Hold on to your hats, folks. I’m about to say something politically incorrect, and then some. But here it goes: Apple is overrated. That’s right, and I’ll say it again in case you didn’t hear me the first time: Apple is overrated. Why would I say this about the folks that brought us the ipod, itunes, and the ipad? Simple: although they’re great innovators, I think they’ve become just a bit too full of themselves. Their products are high quality, but for me not as good as others. Their prices are too high. And they try to keep just a bit too much control on the content you can buy and use on their devices.
Case in Point: my Microsoft Zune HD. I’ve had this MP3 player for a few years now, but I’ve owned Zunes for many years before. To me, it totally outperforms the ipod, simply because it doesn’t try to do too many things. It’s basically a music player with a few extra bells and whistles. It was cheaper by about $75 than an ipod touch. It’s more durable (I’ve dropped it more than a few times; my son dropped his ipod touch once and the wimpy screen broke. Apple wants $150 to fix it). And I get all the music I can listen to for three Zunes devices for $15 a month, with the added bonus of ten songs a month to keep forever. Not gonna get that from itunes, my friends.
That said, when I was in search of a tablet, I still considered the ipad. The first thing that held me back was the price. Averaging $600, it seemed a bit steep. When I heard that Apple was restricting users ability to buy content through other vendors (like books through Amazon’s kindle app, for instance), I was completely turned off. There would be no ipad in my future, and I was ashamed of myself for even considering allowing myself to be assimilated by the iborg.
I went without a tablet for some time, until the HP Touchpad dropped to $99 (I was lucky enough to snag one the day after the price dropped). That little number was a great deal for the price, but lacked the apps that other platforms offered, and for obvious reasons. So, I continued to follow the runors about an upcoming Kindle Tablet, and when Amazon finally announced that the Kindle Fire would be released in November, I was all about it. Here’s why.
Price
At just $199, it’s hard to pass up on the Kindle Fire. That’s a full $300 less than the cheapest ipad, and the deal can get even better. If you’re a fan of Audio books as I am, you can sign up for an Audible.com Gold level membership and get a code for $100 off your Kindle Fire. You can look at that as paying $99 for the Fire if you like, although you do commit to a year of gold membership at $14.95 a month. Even if you look at the entire package as $280 it’s still a great deal, as you’ll get the Kindle Fire and a free Audio book a month for the duration of your membership. Titles are great, too, my initial selection being Steven King’s 11-22-63, only a month off the presses.
To be sure, the price means you’ll sacrifice a few things. There is no camera or microphone here. You can’t buy a data plan with any of the major carriers, if that’s your thing. And some of the features that were so beloved on the original Kindle (like e-ink, free downloads over the Amazon cellular “Whispernet”, and text-to-speech are sadly gone).
Initial Impressions
Right out of the box my Kindle Fire was fully charged and set up with my account. With its 7-inch display, the Fire was noticeably smaller than the ipad and many other tablets. Indeed, I suppose I had been spoiled for the few months that I had used my HP Touchpad with its larger, rectangular display that is almost 10 inches in size. Still, the Kindle’s compact frame is not without its benefits. It is noticeably lighter and far less bulky than my HP was, and sports a widescreen format that is perfect for watching films and to simulate a book reading experience.
Construction seems tough, too, and I imagine that this sturdy little workhorse could take years worth of everyday use, and maybe even a little bit of abuse. The hard plastic case surrounds the back of the Fire and protects it like a glove of chain mail. The front display is likewise encased in sturdy seeming glass.
Back to the aforementioned size of the Fire. Once I had used it a few times, it started to grow on me. My Touchpad was a bit bulky and unwieldy (for example, when using it at the bar taking tasting notes it was a bit too big). The Kindle is much easier to maneuver in such circumstances. When reading or watching a video, I can hold it with one hand just like a paperback. It’s much lighter and more portable, and I can even fit it in my pocket when I am out and about.
A few observations of minor annoyance. There is no external volume control, and the speakers and on/off button are poorly placed at the top and bottom of the device. Holding the device like a book, I am constantly hitting the power button, prompting the device to ask me if I want to turn it off. Frustrating. The power cord is dedicated, unlike with my classic Kindle. On that device, a wall outlet plug easily decoupled from the cable, allowing use of the cable for USB access of the device. The Fire does not come with a USB cable. Then too, it has the annoying habit or requiring a restart sometimes after I’ve charged it.
Navigation
Once you begin to use your Fire, you will find it fairly intuitive. The home screen is where the action is at, and you can always navigate to it from any book, video, or app by tapping the screen at the bottom to retrieve the menu; then hit the home icon. It’s that easy. Once there, you will notice key information displayed at the top of the screen: “alerts” about software updates, new e-mail, and even a friend’s latest move in “Words With friends”; the time; Wi Fi status; and battery strength.
Clicking on the “Gear” icon brings you to your settings menu. Here you can lock and unlock your device, adjust volume, screen brightness, see and choose wireless networks, sync with Amazon, see device information, and much more.
You have several ways to access your content. The home screen is presented as a sort of bookshelf, with a row of your most recently used books, apps, videos, and websites. This is called the “carousel”, and you can scroll through it with the touch of a finger. Any time you access anything in the carousel, it gets bumped to the front of the line.
Holding your finger on a content pane in the carousel allows you to delete it from rotation, delete it from the device, or add it to your favorites. Favorites are displayed on a lower “shelf” on the home screen, right below the carousel.
You can also access content directly by category from a menu above the carousel. Options are Newsstand, Books, Music, Video, Docs, Apps, and Web. From each of these categories, you can see content on the device and in the “cloud”, and also access the Amazon store to purchase more.
The Cloud
While the cloud is all the rage these days, it’s really nothing more than remote storage. The Kindle Fire comes complete with 8GB of internal storage. Here’s the problem: with all of the content available for the Fire, you’ll blow through that 8GB in no time if you’re not careful. And as usually is the case, you won’t even get the whole 8 GB. Hence, the Cloud. The Cloud allows you to store content on Amazon’s servers for access through a Wi-Fi connection. The Fire has excellent Wi Fi detection and transfer speed capabilities, allowing you to transfer files in no time. Unlike the classic kindle, the Fire does not have cellular data access.
Amazon gives anyone with an Amazon account 5 GB of storage space for free. You can use it to store documents, videos, and music for your Fire. Any music, magazines, books, and videos you purchase through Amazon do not count towards your limit. Need more space for your stuff? Amazon offers the option to buy more, the cheapest plan being $20 for an upgrade to 20 GB. Best of all, this option includes unlimited music storage.
Categories
Let’s take a look at each category of content.
Newsstand
Amazon offers a number of magazines and newspapers by single issue or by subscription. You can find such favorites as Time, The Economist, Forbes, Us, Popular Science, and much more. This is one area where the Fire clearly outshines the classic Kindle, as brilliant full color photos, so important to a total magazine experience, never looked good in black and white. Here, they come to life vividly.
Books
When I bought my first kindle years ago, it was as an e-reader, pure and simple. Sadly, the Kindle Fire is not quite as efficient an e-reader as the classic Kindle. This is because the e-ink display is gone if favor of full color LCD. I can read this display comfortably for a few hours, but not so long as I can e-ink. On the plus side, the Fire is much better for night reading, and I can read in bed without disturbing my Beloved Barbara.
Amazon has a massive library of books to choose from, most of the latest titles and lots of classics, too. Many books are free. With my Amazon Prime membership, I can also check out more recent books one at a time, at no charge. I had a large library already from Amazon, so I was good to go with my new Fire. I generally keep a few on my device and store the rest in the cloud for later retrieval. As with all e-readers, I love the convenience of being able to download a book the day it is released. No trip to the store required.
Also par for the course is the ability to adjust display (meaning font and print size) to your liking, though sadly gone is the text-to-speech option. Here’s hoping Amazon brings it back through a software update.
Music
The Fire is a surprisingly good music player. Although it will never replace my Zune as my preferred music device, I do enjoy streaming music from the cloud while web surfing or playing games. The Fire’s speakers are not going to give you a memorable audio experience by any means, but with a set of headphones my music content sounds very good, indeed.
Video
Right off the bat, I have a beef: Microsoft Windows Media Player is not supported. Nor is itunes, though as Apple is competing with ipad I can understand that. Here’s the problem that poses, though. None of the Digital Copy included with Blu Ray movies I have purchased works with the Fire. Very annoying, that.
That said, there are plenty of options for video with the Fire. The Amazon video store offers a large library to select from, and with my Prime membership I can stream thousands of titles for free. Much more content is available for rental or purchase. Any purchased content can be accessed from the cloud or the device.
When renting a title, Amazon offers the convenient option of downloading to the device so that it can be accessed when Wi Fi is not available. You have 30 days to start watching, once you do the content will be deleted after a 48-hour window.
Documents
Documents can be accessed from the cloud or the device for access as well. Quickoffice is included at no charge with your Fire. This comes in handy, though the files are locked for read access (though different apps allow you to alter them). Right off the bat, the Fire impressed me with its ability to handle very large spreadsheets with ease; on my Touchpad the same files were clunky and almost impossible to navigate through.
Apps
In a nutshell, this is why I replaced my HP Touchpad with a fire. WebOS just did not offer the apps that are available in the Android Market Place. To be sure, Amazon does not offer all the Android apps through the Fire; even if they did, Apple surely offers more. If there’s one thing I’ve noticed about Apps, though, it is that 95% of them are a waste of time, and I can get just about everything I need from Android.
From the Ubiquitous Angry Birds to Words With Friends, Amazon had me covered. There are many free useful apps like scientific calculators, notepads, weather forecasts, and more. Movies and TV can be streamed through the Netflix app, while Pandora and iheartradio offer music broadcasts. I was even able to purchase an add on app for my Collectorz.com Desktop PC software that allows me to update my comic book collection on my Fire, so I can easily tell what issues I am missing. The Audible.com app allows me to play, bookmark, and navigate through audio books with ease.
Bottom line for me is that the apps catalog on Amazon suits my needs, and while I may not always be able to get an app I want, I can always find the app I need.
Web
Amazon uses its own web browser for the Fire. It’s intuitive, learns from the sites you visit most frequently, and starts loading them in advance on its servers when you start surfing. You can bookmark favorites, and websites look good when displayed in either mobile or normal formats.
Performance
Performance of the Kindle Fire has pleased me overall. Web pages load quickly and neatly in the custom browser, and it seems to handle some nicely even when they only support limited formats. Wi Fi reception is excellent, and the Fire detects and picks up networks better than my Touchpad did. Videos play on streaming flawlessly, and without buffering after the initial load.
I won’t go all techy on the processor specs, but I will say that my apps work as smooth as glass. I have had the occasional crash, but it’s rare and has only happened while launching an app, not while I was running one. Multitasking of apps doesn’t slow them down, or at least has not yet in my experience.
The display is crisp and clear, and HD movies look very good indeed. The letterbox screen is well suited for displaying them. For reading, the e-ink is sorely missed, but let’s be fair: this is a multi-use device at a bargain price. I can’t read on the Fire as long as I can on my classic Kindle, but I can still go a few hours without too much eye strain. Then too, the Fire is not well suited for reading in bright sunlight, say on the beach.
Battery life is good, I can usually get about 8 hours of combined use out of a charge, though this will vary with the type of use and screen brightness settings.
Overall
Bottom line, the Kindle Fire tries to do lots of things well, and while it does not do all of them as well as dedicated devices do, it does do them all well enough to make me happy. I’m OK with losing the e-ink display, for example, because I can display web pages and read magazines in full color, all while listening to a song should I so desire. For the price, it can’t be beat, and hey, the $400 I saved over the ipad will buy a lot of books, videos, and music for my Fire.
No comments:
Post a Comment