I only asked because if you did it by email, the Fire might put the file in the “right” location on it’s own and then you can put other PDFs in the same location…
I’ll email myself a small PDF and try that out!
FWIW with my phone I can drop files anywhere and the device just finds them. I assumed the Fire would work the same way.
Yeah, but the Fire isn’t a pure form of Android. They’ve mucked around in it quite a bit.
They aren’t, you have it backwards. Google has hefty strings attached to being able to include Google Apps and Android Market on a device.
While I still love my Fire…the more I use it, the more I want to use it. And that has lead to App-Envy ™. My android phone has a great simple stock app…Fire has BLOOMBERG BIG OLD FAT APP, my phone has a Google Scorecard that lets me know when an Kings game starts and updates me every 5 minutes…my Fire has ESPN BIG OLD FAT APP that only gives me scores and only when I go look at them-no pushing out scorers for me.
While these are not big deals, I would like to see more than just the Amazon app store available and since I am not going to root since I would most likely mess things up, I guess I just wait.
Other than that, still liking it a lot.
Yeah, the lack of good apps is making me impatient. And the decent ones at Amazon often seem to be a bit behind on updates compared to the Android Market. They’ll need to speed things up considerably to keep people happy once the honeymoon is over.
Ok I finally managed to open my pathfinder core rulebook on the Kindle Fire. I had to download a free file system browser app to find it and open it, but I did it.
The default kindle reader is fast to flip and render pages but there’s no support for bookmarking/section browsing. I got the Adobe Reader app, and like everything Adobe it’s terribly slow, unstable, and bloated, but I can browse my 550 page PDF by section.
There are other PDF reading apps but they all cost money (one is $15!). I don’t want to pay to try an app that is most likely going to suck.
I don’t know if this has been suggested yet, but have you tried converting the PDF to MOBI format and then just side-loading the document onto the Kindle?
In the past, I’ve used Mobipocket Creator with great success.
I haven’t!
What I wish Paizo would do is optimize these PDFs for tablets. That is probably a massive undertaking, though.
No rooting required – just a little hassle. And another android device.
Not sure if anyone mentioned it, but if you are using the Fire to read books and such, you really need to sideload the ‘Screen Filter’ app. It’s amazing for nighttime reading.
Great, thanks for that. I will give it a read. I have an android phone.
I just got back from a long weekend holiday trip…never opened up the laptop. Mail, twitter, blog, tap talk, movie trivia search, watched a movie, read comics. I still groan at the UI from time to time but I am pretty much used to it now. If I can get a couple of my missing apps loaded up, well then I am at an 8/10.
Oh and from what I can tell, the only place you cannot turn of one click buying is at the book store.
Oh and I did just get this case-- it is perfect. Low profile, the stand works great- I love it and for the price, you really can’t beat it. :
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005V2EVBQ/ref=oh_o00_s00_i00_details
The article in PC Magazine is perfect. I had a couple of issues but only due to my inability to read…in the end, it is very simple and works like a charm-only had one app that wouldn’t install but it was not high on my list anyway- I got the ones I wanted. Very easy to use…glad to have my missing apps. Thanks!
Is it as good to read books on as a regular kindle, or is this just another pad.?
It’s a backlit LCD, so IMHO it’s far inferior to the e-ink Kindles for actual book reading. It’s a killer bargain for a teeny, cheap tablet for video, web, etc. But for actual long-term reading, e-ink Kindles are still the best choice.
My Mom bought a Fire because she’s been a huge Kindle fan and just assumed the newer one would be better. She’s back to her Kindle 3 for reading after actually using the Fire.
It depends. If you read a lot of novels, I don’t really think there is a whole lot of difference, although the reading software on the Kindle Fire was feeling a bit glitchy when it was first released. I own just about every version of Kindle except for the very latest release and I do most of my reading on an iPad2 through the Kindle app. For me, screen size matters because I read a lot of pdfs and text books and they just don’t look right on the smaller Kindle FIre or other Kindles with the exception of the DX (which is still way too expensive the last time I checked).
If you read outdoors a lot, the e-ink Kindles win (they are great at the beach) because Fire and iPad screens are pretty hard to read in direct sunlight. In dark room situations, I much more prefer the iPad or Fire because of the backlight, but others may not agree.
To summarize the main differences (to me) are (1) the ability to read in direct sunlight (e-ink wins this one) and (2) type of material you are reading (newspapers, magazines, textbooks, and pdfs look better to me on Fire and iPad). Otherwise, I really don’t see the whole e-ink is the hands down winner for reading (something about eye fatigue) because I read quite a bit with my Kindle apps on Fire and iPad with no problem. I feel no different when reading my e-ink Kindle.
Edit - probably add one more category (3) weight. iPad2 weighs a lot, Fire less, e-ink Kindle even less.
Just did a search for it and nothing comes up.
— Alan
You need to look on your phone market then use Astro (well that is how I am doing it) and when I did the search, screen filter was the first hit.
I have both a fire and a Nook (so e-ink reader). I like getting the sweet Amazon book deals but in the end, nothing beats an e-ink reader for books. While the Fire (or iPad) is not so bad for night, it is still substantially heaver than a Nook/Kindle, plus the batteries on an e-ink reader last so much longer.
From Amazon forums:
-
Go to Settings>Device and set Allow Installation of Applications to “On”
-
Went here to download:
-
Received notification of completed download in Notifications (upper left of screen)
-
Click upper left corner of screen to bring up Notifications, then click directly on the Screen Filter notification
I find that it’s acceptable at about 45% with the Fire brightness slider set to minimum.
Asus has just announced a 7" tablet with Tegra 3 to come this year at $249.
This is the real impact of the Fire - not so much it’s sales as the fact that everyone else has to consider it when releasing new tablets. There is no way a tablet with that comparative level of specs would have sold at less than $299 three months ago.
Kindle status report: Upthread, I mentioned that my father-in-law bought Fires for each of my children, and a V-Tech tablet for my toddler. My wife got a Fire from me for Christmas as well. So, we’re a tablet family, now. It’s interesting to me how each of the Kindles are being used:
[ul]
[li]My wife loves her tablet. Well, at least she claims she loves it. She still does her Facebooking on her ancient laptop, including Zynga games. I’ve yet to see her use it for any serious length of time. She practically begged me for it for Christmas. I’m figuring she has buyer’s remorse.
[/li][li]My eldest, who’s 19, has rooted his Fire and installed Ice Cream Sandwich. Now, it matches with his phone, which is also rooted, and on the same OS. This means he’s got access to both the Amazon and Android app marketplace. To prove he got it working, he sent me a MMS to my phone with video of him using his Kindle, recorded from his phone.
[/li][li]My other son, who’s 16, is using it as a video player, and is catching up on all the shows he never gets to watch first-run. I think he’s through almost all the episodes of Psych, now. He’s also using it as a drawing pad, as he’s an artist.
[/li][li]My daughter, who’s 9, watches Youtube almost exclusively on it. She’s found a bunch of different shows with hundreds of episodes that are all made by girls around her age. There’s one show that’s just a few girls playing with dolls, and then filming it. Yeah, I don’t know, either.
[/li][li]My youngest daughter, on her V-Tech, allowed me to sideload all of the episodes of Yo Gabba Gabba. So, I can hand her the tablet and it’s a great babysitter. Only problem is that the unit doesn’t come with a charger (!!) so we’re burning through batteries. The charger costs another 20.00, and I’m just lazy enough that I haven’t bought it yet.
[/li][/ul]