New Kindle is good but not quite on Fire

First off, in answer to the most obvious question...No, I really don't need yet another device to supplement my Macbook Pro, iPad and Nexus S smartphone.  But for $200 I really couldn't resist - compare that price to the price of the original Kindle.   Plus, as an Amazon Prime subscriber I felt if I got the Fire I would be more inclined to use the free services available to Prime subscribers, most notably the movies and TV shows that are available for free as part of my subscription.

My Kindle Fire arrived a day earlier than expected, which was a nice surprise.  Setup was a total breeze - When I turned the device on I went through a short setup process and was up and running in less than 5 minutes.  In fact, I didn't even have to enter my Amazon credentials since it assumed I was purchasing the device for myself and preauthorized my device...hmm, I wonder if that would be a problem if I were to buy one as a gift for somebody.  Anyway, once the setup was completed it instantly made available all of my digital Amazon content - books, videos, music, etc.  And it also made available all of the Amazon Appstore apps that I had previously purchased/installed on my Nexus S.  So far so good.

I was also pleasantly surprised by the form factor of the device itself, as most of the reviews I had read had bashed it.  At this point it's too early to say if a 7-inch screen is preferable to the 10 inches provided by the iPad and other devices, but it does make the device nearly pocketable and also more conducive to one-handed operations.  I also appreciate the rubberized backing and sides of the device, is it makes the device easy to hold for long periods of time.  This is something I don't like at all about the iPad 2, as its tapered edges make it very uncomfortable to hold for extended periods.

In terms of functionality, most of the built-in functions seem to work pretty well.  As others have pointed out, even though the Fire is Android-based you would hardly know that Android is being run under the covers due to the heavy customization made by the Amazon developers.  Video streaming, e-books, and music all worked without a hitch...nice job Amazon.  Some of the apps, however, were less than stellar.  The built-in mail app is really basic, and though it automatically configured my Gmail account it wouldn't detect my work email as also being Google-based and forced me to manually configure the IMAP settings...PITA.  And it seems like the vast majority of 3rd-party apps are still not optimized for tablet devices, so all you get is a bigger version of the phone app.  There are a few notable exceptions, however, like Evernote...those guys can do nothing wrong in my opinion!

By far the biggest disappointment is the performance of the much ballyhooed Silk browser.  In theory Silk was supposed to render pages more quickly than any mobile browser due to the fact that Amazon was using its own EC2 to serve and/or pre-cache a lot of your web content...resulting in fewer HTTP connections and speedier rendering.  But in reality the Silk browser is probably the slowest mobile browser I've used.  Perhaps Amazon hasn't enabled all of its fancy algorithms yet to optimize the Silk browsing experience, or maybe it needs to "learn" my browsing habits first.  I sure hope they address this, as Silk was one of the biggest reasons for my getting the device in the first place.

Am I going to keep the Fire?  Hard to say right now.  On the one hand it's a great content consumption device, particularly for Prime subscribers.  And for $200 you're getting great value for the dollar.  But it certainly won't replace my iPad, and apart from the integration with Amazon's own services it doesn't do anything that the iPad doesn't already do...and in most cases doesn't do them nearly as well.

Late to the iPad Party

Since I've been hating on Apple for quite awhile now, it should come as no surprise to anyone who knows me that I did not "invest" in the iPad when it came out back in April. But truth be known, I came very close to buying one back then, and mainly didn't because of the lack of Flash support and the omission of a front-facing camera - two "gotta haves" in my opinion back then. Since that time I've reconsidered this decision numerous times, then as the months progressed I told myself that rather than purchase one now I would instead hold out for the next-gen model - it still wouldn't have Flash, but for sure it would have the built-in camera plus the latest and greatest multi-tasking iOS version...and maybe even some other neat bells and whistles.

Well, after 6 months of pondering I finally caved in and bought one a few weeks ago. What was it that finally put me over the edge? Well, for one thing a few of my friends had recently purchased or considered one and that got me more interested, and as a result I spent more time playing around with the iPad and fell in love with some of the applications. In particular I can't say enough good things about the amazing Flipboard app, which takes content aggregation and formatting to a whole new level. I particularly like how it aggregates and displays Twitter and Facebook feeds in a more user-friendly and consumable format...great stuff!

I also wanted the ability easily read or watch videos while laying around the house or in bed. Sure, I can do that already with my regular laptop, but in reality I rarely do so because it's a bit too clunky and inconvenient, and I always have to worry about running out of battery. The iPad does a fantastic job of this. Both the iBooks app and the Amazon Kindle app work great for reading books, the built-in Safari browser does a formidable job in rendering web content (although I prefer the 3rd-party Atomic browser), and the free Netflix app as well as the overly expensive SlingPlayer Mobile player do a fine job in streaming TV shows and movies. And the iPad's battery life is simply out of this world...I can last a full week on a single charge using the device a an hour or two each day.

Lastly, I wanted something more lightweight than my normal laptop which I can tote around with me wherever I go and still have access to the internet as well as any applications I might need to use. My netbook was supposed to serve this purpose, and though I previously raved about it I soon came to realize that it really didn't do anything particularly well...I've since given up on it. The iPad's form factor and light weight make for great portability, and though its lack of a physical keyboard as well as support for some of the more common desktop applications prevent it from being a full laptop replacement, I feel that at least 80% of my computing needs can be fulfilled by it. The iPad is hands down the best reading device on the face of the planet, and let's face it - most computer users, including myself, spend the majority of their time simply consuming content - email, web browsing, social networking, watching videos, etc. As for the other 20% of my computing (including writing this blog article) I'll still have to go back to my laptop, though by using a nifty remote desktop app such as Desktop Connect I can even get away with using the iPad for accessing some of my Windows-based applications.

Is the device perfect? No, like anything else it does have its share of flaws. The biggest annoyance for me is the lack of multi-tasking, which I hope will be addressed with an iOS update that supposedly arrives here in November. Too often I find myself having to break out of the current application I am using (sometimes even forced out), then when I come back to it later it reloads rather than resumes where I left off. And boy it would be nice to have Pandora running in the background all the time. I also find both the CPU and graphics rendering to be pretty sluggish at times, but not nearly as bothersome as with my netbook. And though it is the quintessential reading device I do find the iPad to be a bit on the heavy side, especially when compared to the pure e-readers such as the Kindle and Nook. The lack of Flash support is also a bummer, though it seems like many sites have aggressively moved to HTML 5 in recent months - so it hasn't been as big of a problem as I thought. And finally....a front-facing camera would sure be great for video conferencing and the like, but now that Chatroulette is on its death march I guess I can live without it :-)

Bob

Overpriced Kindle?

The Kindle is kinda neat, but don't you think it's just way overpriced for what you get? I think if Amazon wants the Kindle to be the de facto eReader standard that it should subsidize the heck out of its manufacturing costs and sell them for less than half of the current price (app. $350). This is not rocket science...For example, Microsoft has successfully used this strategy in making the Xbox and Xbox360 top sellers. I guess the counter argument is that Apple didn't need to subsidize the cost of the iPod in order for it to be enormously successful, which is true. However, I don't see anything so gee-whiz cool about the Kindle and Kindle 2 or their respective UI's that is going to blow people away like the iPod.

I would also like to see the Kindle come out with a color display. I really don't read all that many books, but I do read a lot of newspapers and magazines. And especially when it comes to magazines I think a color display is a necessity for a rich reading experience. Anyway, just my two cents.

Bob