EREADER REVIEW: The Kindle Fire (@AmazonKindle)

Well, I’ve been talking about it for, like, forever and I finally did it.  I bought myself a Kindle Fire!  I know, I know.  It’s about damn time.  I feel the same way.  I was having a very hard time justifying the need for a tablet.  I have my Kindle 3^rd Generation (with the keyboard), which I LOVE.  I have an iPod.  I have a laptop.  I have a smart phone.  Everything that I could possibly need to do for Pure Textuality I can do via any number of avenues.  Then the desire for The Gadget won out.  I got the chance to play with one for a bit and I was totally sold!


 
First Impression:   It’s fast. 
 
No, I mean really fast.  The name alone sounds fast.  Fire.  It’s a wonderfully appropriate name for this little tablet.  However, the name alone is hardly grounds for proof.  Everything about it just flies! 
 
There’s no lag in the apps.  Trust me, I’ve had it for one week and downloaded so many apps that I forget when I have on there half the time.  I will be doing some house cleaning on it before long.  I just wanted to get a feel for how it acts with different apps.  I know from experience with the Blackberry line of smart phones that some apps are fast and some are so slow they will lock your whole system up.  This is not the case with the Fire.  Everything I have thrown at it has just taken.  No hang ups.  No glitches in the system.  Everything is just fluid motion. 
 
Aside from having everything you could possibly need (Instant Messaging programs, e-mail, Facebook,. Twitter, etc) my absolute favorite part of the Fire is, obviously, the eReader capability. 
Although it doesn’t have the same flat finish that the screen on the 3rd Gen has, the glass of the Kindle Fire really doesn’t have that much of a glare.  I’ve been using mine now for a week and have not one noticed any sort of a glare.  However, I have heard people complain about it.  
 
The biggest thing that I love about the Fire is it has more capability than the Kindle 3^rd Generation had.  For instance, Portable Document Format (PDF’s) files can be viewed on the Kindle 3^rd Gen.  However, they are a royal pain in the unmentionables.  If you zoom them, it literally zooms in on the middle of the page and you lose all of the first inch or so on text on all for sides.  Not good.  With the Fire, the very first app I downloaded was Adobe.  I can view PDF’s with no problem now.  When it comes to ARC’s, most of them come as a PDF so I can now read them right on my Fire instead of having to sit at a computer. 
 
I love the Kindle bookshelf view!  Having the cover to give you a visual instead of just the title in a list makes it much faster (for me, anyway) to find a book in my library. 
 
I have also found that sending books to my Kindle address goes through much faster on the Fire than on my 3^rd Gen.  I found with my 3^rd Gen that books would take forever to show up in my library.  Most of the time, they just didn’t show up at all.  I don’t have a lot of experience with this method of delivery of eBooks so I don’t know if that’s a common problem.  With the Fire, it still takes a few minutes but that usually all it takes is just a few minutes.  The only thing I have found is that books sent to the Kindle address will not load into the library if you stay connected to Wi-Fi.  I have found that they will only deliver if I shut off my Wi-Fi and then turn it back on.  Usually within a minute of turning it back on, the document or book appears in my library. 
 
The only other downside that I have found for the Fire is that for being one of the most compact tablets on the market, it’s a little awkward to hold.  It’s just heavy enough that it feels too heavy for its size.  On that same note, I also love the Fire for its size.  It’s convenient.  You don’t need a whole laptop bag to bring your tablet to the airport.  As far as it being awkward, I think that a jacket will cure that problem.  With my Kindle 3^rd Gen, it is incredibly uncomfortable to hold all by its onsey but if you put it in a jacket, it feels natural.  M-Edge has a great line of jackets including the Design Your Own option.  I am ordering a Deign Your Own jacket with the Pure Textuality fairy on it. 
 
Magazine subscriptions!  One of my big envies before I got the Fire was that people could subscribe to magazines on their fire.  I could do that too on my 3^rd Gen but it’s just not the same in black and white.  This one is a bonus in my eyes!
 
All-in-all, the Fire gets 5 stars from me.  For what few drawbacks it has, the benefits definitely tip the scales.  No regrets here!  $199 well spent!
 
Click here to get your own Kindle Fire from Amazon.com!
Speaking of the Kindle Fire, did you know we are giving away a Kindle Fire?!?!?!?!?!  Click here for details!!!