a bit silly. They way he describes
the category is fairly accurate, but his conclusion (that this makes the
category less useful) is incorrect. I don't take my iPad 2 anywhere: it sits
by my bed, and I only use it in bed before going to sleep. That's an extremely
limited (and not even mobile!) usage, and yet, I find that it fully justifies
the purchasing price of the iPad.

------
rman666
Yikes. Mine has yet to arrive and I already don't want it. Great review.

~~~
c2
This review is pretty over the top negative. Not saying it's wrong, but the
product has over a thousand reviews on Amazon.com and the average is four
stars.

You can always take a trip out to best buy/target/etc. to play with it.

~~~
ugh
That distribution of reviews doesn’t look very healthy. Compared to the other
Kindles it’s doing badly as far as reviews are concerned.

~~~
sliverstorm
So far I don't trust any kind of analysis of the reviews. One of the top
negative reviews was, "Didn't have a camera. WTF. Returned."

~~~
ugh
That’s always going to happen. I think that looking at the distribution of
reviews and also reading a few negative reviews (because it’s generally
possible to figure out whether reviews are negative for valid reasons) is very
helpful.

~~~
sliverstorm
I know, but my thought is to give it a couple weeks, and the percent of noise
should go down.

------
alexwolfe
What an extremely negative review, it oozes negativity!

I was really worried after reading this that my Kindle Fire was going to suck.
But when it arrived slowly but surely I started thinking that this article was
over critical, lopsided, and just wrong. The Kindle Fire is a great product, I
really like it. But don't take my word for it or Marco's, just look at the
sales over the next few months to a year. If his article is anyone even
remotely close to being true the product will fail miserably over the next
year, I predict that won't happen, in fact I'm fairly certain it will do quite
well.

I would have much preferred to here what you can do with this $199 one hand
tablet than a page full of everything someone doesn't find perfect.

------
ookokokok
Hmm, well I like the fire quite a bit (I'm using it to play games,read in bed
at night (the ipad has been pretty large to bring into the bed with a cuddling
girlfriend) and having something larger then my phone to use while commuting);
there are some minor software bugs here or there (which can be sadly expected
a day or two into release) but nothing I don't think will be fixed in time as
amazon has a lot of it's prestige riding on the fire

side note unrelated to this specific review.. a lot of the folks reviewing the
fire have iOS and it's current ecosystem ingrained into their minds and
switching to a different platform can be very jarring and confusing and I
think a lot of that is slipping into these reviews.

------
LVB
I think Marco was trying, unsuccessfully, to be to the Kindle Fire what
Siracusa was to the Jobs bio. He even got a nudge from Gruber, who called his
review "scathing". "Bitching" might have been more apt. I can imagine him
grimacing as he bared to open the UPS box.

~~~
jodrellblank
Why do all the comments here say Marco is biased because it isn't an iPad? How
does that make a computer which doesn't respond to touch reliably acceptable?

I played fast, responsive games in cga on a 4mhz XT, Doom was pushing
responsive colour 3D on 386 and 486s, and now we have devices showing a static
image with clickable points which don't click, and switching badly between two
not animated images, and this behaviour is fine because only the industry
leader can be expected to get this right, everything else gets an exception.

Windows Mobile was clunky but usable in 2000, its not acceptable for devices
built for human input to ignore human input, for devices built to show an
interface to people to do it badly. Loading animations are fine, being slow
when doing work is fine, being slow when running a badly written 3rd party app
is at least understandable.

But the likes of Amazon and Google pushing flagship products that perform
worse animations than small games companies were doing 15 years ago on worse
hardware, is totally pathetic.

And writing that criticism off as "Apple fanboy behaviour" is building a heck
of an RDF field of some sort.

~~~
LVB
I'm not criticizing the review because of the author's Apple bias. I just
don't think it's a quality review. He made no attempt to broaden his
perspective widely and consider many types of potential users of the device,
and then assess it against those different use cases. Instead it was
basically: "It's complete crap and here's 30 things I don't like. The End."

I can imagine perhaps some real piece of $79 Walmart faux-tablet junk getting
such treatment, but the Fire isn't that. It does have a lot of flaws, but it
has a lot of good points too, which he made no attempt to discuss.

A much more useful review came from fellow Apple devotee Andy Ihnatko
([http://www.suntimes.com/technology/ihnatko/8816567-452/revie...](http://www.suntimes.com/technology/ihnatko/8816567-452/review-
kindle-fire-is-no-ipad-killer-but-it-is-a-killer-device.html))

------
warmfuzzykitten
Nobody has mentioned that the Fire is a great book _buying_ experience. I'm
not a big fan of "we know what you bought so we know what you'll like" but the
store app is smooth, keeps your context while you're browsing and, in general,
way more pleasant than the website.

~~~
fpgeek
Out of curiosity, is it very different from the ordinary Kindle buying
experience on Android (which I find very pleasant, especially the Honeycomb
iteration)?

------
ConstantineXVI
The Fire doesn't seem anything like an iPad competitor, nor was it meant to
be. It's a Kindle for media that aren't books; or a re-take on the iPod for
"the cloud", if you'd rather. IMHO, it fills that role very well.

~~~
potatolicious
I was excited about the Kindle Fire, even knowing that it wasn't meant to be a
true tablet - but a media consumption device instead.

I'm _still_ very disappointed. The bottom line is, the UI is barely
serviceable, there are performance, stability, and battery life issues
_galore_ \- serious, deal-breaking ones.

This goes beyond what the device is and isn't "meant to be". This goes right
to whether or not it is a competent personal electronic device. My answer
leans towards "no".

I had the Kindle Fire drain 50% of my battery idling over night. The culprit?
I dared set up email on the device - yes, one of those big advertised features
right there on the Fire's home page.

The UI is unresponsive. Not only is it jerky and laggy, but buttons routinely
stop responding altogether. Using the device is a chore, since you're never
sure if you hit a button it'll actually _do_ something, or if you'll have to
jab the screen again and see what happens.

We'll ignore _all_ the myriad UI design problems with the device and excuse
it, since it's $200 and apparently that means it's supposed to be able to get
away with atrocious UI.

The music player is terrible. When reading books or otherwise moving about the
device the music will cut out and randomly fast forward. That's disregarding
the myriad of UI problems (including sorting "The Beatles" under "T").

The reader app, and the video app, are the _only_ two things in the entire
device that I'd consider a win. They're the only ones where I can genuinely
think to myself "hey, this will help me buy content I want". The rest of the
device fails utterly at this goal, which if you look at it, is the _entire_
raison d'etre for the device.

------
hugh3
Here's the thing: I remember that folks spent years and years trying to
develop a useable technology for e-ink. "It reflects light just like paper",
they said, "so it'll be much easier to read for hours without getting
eyestrain". Then a few years ago, we finally got decent e-ink and could
finally get e-readers.

But it seems like the latest generation of e-readers is just giving up on the
e-ink idea altogether and going straight back to backlit LCD. What's the deal?
Is e-ink not as good as we were hoping, or has LCD technology got that much
better?

(fwiw I'm a big fan of my original-recipe Nook)

~~~
ctdonath
Dunno about others, but even awesome readability just doesn't trump that slow
weird-flickery page transition.

------
smackfu
This is what my reviews always look like: a bullet list of complaints I have
with the product. I don't think those are very useful reviews though.

~~~
ugh
I think that’s pretty useful. I don’t much care for final verdicts that try to
summarize everything for me. The author usually doesn’t share my opinion about
what’s important and what’s not.

If there is a list of negatives I can check whether or not a particular
negative matters to me or not. If I, for example, don’t read any magazines I
can just ignore all that talk about magazines.

------
jrockway
I wonder if Marco would have liked this more if it was called the "Apple
Fire"?

------
47
iPad has caused Baby Duck Syndrome in most of it users. It is hard to imagine
a person who has used iPad giving a review without bias. Reminds me when i
first time used Mac OS after being exposed to windows first, it felt weird and
not at all user friendly. I hope iPad Baby Duck Syndrom wears off quickly so
that the tablet market can remain competitive.

------
periferral
A lot of this seems like nitpicking. A lot is more android than Fire. Still
more is completely unrelated since he talks about 3rd party apps not
functioning well on the fire.

I do have to agree about the hardware buttons however. I'm not a fan of any
device with no hardware buttons much less the lack of even volume controls.

------
2mur
Too bad. I wasn't going to get one anyways (ipad and a nook color rooted) but
competition is good and I love Amazon (love my eink kindle gen 2). Oh and
welcome to Android. It's just not ready for primetime, but getting there.

------
azth
IMHO this really shouldn't come off as a surprise, especially with Steve
Yegge's rant a few weeks ago. :)

------
antirez
I wonder how much of the poor performance experience of Android is up to Java
(and possibly too much abstraction layers), don't know enough about the
Android architecture to form a good idea about this issue.

~~~
smokinn
EDIT: Please disregard the below. I was wrong as pointed out by fpgeek.

The poor performance is probably mostly due to the fact that the version of
android on the fire is version 2.2.

Version 2.3 is the one that got all the performance improvements. There's a
very big difference between the responsiveness of a phone on 2.2 and the same
phone upgraded to 2.3.

~~~
fpgeek
Actually, the Kindle Fire is Gingerbread (2.3) based. They make this clear in
their developer guidelines. That being said, there's something odd going on
here because B&N (among others) has been able to do better with the same
baseline.

------
CapitalistCartr
I want a 7" tablet that has a better screen; more pixels than my iPhone at
least. The 10" tablets have this; I'd love to see that in 7" form.

------
RexRollman
"MP3 playback isn’t gapless"

I can't believe this is still occuring in this day and age. I wonder if the
Nook Tablet has the same problem (it probably does).

------
tuananh
It's cheap but I rather splash cash on an item that I actually use and feel
pleasant.

------
bishnu
10 years later, and gapless playback is still a thing. Heh.

------
orbitron
The minute I saw it was going to be locked into Android 2.2 I knew it was
done.

------
dkd903
After using the iPad and iOS anyone who jumps on to the Fire, should not
expect iOS like intricacies!

------
mycodebreaks
Is this human review? Looks like rant from apple lover.

~~~
prawn

      at first impression
      cold tone and sentence pacing
      suggests a haiku

