Amazon Kindle Fire HD Tablet: Review

The much awaited kindle fire HD was released a couple of months ago but I have been desperate to get my hands on one for ages. I reserved it on Amazon after a good deal of deliberation of whether I wanted a Fire HD or regular Fire. For a small increase in cost, I decided that it was worth it to go for the HD version as along with other perks it has a 16GB memory. You can also get a 32 GB version but I thought that 16 was ample room. If there is a question mark over storage space though just remember that you cannot buy a memory expansion pack but you get free unlimited cloud storage for your Amazon content. I bought the version that came without special offers so this cost me an extra 10 pounds too. This is a cheeky feature which switches off adverts and although I was a little disgruntled at paying extra, I would do it again, (although you have to phone up to get this feature unlocked, despite specifying it on the order!) Before I describe the Fire HD I will tell you that I am really pleased with it. I bought it primarily as a reading device but I was also really excited about having a mini tablet so I had a one stop shop for all my needs. My husband has the regular kindle which can be bought for a mere £60 now on Amazon but I wanted the bigger, better version, hence my wait for this new machine to come out. It certainly was worth the wait and it can rival many of the small tablets that are on the market; at this price you are getting so much for your money and I am really pleased with my purchase. The Amazon Kindle Fire HD is a great self improvement tool. There are many apps and books on the Kindle Fire HD to help you out and to improve you.

 

REKINDLING THE FLAME

My love affair with kindles has been rocky, I really protested about them when they first came out as I do have a huge library at home and hated to think that I would never get the joy of picking up a first edition or getting a book signed by the author. When my husband bought his first kindle, I learned that they are not there to replace your library; just compliment it. When I went to see my sister in Australia, I took my husband’s Kindle and although I was pleased that I had thousands of books at my fingers tips, I did not think I would get used to reading from a screen. I did though and I secretly really enjoyed it. I enjoyed not having to turn the page, bend over corners to save my page and lug heavy volumes around. From that moment on, I craved a Kindle of my own. On opening the box of the new Kindle Fire, it was clear that this is more than just a reading device. It has many similarities to the old Kindle but it is heavier for a start. The old Kindle weighs just 170g whereas this one weighs 394g. This was not shock and I knew what I was expecting but still it feels very different in your hand when you read from it. The back of the kindle has a soft rubbery back with a wide bezel. It has the kindle logo and Amazon logo emblazoned on the back. At the back you will also find the speaker grates where the Dolby Audio dual driver stereo sound comes though. At the front the old dated Kindle look is replaced with an ultra stylish vivid full colour display with touch screen. The old grey scale of the old Kindle seems a light year away from the technology used here. On front of the Kindle is a front facing 1.3MP camera so you can use it to Skype; genius. The front of the device reminds of the iPad, it has the sleek, finished design that is synonymous with Apple products. The length of the Kindle Fire is 7.6 inch with a 7 inch screen and the width is 5.4 inches. The Kindle Fire has a number of buttons integrated into the frame and these are the power button and volume rocker. Close by is also the 3.5mm headphone jack. The buttons are hard to find and I have spent many a minute fumbling to find them. They have done a great job of disguising them!

LIGHTING THE FIRE

The Kindle is powered by Android 4.1 and I find this is nippy and really user friendly. You can hold the Kindle in portrait or landscape position. You can tell which way you have the Kindle because at the bottom of the screen is a carousel of recently used functions, books, magazines, games or web browser. You can remove items from the carousel by clicking on them and holding them or you can relocate them to your favourites. Above the carousel is the list of categories where you can find your items, i.e books, newsstand, music, video etc. Each category opens up the library where you can view items held locally or items downloaded from the cloud. The carousel is quick and I love the feature but the menus can be quite slow when you launch them. They open then it takes a while for the content to load; this can be frustrating. You can pin favourites really quickly by clicking on the star icon, this makes it easy to find and locate content quickly. The Kindle Fire is already registered to your Amazon account so you have access to any thing you have already purchased. The Amazon store is seamless and making a one click shop is as easy as the name suggests. In terms of connectivity, the Kindle has extremely fast wifi and it also has Bluetooth so you can hook it up to a wireless keyboard or a good set of speakers. There is also a HDMI port so you can share your pictures and videos on the big screen. The Silk browser which is Amazon’s baby is superb and ultra fast thanks to the company’s impeccable web hosting abilities. I have set my Kindle up so that my emails can be received on the device, it is so simple and so easy and even downloading attachments and viewing them is flawless. You can put the screen in reader mode so that you can read emails or browse web on full screen and only read the text making for a much more pleasurable experience at times.

SOUNDS AND SCREEN

A full colour display a few years ago would have not been my thing in terms of an Ebook but on seeing first the regular Kindle and overcoming my issues with tha0074, I did not have qualms about it. Text is superb, crystal clear with excellent contrast. I have read quite a lot on it this past week, even taking it outside on the brightest day we have (Yes, yes I am aware it is October) and it performed well. I have held it close lamps too and as long as you angle the display correctly you will not get hardly any glare. The screen for viewing films and playing games is spectacular. The fire boasts a 1280x800 HD display that is incredible. Games are so vivid and movies in HD are awesome. Colours are bright, vivid and images come to life on the screen. This is superb for gamers and for movie watchers. I am so pleased I went for the HD version as it is certainly worth the money. The sound is good, when you hold it in you hands you will find it more than loud enough but it certainly will not fill a room. When watching a film you do get excellent bass with a surround sound feel to it but it just cannot carry very far. This is certainly a very personal experience. If you are wanting it to be louder than you can buy speakers to hook it up to. The Fire is designed to automatically optimise the sound profile based on the function you are performing, ie skyping, watching a movie and listening to music.

Comparing the Amazon Kindle Fire HD with its competitors

MEDIA, MUSIC AND MY BOOKS

I love reading and I will not lie when I say that the primary function of this is as an E
reader. Finding your books is easy and you can search, annotate and bookmark as easy as you can write your name. The function X-Ray makes life really easy if you are wanting to instantly find chapters or sections that mention names, ideas, characters or even places, as well as biographies and background information. X-Ray suits its name and you can really best the best out of what you are reading. If you have multiple devices, amazon uses Whispersync which synchronises your library, bookmarks and notes across all your devices. There is a massive array of books to choose from and there is a selection of free books to browse. You will spend hours pouring over the choices, honestly you do not know where to start. You can also download glossy magazines with a full colour layout, pictures and text and these are located in the Amazon App store. This is also the place where you can download your favourite games and applications. Once downloaded, the annoying thing is that they disappear into the carousel and although you can scroll through to find them, it takes longer than it does on a smart phone where everything has a neat little box on the screen.There are many free applications to choose from and some of the games are fun such as fruit ninja and angry birds. You can also access facebook and other social media sites though nifty applications. This is not the best place for high powered games though and on recently downloading a racing game, I found some limitations to the Fire’s abilities. It was sluggish and slow and could not keep up with the graphics. You can see why this only costs £160, it just is not built for functions like this. Movies and images are really fun to watch and you stream movies directly through the lovefilm service, I have yet to sign up for this but I think I will as it is quite a cheap way to see the latest blockbusters.

BATTERY LIFE

The battery on the Kindle fire is good and when you are reading you can get over 11 hours of life out of one charge. When I watched a film though, it really crashed the battery and it reduced the life significantly. A 3 hr film reduced the battery life by a half so I reckon you only get 5-6 hours of movie watching out of it. This is a bit disappointing but I expected it.
If you want to charge the Fire you will need to buy a charger unless you want to change it up via USB.

NIGGLES

The fire does have some niggles and it comes mainly from not being able to customise it. I want to be able to build my own homescreen so that I can find my apps easily and although I like the carousel, I would much rather have a full page of icons. The Kindle is geared to make you buy things through it, as you scroll through your own items you are invited to search for more songs from the artist and it is full of recommendations for books. They say it is intuitive but I find it annoying and I am glad I have disabled the adverts that come on the screen when the fire is on lockdown. I bought this to be creative and I do not like to be forced to view things I do not want to do, it is a bit cheeky really.

BURN BABY BURN

I do love my Fire and I am slowly making it into a one stop shop media centre filled with my favourite things. I love reading on it and it is a pleasure to read from. I can read for hours and hours at a time and finds it much more comfortable than holding a regular book. I love all the apps and content at my fingers and the browser is super fast. The wifi is quick and I have not lost connection yet. There are some minor issues like the constant advertising, the struggle to keep up with some games and slow loading menus but on the whole it is brilliant and I am really glad I bought it. It was worth the wait and it is funny how dated the old Kindle now looks. I bought a cover for the Kindle which was quite expensive but I would hate for anything to happen to the screen. It feels really robust and Kindles by reputation are quite sturdy and tough but I still think you need to do all you can to look after them. A good cover is needed and also means that in a two kindle household you can tell whose is whose. The best thing about the Kindle Fire is the screen, it is fantastic, so clear and bright and for this reason I recommend it and award it four stars. This will be your new companion!