Amazon Kindle Fire Review

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It would sound like nothing new to say that the tablets market is increasingly expanding. This time we’re talking about one of the most awaited devices in this category and that is Amazon Kindle Fire. If you intend to purchase one, then here’s a list of things that might help you decide whether this tablet is worth the price or not.

At a first glance, Amazon Kindle Fire doesn’t look like anything spectacular. It comes with almost the same design as BlackBerry PlayBook. It’s simple and black. And some users might even say that Amazon Kindle Fire has nothing in what styling pretenses are concerned.

What makes a difference is what the tablet is capable of. If you’re interested in getting a tablet that will handle the most important functions and that comes at an affordable price, too (that is $199), then Amazon Kindle Fire is the right device to go for.

The tablet comes in a 190 x 120 x 11.4mm which makes Amazon Kindle Fire shorter, thicker and narrower than PlayBook. The device is also a little bit lighter than the BlackBerry tablet since it weighs 413g. Though, if we’re to take into account Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus, Amazon Kindle Fire is definitely heavier.

Amazon Kindle Fire comes with a rubberized textured back which will stop the device from slipping in your grip. Gorilla Glass has been used for the display of the tablet and this only helps the device be resistant to scratches, cracks and damage. The screen quality seems to be high enough and this would make the screen protectors useless. Still, you will see that in time.

The Amazon tablet is powered by the same processor PlayBook uses, the dual-core 1GHz TI OMAP processor. The less appealing aspect of the tablet is related to the fact that it comes only with 8GB of storage and 512MB of RAM. The 8GB of storage are enough for 8 movies, 800 songs or 6,000 books but the space you can use is actually 6.5GB since there’s some space taken up by the operating system.

This might be restrictive for those who are into loading lots of stuff before going offline for a couple of days or a week. Even so, there’s a good thing about this as well. Amazon gives you the possibility to download again anything you’ve purchased at any time you want. Amazon Cloud comes in handy in this case. This service allows you to store files to Amazon servers and gives you the possibility to access them anytime you want and from any device you want as long as you have Internet connection. You have 5GB for free and you have to pay only $1/year for each extra 1GB.

Amazon Kindle Fire doesn’t come up with Bluetooth or 3G. Therefore, if you want to stream your content, then you’ll have to do that over Wi-Fi. The device supports 802.11b/g/n on 2.4GHz.

The tablet brings a 1024 x 600 IPS LCD panel which is good but good is not great. This is related to the fact that its pixel density is of 169. The viewing angles are as broad as on PlayBook and the color reproduction is quite decent.

When it comes to battery life, Amazon KIndle Fire has managed to last for 7:42 which is a little longer than what Amazon has promised to deliver when video is played (7 hours and 30 minutes). This is the result of the video rundown test the Engadget team has run.

This places the tablet somewhere between Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus which provides 8 hours and 9 minutes of battery life and PlayBook which runs for 7 hours.

In matters of performance, what can be said about the browser Amazon Kindle Fire comes up with is “not bad”. Amazon promises that this would be better in the future. Taking into account the limited internals the tablet comes up with, the Silk browser is kind of quite quick.

Running Android 2.3 Gingerbread, the tablet brings applications that are organized in different sections that include: Books, Newsstand, Video, Docs, Music and Apps. Using these sections supposes nothing unusual. You’ll just have to tap on Newsstand to see the newspapers and magazines you have purchased, for example. Select Cloud and you’ll see everything you’ve purchased.

The stock keyboard is neither bad nor good. The thing with it is that the keyboard experience is a little bit cramped when using it in portrait mode. Plus, the spacebar is thus shifted to the left which will be confusing for many of you.

In matters of comic and magazines reading, Amazon KIndle Fire has been much criticised. That’s because the tablet features a 7″ display which will make users zoom in quite frequently in order to be able to read magazines. It’s quite annoying to view text as well as pictures on a screen that small without zooming in. At least in what the comics are concerned, the tablet kind of does a good job in rendering and recreating the simple lines and bold colors of the comics.

The same screen will enable you to read books for a couple of hours witout getting eyestrain. Still, if you intend to read for more than two hours, then Amazon Kindle Fire and its small screen might not be that great.

The Fire brings a version of Quickoffice that will enable you to read Excel, PowerPoint and Word documents. Another thing that might make you think twice before purchasing the Fire is that the tablet comes with no camera. It might not be such a great issue for others, though.

All in all, Amazon Kindle Fire is actually an option to be taken into account when purcahsing a tablet. Just think that you’ll get all of the above features for no more no less than $199. Well, that will surely count a lot in the case of many future tablet owners. Even if there are other tablets on the market that will do better than Amazon Kindle Fire, always keep in mind the price for which the device is available and you’ll ask for nothing more in the case of Fire.