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I bought one. First tablet. I find it just fine for the price tag and it is extremely portable. Since buying it I have used my laptop about 70% less. For some r

I bought one. First tablet. I find it just fine for the price tag and it is extremely portable. Since buying it I have used my laptop about 70% less. For some reason I cannot log into HN from the Fire. If I was able to, then frankly I would only use my laptop for development or writing long form. I am only using it for reading books and browsing. I have also downloaded a couple of books in PDF format and sent them to my kindle email address. They read just fine, although you will need to pinch-zoom every page if the text is too small. Sometime it freezes, and frankly I had to replace the first one (I bought it in store). I have no idea what people expect for $199. I find it very valuable for the money. I have a feeling by the second or third iteration they will have a dedicated audience just as Ipad and Iphone do.

aaronbrethorst 15y ago
> For some reason I cannot log into HN from the Fire. I noticed the same thing. Anyone have any clue what's up with this?
- option1138 15y ago
  same here...
- r00fus 15y ago
  Did you try turning off Silk (cloud acceleration)?
SomeCallMeTim 15y ago
>I have no idea what people expect for $199. I find it very valuable for the money. Thing is, there are other vendors who are creating REAL Google/Android tablets in the $199 range, as he mentions. From those tablets you can get the entire Android experience, unlike the Fire (unless you root it and put another OS build on it, of course -- though that won't fix the lack of GPS or cameras).
- sliverstorm 15y ago
  It's funny that suddenly we say the market is full of "REAL" tablets in the $199 range, when just a month or three ago everyone was excited about the Fire because there 'were no "REAL" $199 tablets'
  - freehunter 15y ago
    The Kindle Fire lowered the definition of a "REAL" $199 tablet.
- bethling 15y ago
  At least for me, part of the reason I like the Fire is that it isn't the full Android experience - I have a Archos tablet, that I don't use for any reason other than to test things. With the Fire I look past/don't see the parts of Android that I dislike - and I think a lot of that is that I really only use the Kindle for the occasional E-Book/App, watch a streaming video, or listen to music. For the subset of things that I actually want it for, it does well - very well in my opinion. I'm sure it likely falls flat if you expect more out of it (which it sounds like he did).
  - dangero 15y ago
    This is what I've found too. I just spent my evening enjoyably using my Kindle Fire when I could have just as easily picked up my iPad. The size is actually refreshing to me and the interface has some really nice features. All these reviews seem really off the mark to me. The PR about this product is about what you can do with it. You can watch movies, read books, and play games. The product page makes very little mention of Android. They aren't selling it as an Android tablet. It's an Amazon Kindle tablet, and in spite of all the reviews, I think it's going to be a big hit. I can only imagine how popular the Kindle Fire 2 will be once they have time to refine everything.
  - SomeCallMeTim 15y ago
    What version of Android is the Archos tablet running: 1.6? Even 2.2 is clunky compared to 3.0, and 4.0 looks wonderful. More to the point, none of the Archos tablets (that I'm aware of) come with the "full Google/Android" experience either. They use appslib.com to distribute apps, which has less coverage than the Amazon AppStore, and it comes with none of the other Google apps either. So you're comparing the Fire, a non-Google experience, with the Archos, another non-Google experience. Not relevant.
nextparadigms 15y ago
Did you turn off the cloud acceleration feature for the Silk browser? And are there any other browsers you can get from the Amazon app store?
- ConstantineXVI 15y ago
  Not in the store, but if you turn on unknown sources, you can grab APKs for both Firefox and Opera.
ConstantineXVI 15y ago
Silk does it. Either shut it off or use https (which always bypasses Silk)
fredsanford 15y ago
If and/or until the Amazon DRM loses its mind and locks you out of your content for whatever specious reason Amazon can create... Hope it doesn't happen to you.

aaronbrethorst 15y ago

> For some reason I cannot log into HN from the Fire. I noticed the same thing. Anyone have any clue what's up with this?

option1138 15y ago
same here...
r00fus 15y ago
Did you try turning off Silk (cloud acceleration)?

SomeCallMeTim 15y ago

>I have no idea what people expect for $199. I find it very valuable for the money. Thing is, there are other vendors who are creating REAL Google/Android tablets in the $199 range, as he mentions. From those tablets you can get the entire Android experience, unlike the Fire (unless you root it and put another OS build on it, of course -- though that won't fix the lack of GPS or cameras).

sliverstorm 15y ago
It's funny that suddenly we say the market is full of "REAL" tablets in the $199 range, when just a month or three ago everyone was excited about the Fire because there 'were no "REAL" $199 tablets'
- freehunter 15y ago
  The Kindle Fire lowered the definition of a "REAL" $199 tablet.
bethling 15y ago
At least for me, part of the reason I like the Fire is that it isn't the full Android experience - I have a Archos tablet, that I don't use for any reason other than to test things. With the Fire I look past/don't see the parts of Android that I dislike - and I think a lot of that is that I really only use the Kindle for the occasional E-Book/App, watch a streaming video, or listen to music. For the subset of things that I actually want it for, it does well - very well in my opinion. I'm sure it likely falls flat if you expect more out of it (which it sounds like he did).
- dangero 15y ago
  This is what I've found too. I just spent my evening enjoyably using my Kindle Fire when I could have just as easily picked up my iPad. The size is actually refreshing to me and the interface has some really nice features. All these reviews seem really off the mark to me. The PR about this product is about what you can do with it. You can watch movies, read books, and play games. The product page makes very little mention of Android. They aren't selling it as an Android tablet. It's an Amazon Kindle tablet, and in spite of all the reviews, I think it's going to be a big hit. I can only imagine how popular the Kindle Fire 2 will be once they have time to refine everything.
- SomeCallMeTim 15y ago
  What version of Android is the Archos tablet running: 1.6? Even 2.2 is clunky compared to 3.0, and 4.0 looks wonderful. More to the point, none of the Archos tablets (that I'm aware of) come with the "full Google/Android" experience either. They use appslib.com to distribute apps, which has less coverage than the Amazon AppStore, and it comes with none of the other Google apps either. So you're comparing the Fire, a non-Google experience, with the Archos, another non-Google experience. Not relevant.

nextparadigms 15y ago

Did you turn off the cloud acceleration feature for the Silk browser? And are there any other browsers you can get from the Amazon app store?

ConstantineXVI 15y ago
Not in the store, but if you turn on unknown sources, you can grab APKs for both Firefox and Opera.

ConstantineXVI 15y ago

Silk does it. Either shut it off or use https (which always bypasses Silk)

fredsanford 15y ago

If and/or until the Amazon DRM loses its mind and locks you out of your content for whatever specious reason Amazon can create... Hope it doesn't happen to you.