

Kindle Fire seems to have a poor user experience - sweetdreamerit
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/12/technology/personaltech/amazons-fire-some-say-may-become-the-edsel-of-tablets.html

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mechanical_fish
No editorializing in the title, please; that's an HN guideline.

Actual title on the NYT site: "As Kindle Fire Faces Critics, Remedies Are
Promised".

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alexholehouse
I really don't understand the UI/UX reviews. Yes, elements of the interface
are bulky and there are certain things that aren't perfect, but I didn't buy
the Fire to spend much time using the UI/UX - I bought it to read books and
papers on. If I'd wanted a fully fledged tablet computer I would have bought
an iPad, but I find it a fantastic form factor to read from and watch the
occasional show on. It's compact, a perfect weight to just sit and read, and
the video playback works well.

I don't know, maybe I'm expecting too little, but I loved it when I bought it
and I still love it. I will probably still buy an iPad at some point, but it
has revolutionized my mobile reading experience and I'm one very happy
customer because of it (especially with the readability integration, which is
awesome).

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jmelloy
Every review I've seen has said it has poor user experience. In my 10 minutes
holding one, it was janky, clunky, heavy and hot. ("I trust Amazon to fix it!"
was the rallying cry of my friend.)

The interesting thing isn't that the UI/UX sucks, it's that this article in
the New York Times.

~~~
kenjackson
_it was janky, clunky, heavy and hot._

Really? I've never felt it get hot. It feels lighter than my iPad2 (although
it may be heavier -- but I really don't think so). The UX is almost strictly
worse than the iPad2, but at less than 50% the price, its a better deal (given
they both have serious deficiencies today -- but $199 for a seriously
deficient device feels much better than $499).

~~~
joejohnson
What are some serious deficiencies you've found with your iPad?

~~~
kenjackson
As someone else noted, weight is a huge one. In fact the first iPad I bought I
returned because it was too heavy. Later got an iPad2, but weight is still an
issue.

Web browsing kind of sucks. Like the YouTube experience is crazy buggy.

I find the keyboard hard to use for anything, but the smallest notes.

Getting content on the device, e.g., movies I've transcoded, is an exercise in
pulling out my hair. Tedious and time consuming.

And this is just me doing stuff on it that people say I should be able to do
well on the device. I don't even include the deficiencies for things everyone
knows that it doesn't do well -- so it gets a free pass on it.

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michaelbuckbee
The old conventional wisdom with Microsoft products was: "Wait until version
3" and I wonder if something similar is now in effect for Amazon's physical
devices.

It is a testament to Amazon's ability to react and adapt that turned the
version 1 Kindle (with the awkwardly placed buttons and the weird profile -
shaped like half of an open book) into the sleek, inexpensive and generally
well reviewed Kindle line of today.

~~~
rdl
Actually, the kindle 1 was great as a reader, at least if you were right
handed.

The kindle fire is horrible; I've owned several of each model for myself, to
loan, etc, and the fire (I have 2) is the first I returned.

The DX remains my favorite, with iPad kindle app as number 2.

~~~
iuguy
Forgive me for asking, but if you dislike the Kindle Fire so, why did you buy
two (especially when you have multiple Kindles and an iPad/2)?

~~~
rdl
I preordered two, planning to give one away or jailbreak it, and use e other.
Once I got them, I opened one, used it for about an hour, realized it sucked,
and let a few other people try it to get their feedback (also entirely
negative).

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swasheck
"No more will wives wonder why their husbands were looking at a dating site
when they said they were playing Angry Birds."

Journalism at its finest. I have a Fire and have no other tablet experience
with which to compare this. I am pleased by the price point and plan to root
it once the warranty expires. I am also annoyed by the clutter that appears as
I do more and more with it. This has nothing to do with being concerned that
my wife will see what I've been doing. I encourage her checking on things in
our relationship that may affect her security in it. It's really just annoying
to scroll through the carousel of EVERYTHING just to get to the one thing that
I need/want.

~~~
chimeracoder
> I am pleased by the price point and plan to root it once the warranty
> expires.

I'm not sure what to make of these reviews either. No external volume
control/power switch is something I can live with, but it seems the rest is
something that would be irrelevant with a custom ROM. I'm toying with the idea
of getting one and flashing it once Cyanogen (inevitably) releases ICS for the
Fire.

~~~
jamesgeck0
Reviewers are reviewing the complete package, since most people don't even
know what a ROM is.

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djiddish98
"According to calculations by the research firm IHS iSuppli, the $79 Kindle
costs Amazon $84 to make. That sum does not include research and development,
shipping or, with a third-party retailer, the wholesale discount. Add these
up, and Amazon might be losing as much as $20 on every $79 Kindle sold at, for
example, Best Buy."

The $79 Kindle is subsidized by advertisements, although I'm not what % are
Amazon ads and what % are 3rd parties. Ad-free costs another $40.

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joezydeco
_“In less than two weeks, we’re rolling out an over-the-air update to Kindle
Fire,” said Drew Herdener, a company spokesman._

So...everyone that unwraps one on Christmas morning and turns it on will
suddenly have to endure an OTA update before using it?

Granted, I've never seen a Fire go through an update, but god help Amazon if
that's how they plan to roll this out.

~~~
kenjackson
Curious, how would you prefer they do an update? Go to Amazon HQ and have
someone replace the internals of the device?

OTA updates are probably the most seamless update experience that exists
today. I wish the iPad2 had it in the past -- as I still have one that I
haven't plugged in to get iOS5 yet.

~~~
swasheck
I think his point was the idea of everyone hitting it all at once on Christmas
morning.

~~~
kenjackson
It's just one static set of files. CDNs make this almost brainlessly easy. If
Amazon can't handle that then they have no business building Silk at all, much
less one of the world's most popular retail sites.

~~~
Turing_Machine
Yeah, and Amazon has a rather...robust...CDN-equivalent. :-)

Also, they're probably going to have plenty of spare capacity on Christmas
morning. I'd guess there's a substantial lull in sales then, at least until
the post-Christmas markdowns begin.

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drawkbox
The OS is a bit laggy, but games that run on it native and with OpenGL ES are
really fast. Game development on it, once you get to your OpenGL ES render,
things are moving swiftly.

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narkee
Product launches like this make you wonder why removing UI stutter isn't the
number one priority for device manufacturers.

~~~
jrockway
Because people will use the product anyway. If you ask someone, "would you
prefer a slow UI over a fast one", of course they'll choose the fast one. But
that doesn't mean they won't use a device that has choppy animations.
Remember, lots of people still use Windows XP and are perfectly happy.

