Wow the power button really is in a horrid plave. After using it for 15 min I have managed to put it to sleep twice.
I guess I can see how people might accidentally hit that button by resting it on that end while using it. However, my wife got a case for hers and the case provides enough padding so that the button doesn’t protrude anymore.
Well it just doesn’t make any sense. First off I don’t think I have ever seen a device with the speakers on the top which makes me think that the power button should be on the top of the device but yet when you turn the thing on it wants the power button facing down. weird shit.
Looks like all types of Kindles are doing well sales-wise:
I wonder how many Fires are part of these millions?
Well, it’s currently the #1-selling product in their Electronics category, and the product page has three times as many customer reviews than next most popular device in that catogory.
Interestingly, neither Kindle Touch appears to be getting reviewed well, averaging 3.5 out of 5 stars. That’s a substantial departure from their standard Kindle units.
The disparity between tech site reviews and user reviews on Amazon + sales is pretty interesting.
I really think most tech sites are missing the mark on their reviews. It is continually compared to an iPad which it is clearly not. They continually point out its shortcomings instead of focusing on what it is.
A back lit reader, a player of movies, a surfer of the internet, an email checker, a Facebook updater, all from the comfort of your recliner. You cannot Skype but hey , you can’t Skype on an iPad 1 either. Plus I would bet that more people read Amazon reviews than tech site reviews- at least those buying a Fire.
And according to people that actually have them, it does it very well.
Actually as a reader it lags behind the iPad app. I hope that in the next update it catches up but it isn’t nearly as good as the iPad for reading. And the web browser sucks.
It’s like reading a game review!
I’m still buying one!
I use it almost exclusively for watching Amazon and Netflix videos, and occasionally playing an Android game, and I have no real complaints about it. The web browser could stand improvement but I don’t use it a whole lot. It does suck as a reader for some reason I can’t quite put my finger on, but I already had a regular Kindle for that.
I actually really like mine but it does have a lot of issues.
The web browser could stand improvement but I don’t use it a whole lot. It does suck as a reader for some reason I can’t quite put my finger on
I can tell you that it doesn’t turn pages quite right which really irritates me. Also as other people said they need to let the user set the brightness a lot lower then the currently goes.
This is even post update?
The significant update talked about earlier hasn’t been released yet. They said it’s coming out in the next 1-2 weeks.
I bought a Fire as early Xmas for my 86 year old mom. Unfortunately it was too complicated for her to use and there were too many issues with getting WiFi in her retirement home. So I gave her my 2nd generation Kindle which seem was ok using and took the FIRE for myself.
To be honest I am somewhat underwhelmed with it. It is adequate as email device, and web brower. The only games I played on it Angry Bird and Paradox’s Majesty just weren’t all that compelling. Mostly I miss not having 3G because there are a just a lot more places I don’t have access to WiFi compared to having cellphone access.
I thought it would be a replacement for my Netbook but I think I’ll still take the Netbook along because it is much better for composing emails, than the awful virtual keyboards.
To me the major deficiency is that just isn’t as good as the original Kindle at reading books.
This is what surprised me the most about the Fire. While it does many things just fine, it is easily the worst in the food chain for reading books (the Kindle food chain) and it isn’t as good as using the Kindle app on an iPad. Heck, even the newspapers are better in the Kindle app on iPad than on the Fire. This seems to me to be an unforgivable weakness that has to be fixed pretty quickly.
The Kindle app on the iPad’s pretty mature, though. The Fire is a v1 product, but it’s really a v0.8 product – it was developed on a super-rushed schedule. (Remember, the hardware is pretty much a generic Chinese tablet design that’s essentially a gutted Blackerry Playbook with some Amazon tweaks.) Amazon’s not a consumer software company, but they had to adapt the Android OS and write their media and reader apps in a very short period of time.
I’m sure the software will get much better over the course of the next year. And when Amazon gets its real designed-from-the-ground-up Fire tablets on the market next year, it would shock me if the reading experience isn’t a lot better with next-gen units.
So a friend just found out she’s getting a Fire for Christmas. She wants to know how to keep her 10 year old from watching R-rated stuff via Prime if she lets her kid use it. Is it possible to restrict viewing?
I thought that was an interesting question and I went searching on Amazon for the answer. All I found was an Amazon forum thread from March with a lot of people asking for the same thing (and a lot of sanctimonious BS about never letting your kids watch TV or use a computer without you in the room, etc.) Looks like there aren’t any parental controls available at this time.