Kindle News: Large Kindle for Android Update - new features, customer reactions. Tom Semple adds what he's found.

New update for the free Kindle for Android app - v4.0.1.3

The Amazon Kindle for Android updates:
· New design and user interface: Apparently many customers have told Amazon that they really like the User Interface (UI) of the Kindle Fire, as find it easy to access and navigate the content on the tablet.

  Amazon has extended that design to Kindle for Android by
  1. optimizing the Kindle Store for tablets
  2. improving the library interface
  3. redesigning the home screen, which includes the Carousel option for recent items), and
  4. simplifying navigation through the app.

· Easy access to samples: To help customers new to Kindle or Kindle apps get started, Amazon is making samples of many of the best sellers very easy to find; the samples will be on the home screen of their Kindle app.

More info is at the Kindle for Android details page.

From Google Play store's What's New page

What's in this version:
4.0.1.3
• Redesigned library experience.
• Carousel displays recent items on the Kindle app home screen.
• Navigation panel organizes content for quick access to your Books, Documents, and Newsstand periodicals.
• Browse all your items in the Cloud or just the content downloaded on your Android device.
• Explore and download popular samples in the Kindle Store.
• Fixed a crash some customers reported.

Contributor Tom Semple weighed in early
This guy is the Kindle world's intrepid explorer and is everywhere.
Tom has given permission to quote what he's found so far (I'm just late getting to it, and I saw reports that some are finding that the Table of Contents can be balky under the new update and that customer service has said they are aware of that and are working on it).

  Here's Tom: (Bracketed entries are mine.)

' Kindle for Android finally has a version of the 'Cloud/Device' pattern found on Kindles and Kindle apps, with Recent added to Sort options.  Very welcome.  [Yay!]

  As usual, there's also an experiment: an item called 'Popular Samples' brings up a list of 25 samples that we are to believe are popular (and hopefully not some manipulation on the part of Amazon to direct us to certain books).
    [They say they're from the already "best sellers.]

The Kindle Store experience has been greatly improved as well.  There's also a Carousel view, which thankfully one does not need to use. [ ]  Now, if only they'd add TTS [Text-to-Speech], I would use the app a little more (which I try to do anyway on the assumption that Amazon updates the apps that are used the most).

By my count there are at least 3 features unique to Kindle for Android:
- Voice search
- Send To Kindle (shows up as a Sharing option with a number of other Android apps)
- Popular Samples'

Thanks, Tom.  I use Google Voice search a lot on my Samsung S2 phone and on my 10" Galaxy tablet which I hardly use anymore since I am spoiled by the HD display of the KFires.

  Off topic
  Although we're talking about Kindle for Android and NOT Kindle Fire apps, I just tested my Google Voice app on my Kindle Fire anyway (I downloaded the app from 1mobile.com long ago) and it works really well.  This is just my usual, confusing side note.

  I use Dolphin browser (for its Flash support) on the KFire and when I brought up google search, I touched the side "||" mark to get the Menu on the side and tapped the Star to get Favorites while still using Dolphin browser  Then I tapped 'Voice' and once I did that, the mic icon showed and asked me to say what I wanted and I said, "a kindle world" and it gave me a short list of what I might have said to the mic.  I tapped the correct item and then Dolphin browser took over, and the Google links to the blog showed up.  Can we say 'insular' ? But Google Voice is so smooth -- both on pure Android devices (the topic of this blog article) and even on the Kindle Fire.

BACK to the topic of Kindle for Android devices
The user reviews for the Kindle for Android app at Google play store are an interesting read.  Excerpts from the first few on the top (the most recent):

. Wow, great app to read book - Also, the dictionary is very good as some people mentioned. Great work, Amazon!

. BETTER NOW...The app's interface is much cleaner and modern now.

[He mentions it has List View and that you don't have to use the Carousel.  You can just open the slider on the left, tap books and at the top right, toggle list view or grid view.]

. Best of the DRM readers [Loves the new Recent reads and the Carousel, as well as "the whole new layout. Good job!"]

That was just the first three showing right now, and you have to click on 'more' to read the rest.
  The 2nd page notes some things people want it to do (like TTS].

  Also, it's evident that the phone users are less ecstatic about how the layout fits on the smaller screens -- some of it is optimized for tablets.  Table of Contents links are too close to the edge on some devices, so you might turn back a page instead of going to the chapter selected.  Amazon is working on fixes for any glitches with the table of contents.

  Things to watch for:
  Reading progress was reset in a few cases.
  Some don't realize the Carousel is an option and that you can choose between List and Grid views.

  A mix of really happy and really unhappy reactions :-) depending on the devices.

  AND, at the Amazon app store, here are the reviews sorted by most recent date so that you can see what people are finding - positive and negative - about the update.

  5-star ratings are most evident, but with a few who experienced problems.  You should view these to see what experiences are for the pure-Android device(s) you own.  Again, customer support says they ARE working on an update for the glitches that occur in the Table of Contents for some.

---

Check often: Temporarily-free recently published Kindle books
  Guide to finding Free Kindle books and Sources.  Top 100 free bestsellers.  Liked-books under $1
UK-Only: recently published free books, bestsellers, or £5 Max ones
    Also, UK customers should see the UK store's Top 100 free bestsellers.

  *Click* to Return to the HOME PAGE.  Or click on the web browser's BACK button

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Kindle Fire HD 8.9" Tablet Reviews - Overview, Excerpts, Thoughts

EXCERPTS FROM REVIEWS OF THE KINDLE FIRE HD 8.9" TABLET

The more-positive reviewer assessments:
"...the best media consumption tablet out there" -- CNET

"...may be a better value than the iPad 4" -- Examiner

I've waited before taking a good look at reviews because I've been trying out a replacement 8.9" Kindle Fire HD, as the first one had a lower-speaker-volume problem and the colors were not as saturated.  But slowly, the newer 8.9" has taken over here, and now I use the 7" mainly when I'm not home and need the smaller one.

  I'd felt the 7" was a really good size and loved using it -- it was more personal and 'large enough' but the 8.9" has turned out to be, for me, so effective for web-reading and magazines, at that middle area between 7" and 10", and so comfortable on 2-page Kindle book reading, that it's become the HD model I prefer when home.

 Although my 8.9" replacement is a definite improvement, the 7" Kindle Fire HD has stronger speakers, in volume and presence, and a few other reviews have noted this.  I probably wouldn't have noticed had I not used the 7" first.

  Most reviews do note the strength of the 8.9" speakers versus the speakers on other tablets though, when no comparison is made with the strangely muscular speakers on the smaller Kindle Fire HD model.

  Others reviewing tend to consider the 8.9" tablet-speaker system more impressive, overall, than speakers on the other leading tablets (iPad4, iPad mini, Google Nexus, Barnes and Noble Nook tablets) and definitely better for movies if you don't want to be tied to headphones or to external speakers.

  The display on both Kindle Fire HD models is beautiful, and although the 8.9" screen keeps impressing me because it's both larger and even clearer, the colors on the 8.9" model are mildly less-saturated than on the 7" but that is relative.   It's more like what Displaymate's Shootout between iPad mini, Google Nexus 7", and Kindle Fire 7" was looking at -- slight differences not always easily noticed.

  Magazines are terrific on both of the Kindle Fire HD models.  The 7" device isn't quite as effective as the 8.9" one on magazines because the eyes have to work more due to the smaller size of the screen and the smaller text.

  However, magazines still work well on the 7" (as well as on the larger model) for another reason -- you can double tap on the text of an article to see an optimized larger-font reading view of the text, with leading photos included.  This is an excellent feature, in that it's not just a narrow vertical strip of text but full-screen easily-readable text as an alternate view.

  If you prefer reading text while viewing the original article format, this is doable in that you can pinch-zoom the original layout version to get larger-size text while still seeing the photos in context -- in the placement that was used for the printed version.

  Printed versions can't match, these days, the slide-show backlit quality of these high-definition images that can be pinch-zoomed beyond the sizes presented on printed magazines, to get even more detail.

Sheet music and other PDFs are much more readable on the larger screen, and an advantage is that the 8.9" size is lighter to hold than any 10" tablet.  I like best the ezPDF app ($1.99 at 50% off currently) for its flexibility and excellent handling of margins and page-turns relative to the free Adobe Reader.

 The clarity of the screen is a real draw for me and is appreciated most with HD movies and tv show episodes, magazines, and small text on the web or in books.

 The image I used at the top, while not a striking one, is due to my new preference for the two-page book format feature on the 8.9" and the nibbles of text that somehow have me reading faster when the eyes don't have to move so much and there's no thought about how much more text I need to get through.

  The original screenshot is 1920x1200 pixels large and when needing to downsize it, compressing it to an average webpage size of 1024-width for display as a photo for the blog means a loss of clarity and an addition of artifacts.

  Sometimes a large page of text can be both distracting and mildly daunting.  The color of the book pages in the screenshot is due to my choice of 'Sepia' background as I prefer that to white when reading on a backlit LCD color device.  White on black is the 3rd option.  I've been using the 2-page format for the Kindle edition of my local newspaper too :-)

REVIEWS - a few excerpts.

CNET Editors - ...[Vs the iPad Mini and its many apps], the Fire HD 8.9’s lower pricing, superior streaming capability, and higher-resolution screen make it a better deal if you're looking for a media consumption device.  Especially if you're an Amazon Prime member...the Fire HD 8.9’s $299 entry price is a great deal... as the content and services Amazon provides are well worth the price...not as versatile as the iPad or top Android tablets...but it's ...the best media consumption tablet out there.

...The Kindle Fire line is still the strongest media consumption tablet line going, and this latest version is the best one yet." [See more at the very detailed CNET review page


Examiner.com's Daryl Deino - "While the [iPad 4 may have better specs, the Kindle Fire HD 8.9 is easily a better value, especially if your primary purpose for buying a tablet is consuming multimedia."

  [He notes the $200+ difference in price between the two.]

"... Text and pictures really pop out.  The colors could use a little more saturation, but they are much better than on most devices, including the Google Nexus 10."

  [He feels the iPad 4  "may be the most beautiful screen we have seen on a tablet" but then mentions "the two dreaded black bars above and below your widescreen videos since the iPad 4 has a 4:3 screen ratio."

  "Even though the Amazon Appstore has many useful apps, several important ones are missing.  However, you can easily download the apk files of many popular programs and install them through the ES File Explorer."

[And there you have a rare tech-reviewer who realizes that Kindle Fire owners can get apps from 3rd party stores and they're not tied to Amazon, as so many write.
  He recommends getting the Beta version of VLDC Media Player because Amazon's video player is limited in the formats it will play, but I recommend BSPlayer (which is in the Amazon store and plays just about every type of video format on the Kindle Fire HDs.]

  "The Hulu Plus and Netflix apps worked very well on a connection that was only 600kbps.  On many Android devices, such as the Galaxy Note 2 and the Galaxy S3, movies take a long time to load.  This isn't the case with the Kindle Fire HD 8.9."

  "The best part about watching videos on the Kindle Fire HD 8.9 is the Dolby stereo sound, which is very lifelike.  It's safe to say that because of the high resolution, good color reproduction and fantastic sound, the Kindle Fire HD 8.9 is definitely the best portable video player on the market today."  [I agree.]

  [Re iPads]  "... It is quite a pain to convert every movie to an iPad format and then upload it through iTunes. The 9.7-inch screen will crop your HD movies, unless you zoom in -- however, this makes the video look increasingly blurry."

 "...At $200 to $230 less than the iPad 4, the Kindle Fire HD 8.9 is a far better value. ...Watching movies with the Dolby stereo sound is a portable experience which will blow you away. You can't have this experience on the iPad 4."

  [He mentions the iPad's access to tons more apps and its "slightly faster processor."]

  "However, if you don't mind easily side-loading some apps on the Kindle Fire HD 8.9 and downloading others from the Amazon app store, you will have the best tablet money can buy."

  [Read more details, including battery life comparisons in the full review.]


MakeUseOf - "It’s a fantastic device and it comes with a very reasonable price tag when compared to the competition."


MobileTechReview's Lise Gade - "...an appealing budget tablet with better than budget features...with pleasing, accurate and rich colors."

  "...It's a member of the skinny tablet crowd...At 1.25 pounds it's relatively light for a large tablet and we didn't mind holding it when reading a book for a half hour."

  "...The micro HDMI output good quality audio and video in our tests with a Sony AV receiver, and we were able to watch Amazon Prime videos on the big screen using the tablet."

  "...The front camera delivers surprisingly sharp and bright video when using the included Skype for video chat.  It's one of the better mobile video chat cameras on the market, and the only thing that reduces quality is if you walk around while chatting (the camera has a hard time keeping up with quick background changes and sends out blocky video).  The mic picked up our voice and sent clear audio to our chat partner."

  "...The Kindle Fire HD models have remarkably good stereo speakers with Dolby audio...full and rich sounding with noticable channel separation.
  ... music is actually enjoyable through the speakers rather than sounding like the soft, hissy nastiness that we hear from most 7" tablets including the Nexus 7."

  "...It has solid though not cutting edge 3D performance.  It handily outperforms the Nvidia Tegra 2's GPU, but can't touch the quad core Tegra 3 with 12 core GeForce graphics."

  "...more than fast enough... from HD video playback to moderate gaming. Web browsing speeds are as good as on devices with much faster CPUs, and games on the Amazon App Store played perfectly. This isn't a tablet for cutting edge geeks who crave the fastest silicon in production... It's here to get a job done, and it does that job just fine."

  "...The Fire HD now has access to X-Ray for movies in addition to books, so you can get info about the movie and actors when watching an X-Ray compatible Amazon video (courtesy of IMDB, which Amazon owns)."

See a LOT more detail and points at Gade's very detailed, unusually thorough review


Engadget's Tim Stevens - "...The WiFi-only model includes the same MIMO wireless getup that we found to be quite impressive on the 7-inch Kindle Fire HD, offering better range, reception and performance than other tablets and smartphones we tried."


TheVerge's David Pierce - "...Where the 8.9 really shines is in its color reproduction, viewing angles, and brightness. While whites have the slightest tinge of yellow...blacks are incredibly deep...and create great contrast, so even the darkest scenes in The Dark Knight are watchable...this is one of the best displays out there, especially for watching video."

  "...dual speakers blast sound out the back of the device, and are among the best tablet speakers I've used...Dolby Digital seems to do most of the work here:  with the setting enabled, sound immediately becomes louder and richer, and comes through in better stereo."

  [Their model was laggy, with keyboard and any navigation.  Not my own experience and they felt it a software problem.  There have been a couple of software updates since then.
  They like the iPads and Nexus 7 better for the access to more apps.]

  "If you get most of your content through Amazon (and that's totally possible), the Kindle Fire HD is the best way to get it – the Prime Video experience is better on this device than any other I've tested, and if you make use of the HDMI port the tablet becomes a great Amazonian set-top box for your TV as well."

  [But, for the rest, "...for the content omnivore, or a person who wants a good email experience or a better browser or a more powerful suite of apps, Apple and Google's tablets are a better bet."]


PC Magazine's Sascha Segan - "Amazon has built a killer budget media tablet in the new Kindle Fire HD 8.9 ... Nope, it's no iPad.  But at this price, more than $200 less (for the base Wi-Fi model) than Apple's competing tablet, it doesn't have to be."

Sacha Segan continues, on "Multimedia" - "The Kindle Fire played all of our audio files, and the two Dolby-enhanced speakers on the sides are the richest and clearest I've heard on a tablet yet...Amazon's streaming and downloadable video store is the best in the industry."

  "With the Editors' Choice fourth-gen Apple iPad, you get more, but you spend more, too.  The iPad 4 is faster, with an even better screen, no lag, and many more apps.  It's the best large tablet on the market. At $499-$829, though, it's a lot more expensive.  The $329-$659 iPad mini gets you those apps for less cash, but at the cost of a significantly smaller and lower-quality screen."

  "The Kindle Fire also competes with a slew of Android tablets, including the $399-$499 Nexus 10, the $499-$599 Asus TF700 and the $499-$549 Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1."

  "The simplified Amazon interface makes the Kindle Fire easier to use than any of them, although the other Android tablets have a wider range of apps and media stores.  The Nexus 10 has the best specs, but the unit I tested was slow and buggy."

"...If you're counting your dollars, the Kindle Fire offers the most bang per buck so far."

Additional thoughts - If you want to use a tablet mainly as an e-reader, the 7" HD is likely to be your best bet, as it's easier to hold with one hand and costs less.   For watching movies, tv shows, Amazon Prime videos, Netflix or HuluPlus,  the 7" model is very good, but for impact and for magazine and easier reading of PDFs, the 8.9" screen is better.

An e-Ink reader is still the best for those just wanting a device for e-books, and the battery lasts a lot longer.


RELATED ARTICLES for the Kindle Fire HD 8.9" model
Adobe dropped support for mobile devices using Android 4.0.x and higher.  This has affected flash-viewing on the Google Nexus as well, and there are recommended solutions for both.
  . How to install Flash Player on the Kindle Fire (and Google Nexus)
  . Getting and installing non-Amazon apps

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Check often: Temporarily-free recently published Kindle books
  Guide to finding Free Kindle books and Sources.  Top 100 free bestsellers.  Liked-books under $1
UK-Only: recently published free books, bestsellers, or £5 Max ones
    Also, UK customers should see the UK store's Top 100 free bestsellers.

  *Click* to Return to the HOME PAGE.  Or click on the web browser's BACK button

Read More

A Round-up of Interesting Views from Kindle Fire Reviews (long) - UPDATE

ROUND-UP OF POINTS MADE IN KINDLE FIRE REVIEWS

All the Kindle Fire reviews started coming in last night, and almost every single review is detailed and quite long.  Somewhat off the topic, someone posted a review of the Kindle Touch 3G, and for the most part she missed the physical keyboard.  I would too because I like to see the full screen when I'm typing a note, and I find the clunky keyboard more reliable than touchscreen, for me.  But the new Touch Kindles are faster, from all reports.

  Prospective buyers and even those who have already bought a Kindle Fire should read all the pros and cons in the articles linked to here -- there are also helpful tips on using some of the features, besides.
  And even tips on bugs or glitches :-), both of which would be of interest to both groups.

So, although I'm choosing what I felt were stand-out points from the various reviews and will bold-face more unusual notes (especially one with an answer to a question often asked), I encourage going to the articles linked here.

  You'll see that some reviewers had disappointing sessions with the browser while others thought it was wonderful. I don't know whether that has to do with the amount of info-gathering the Silk browser requires before it knows which elements to serve up quickly, or whether some WiFi-setups are slower than others, but all the reviewers know what a normal, fast browsing situation is on the WiFi networks they use.  One reviewer I'm quoting seems to mainly just not like 7" tablets, but I've enjoyed my NookColor for over a year despite his complaints about the downsides of that size unit.  I find the size more 'handy' than the larger 10" and actually would not mind having both sizes for different circumstances, if the price is right.

---

MSNBC Technolog's Wilson Rothman
Headline: Kindle Fire review: Yes, it's that good

He points out that

' Because of the size, reading is easier than on an iPad, though kids' entertainment and other engrossing interactive content isn't as fun...
  [Another review pointed out you can't pinch-zoom in the Children's books.]
. . .
  And because the Fire is widescreen, unlike the more 4x3 iPad, videos look almost as big as they do on Apple's much larger device.  As far as screen quality goes, it's on par with the iPad.  In other words, as an opening move, hardware-wise, Amazon's getting it right.
. . .
  Speaking of fluid, the Fire's Silk browser is nice and quick, and only gets faster as it wises up to your browsing patterns...And though it tends to trigger the mobile versions of websites, it has few problems with the full versions, including embedded video and other features.
  [I also read that you can choose 'mobile' or 'desktop' mode]
. . .
  But for Apple, this still spells trouble. The Kindle Fire can handle about 80 percent of what I want to do on an iPad, for 40 percent of the price. And much of what's missing won't be missing for long... '

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Engadget's Tim Stevens
Headline: Amazon Kindle Fire review (That's straightforward!)

  The first thing that struck me is:
    "What isn't so impressive is the 169 ppi pixel density.  With more and more smartphones starting to offer 1280 x 800 resolutions in [smaller] displays, we might have hoped for a bit more here."

  The larger iPad has lower pixel density at 132 ppi though, and the Kindle Fire pixel density is identical to what's on the 7" Nook Tablet, both of which have this somewhat heavier density on a smaller device than the iPad, which is a good thing :-)  I've considered the NookColor the best looking screen of the 7" Android-based devices I'd seen in the last year.

  I think that many have been quite happy with the $500 basic iPad's lesser pixel density even for that larger space.  And the review, remember, is of a $200 device vs the usual $400-$600 ones.

  And then, "...a dual-core 1GHz TI OMAP chip, but here paired with only 512MB of RAM.  Perhaps it's the step down from the standard 1GB ..."

    But the iPad has only 512MB of RAM also ...

Stevens was trying to understand why "the Fire never delivers smooth, seamless performance." It's hard to say because reviewers run the gamut of reactions here.

  Commenters to his review wrote that the iPad doesn't acknowledge Flash and so doesn't even attempt to load Flash.  They add that he could have disabled the Flash option on the Kindle Fire to give a more equivalent look at what each device was loading, or not.   I didn't, though, notice any empty rectangles on the iPad indicating flash was used in the test pages.  I've seen the video only once so didn't look for that.

What is very useful (pro OR con about the Fire) is Engadget's VIDEO demos -- there are two of them:

  DEMO 1 of just the Kindle Fire: It's not quite 6 minutes and is a very good overview, but the demo is badly lit.  The demonstrator is clear and quick, but the camera person overexposed the lighting so that the demo person's hands are ghostly white.

    As a result of that poor lighting, the device doesn't show what would be the expected contrast or definition.

  DEMO 2 of A comparison of the iPad2, the Kindle Fire, and Samsung Galaxy 7" loading various webpages.  Also shown is the smooth, easy scrolling of the iPad via multiple touch while the other two are less smooth.

---

Mashable Tech's Lance Ulanoff
Headline: Amazon Kindle Fire, iPad's First True Competitor

Excerpts:

' It’s not an iPad slayer, but it could be the first tablet to ably stand atop Mount Tabulous (or at least on a rock ledge just a few dozen feet lower) with Apple’s industry-dominating slab computer.

This is a product I wanted to love... now I’m discovering it’s a somewhat flawed gadget...
...
Kindle Fire is a tablet that simply works...From the moment you turn it on ...to the minute you start watching a movie on the device and then continue watching on your HDTV — without connecting the device to the TV — you’re hooked...smart tablet with a fully thought-out ecosystem...
. . .
The speakers...can blast out near-room-filling-sound...
. . .
This interface is not always optimized for 1024×600 resolution on a 7-inch screen. While the bookshelf and items on it are large, some of the controls are tiny...
. . .
  ...you can pinch and zoom, but then you’re only seeing part of the page.

  [This is true of the NookColor too.  But at least there are in-between sizes, and usually the segment of the page that I want to read fits in the zoomed-in area.]

 ...The device also does its own minicrashes. It does not shut down, but simply drops you out of what you were doing...To be fair, my iPad 1 crashes a fair amount -- though the crashes are all related to third-party apps, and not the native Apple iOS...
. . .
Most of these gripes are minor, and to fully appreciate the Amazon Kindle Fire, you have to step back and look at all you’re getting for $199 (the base 16GB iPad is $499, the Nook Tablet $249). This is a highly polished device and collection of services...
. . .
It is the closest tablet I’ve seen yet to an Apple iPad: a consistent, well-thought out marriage of hardware and services that offer an almost frictionless environment for app purchase and content consumption.  This is why the iPad has been so successful and why I think the Kindle Fire, despite its imperfections, is a winner, too.'

---

Gizmodo's Sam Biddle
Headline: The iPad Finally Has Serious Competition

As much as I do quote here, there is more at Biddle's article, so do go to the link for that.

It opens with:

' The Kindle Fire is stuck between e-ink minimalism and gleaming iPad decadence...  But the Fire will not be overlooked. Apple: Be afraid.

And what a piece it is, right?  ...a gorgeous 7-inch, 16-million color display beaming a custom Amazonian Android build, made specifically for Kindle's essence.

From the minute you turn it on, the device is puzzlingly simple.

You don't have to think about how to use the Fire...

Reading, watching, browsing, and listening on the Fire are all tremendous, easy fun.  Books, even very long ones, spring open quickly; page turning is, most of the time, very responsive.
...
...for a conventional LCD, it looks about as great as you can expect -- after hours of reading on a dark train, my eyes felt fine.  Graphics-rich magazines look lush, even when their pages don't quite fill the screen.  If you don't care so much about glossy layout, the Fire bakes in a stripped-down text mode, a la Instapaper.

...Silk?  It works just as well as Amazon said -- pages rendered fine and rapidly, thanks to the cloud-crunching,

[ Note how different the experience is for the various reviewers! ]

and can be bookmarked, emailed (via Amazon's capable little native client), Facebook shared—and yes, tabbed.
  [Re Silk]  Pinch it!  Zoom it!  It's great.  The best part is it'll only become faster as more beings start caching their online journeys for the rest of us.
. . .
...I said the Fire is very responsive, most of the time. Most of the time, yes.  But when it's not, it's awful.  There's absolutely no excuse for a machine with these guts to be unable to turn pages with zero lag...
. . .
Simply, the Fire is a wonderful IRL compliment to Amazon's digital abundance.  It's a terrific, compact little friend, and -- is this even saying anything? -- the best Android tablet to date. '

---

Wired's Jon Phillips
Headline: Is This Really the Tablet Everyone's Talking About?

This is fairly snarky, expecting the Kindle Fire to do, at $200, what the iPad can do for $500.  The reviewer doesn't like any 7" screen.  Everything he says about the drawbacks of magazine-viewing is true for my 7" NookColor.

  He writes that it doesn't match "the standards of the world's best tablets," (which, he doesn't mention, cost $500-$600).  And he says this right after informing us that it's being sold at "an insanely low price."  I don't know about others, but I don't expect a small car for a single person will match the standards of the world's best (larger) cars (or vice versa).

  He found web browsing "preternaturally slow," which is a valid concern, but he immediately follows that by pointing out what we already knew, the lack of a camera, 3G data connectivity, and a slot for removable storage, all of which would be nice but would raise the price (as we've seen with other devices).

  As mentioned, Silk developers say that browser processes depend on knowing the users' (collective) previous go-to's in order to load the pages faster, so it's not going to be as fast at first as when it has the information it needs.   In the Kindle announcements demo in September, they probably had all the browsed-to pages already 'known' of course.

I remember that the Nook Tablet was considered sluggish in a review too.  It's been a feature of Androids, relative to the iPad.

  That 7" problem
  The point that magazines and web-page-reading require zoom-in's to read text when you're in portrait mode particularly, is very true on a 7."  I'm used to that after a year with the NookColor.  It's a trade-off for not having to carry around the larger 10"-er. His statement that "The Fire's 7-inch, 1024x600 screen is too small for many key tablet activities" is an assessment of a category of devices.  But it's a reaction others will have too, so it should be heeded.

  He adds though that It's also a winning video playback device that uses Netflix, Hulu Plus, and Amazon’s own digital storefront to deliver hundreds of thousands of movies and TV shows, many of them free.

  Another reminder by Phillips: "The Kindle’s 7-inch screen is still too small for any semblance of an immersive reading experience — even if that reading experience mostly involves looking at pictures."  Well, I have to say that I've enjoyed my photography and history-focused books with illustrations on the 7" NookColor. [Note to those who would buy the NookColor (Version 1) because of its now $199 price -- it cannot do Netflix, B&N says. I'd pay the extra $50 and go with the new one if wanting a Nook, if Netflix (or speed) is important.

  Video
  He does like the video feature. "...the Fire atones with a good deed in video playback.  The Fire’s wide-aspect-ratio video content plays in a 7-inch window.  While this window isn’t 720p (and therefore not true HD), it still holds up well to the 720p windows of the 9.7-inch iPad (9 inches at 720p) and all those 10.1-inch Android 3.0 tablets (9.75 inches at 720p)."

  Despite his web-browsing problems, "video playback was blissfully uneventful as far as framerate hiccups."  As most of us know, this is where one generally sees problems, much more so than in normal web browsing.

 He also found the quality "serviceable to good and considers the offerings a "fantastic wealth of video options..."
. . .
  "...a telling indicator of why so many people avoided 7-inch tablets the first time they were floated to the public last year: They suck for web browsing. And that’s a problem because web browsing is a key tablet responsibility."

  Yet I have happily web browsed on a 7" for a year! And, from what I read on BN forums, so have others.  Eventually, there'll be some who haven't tried a 7" who will eventually agree with him though, so I guess there is good reason to pound it home.

  A bit of rigidity creeps or stomps in when he says about music-playing on the tablet, "But is a 7-inch tablet a convenient portable music player? No, our smartphones and iPods own this function.  Case closed."

    What happened to the idea of one device doing a number of things we like, and saving us carrying weight?

  Personal Documents feature
  A number of Kindle owners have celebrated Amazon providing 5 free gigs of space for *personal* (non-Amazon) personal docs.  That includes our Word docs, straight text, and PDFs.  When I see interesting Web info I often copy a set of info I want to read at leisure into a Doc file and send it to my Kindle. I consider this a real feature.  People add recipes, etc (see Creative uses of the Kindle - a forum discussion).

  This means that if we want, Amazon backs these up on servers when we send them to the Kindle and we can re-download them if needed - it's a backup and of course material we can share with others.
  But, we can also sync the reading of these now, between the various Kindle-compatible devices, something long-requested by Kindle owners.  This includes NON-Amazon books that are not rights-protected.
  B&N will not back up non-B&N material nor sync the reading of them.

 What does Phillips have to say about this?
    "Huzzah.  More than anything, it seems like the user interface designers at Amazon wanted to fill a hole in the Fire’s main menu, so they added Docs as a placeholder."

His advice is to wait for Kindle Fire 2 or consider an iPad (for more than twice the cost).

---

CNet's Donald Bell
Headline: Amazon Kindle Fire : CNET Editors' review

This seems to be an expansion of an early "review" presented mid_October,
along with customer reviews dated back then, saying CNet should wait for a working
unit.  But the 'final marks' are dated Nov. 11/13-11/15.  Excerpts:

'The bottom line: Though it lacks the tech specs found on more-expensive Apple and Android tablets, the $199 Kindle Fire is an outstanding entertainment value that prizes simplicity over techno-wizardry.
. . .
... Fortunately, for those of you unwilling to shell out $500 for an Apple iPad 2, and wary of buying a piece of junk, Amazon's $199 Kindle Fire tablet should be at the top of your wish list.
. . .
The other good news is that Amazon's services don't suck. Their music store is absolutely on par with iTunes in terms of selection, and their prices are cheaper in most cases...
. . .
And then there's video.  In my view, this is where Amazon's tablet really shines...when it comes to watching video, the Kindle Fire's combination of 7-inch IPS screen and a one-click library of TV shows and movies (not to mention Flash-based Web content) is an unmatched proposition.
. . .
...Amazon hasn't included any parental controls on the Kindle...
...
I also have to give a nod to the Kindle Fire's audio quality. Amazon doesn't include any headphones with the Kindle Fire, so you might not trip across the Kindle's audio quality right away.  Most budget-priced Android tablets (and a surprising number of high-end models) are plagued with a noisy headphone amp stage.  The Kindle doesn't offer any high-tech sound enhancements or EQ settings, but the fact that they managed to pull off a clean, quiet headphone output is a rare accomplishment at this price.
. . .
I don't live in a fantasy world where people are offering me free iPads. I live in a world where even $199 sounds like a lot of money.  In that world, I applaud Amazon for making the best tablet value on the market.

Bell has tons more at the article.

---

PC Magazine's Sascha Segan
Headline: Amazon Kindle Fire Review & Rating
Excerpts:

'  Pros
Incredible value for the price. Sharp, bright, hi-res screen. Extremely easy to use. Free cloud storage for Amazon content  [Actually, for NON-Amazon content too.]
  Cons
Sometimes sluggish. Screen can be very reflective. Limited on-device storage.
  Bottom Line
The first easy-to-use, affordable small-screen tablet, the Amazon Kindle Fire is revolutionary.

The Amazon Kindle Fire puts the Apple iPad on notice. The Fire is the first small tablet that average users can pick up and immediately use, with a simple, clear interface.  Then there's the price:  Android along with amazing specs for just $199.

  It's open enough to attract geeks, too. While the user interface occasionally gets sluggish, we're willing to have a bit of patience to get a first-rate tablet for half of what most competitors charge, thus the Kindle Fire is our first Editors' Choice for small tablets.

...you may have trouble reading in bright light because of the screen's sometimes mirror-like gloss...
. . .
[ Re Children's books] They look like straight flatbed scans, and you can't zoom in or out and there's no text-to-speech support there.  That's a less appealing experience than you get on the Nook, at least for now.
. . .
I also played my own media. The Kindle Fire handles MP3, AAC, and OGG music, including album art.  For video, it plays H.264 and MPEG4 only, at resolutions up to 1080p.  There's no Bluetooth stereo support, HDMI out, or way to connect the Kindle to a TV; Amazon would rather you play its cloud content through an Amazon-enabled set-top box like a TiVo.


[ MOST IMPORTANT QUESTION ANSWERED ]
A few apps I looked for, like Opera Mobile, weren't there, but there's another way to get apps onto the device.

This is still Android, and this tablet isn't locked down.  Plug the Kindle Fire into a PC or Mac and it pops up as a disk drive; you can drag and drop files into the 6.5GB of available memory at will.  For the tech-savvy, it's a simple task to extract any APK program file from an Android phone and drop it onto the Fire.  Amazon's app store includes the free Easy Installer, which lets you then install those apps on the Fire.

I installed a dozen free and paid apps from my HTC Sensation 4G ($199, 4 stars) phone...[several named, see article] all worked fine. The Gmail app and the official Facebook app (which I sideloaded) both crashed and wouldn't run during my test period.  Amazon hasn't yet expressed any problem with users rooting this device, so hack away.

[In fact, Amazon Silk Browser project director, Jon Jenkins, has said they're not actively stopping people from rooting it, just not helping them with it.  "It's going to get rooted, and what you do after you root it is up to you..."   Sascha Segan (who got that quote earlier) continues...]

Curiously, the Barnes & Noble Nook Android app runs beautifully if you prefer that store's book selection, although it can't download or read books that are restricted to the actual Nook tablets like most childrens books.

[ Something important to know ]
  Although the browser doesn't automatically reformat zoomed columns to avoid horizontal scrolling, double-tapping on a column of text zooms that column to the width of the screen.  [My NookColor does this also.]

You get [basic programs] and the Docs reader, which can turn Office documents into Kindle-readable versions.  Fortunately, better alternatives to everything are available in Amazon's app store.

[ See his article to get his recommendations for those. ]

[ Also see his paragraph on the bugs he encountered too.  He ends that with "Overall, though?  Pretty great for a $200 tablet."]

I can't emphasize this "ease of use" thing enough.  More than anything else, that's what's been holding non-iPad tablets back.  Amazon cracked it.  End of story.

I feel safe awarding it our Editors' Choice for small tablets. If the Nook lives up to its promise, it will also be a great tablet, and may get the same rating. But the Kindle Fire will still be a winner, if not the only winner, for this holiday season.

---

The Verge's Joshua Topolsky (article used by Washington Post too)
Headline: Amazon gets into the tablet game in a big way
Headline 2 - WashingtonPost: Changing the landscape of the tablet game

After pointing out that the Kindle Fire is "just incredibly unoriginal" (it's modeled after RIM's Blackberry PlayBook), Topolsky writes:

' It's got enough heft that it feels substantial, but it's not so heavy that you feel strain when holding it for extended periods.   Unlike the 1.3 pound iPad 2, I never felt fatigue after reading a book or magazine on the Fire.
. . .
After using this device and then going back to the iPad 2, I was struck at how big and bulky Apple's tablet feels.

Amazon says that the new browser will speed up load times because it offloads some of the work to the cloud.  I didn’t see much of a performance boost, and in fact, the iPad 2 and other Android tablets often outperformed the Fire.
. . .
If you're a Gmail user, you'll be happy to know that the device automatically sets up your mail as an Exchange account, thus allowing for push updates.

...you also get multiple message management as well as the ability to view a unified inbox which aggregates multiple accounts.
...
The Fire relies predominately on streaming to get your content, meaning that if your connection is slow or you're out of Wi-Fi range, you're pretty much out of luck. You can sideload content, but I get the impression that mounting a drive on your computer and dumping files into it isn't what Amazon really had in mind when they made the Fire.
...
If you are storing lots of music and movies on the device, you're going to have to get into management of those files pretty quickly, and that can make for an unpleasant experience.

Minor complaints aside, my main takeaway from the Fire on the process of finding and purchasing content is this:

  Amazon has done it better and more elegantly than anyone else in the space right now, and I hope the competition follows suit.

[ He was "underwhelmed" with browser performance though. ]

...You're probably familiar with Whispersync for Kindle books, which lets you leave off in a specific place on one device, and then pick up in that same place on another.

  For the Kindle Fire, Amazon has extended the feature to video, which means that you can now pause something you're watching online or on a Roku, TV, or other box equipped with an Amazon Video application, and pick it up on your Fire, or vice versa.
. . .
Still, there's no question that the Fire is a really terrific tablet for its price...The device is decently designed, and the software — while lacking some polish — is still excellent compared to pretty much anything in this range (and that includes the Nook Color).

At any rate, I was amazed by the range of reactions expressed in these reviews.
Each article has more, so please visit the links to learn more of what they saw, tested, and describe in even more detail.  I think I may have missed a video in one or two of them too.

---

UPDATE: Jessalyn of MyKindleStuff sent a thorough review
by the Chicago Sun-Times's Andy Ihnatko
Headline: REVIEW: Kindle Fire is no iPad killer -- but it is a killer device

  I could just send you to the the full article at the link, since we have a large set here, but there are statements that pop out, and Kindle Edition subscribers can't read some webpages that easily. So, excerpts:

' Take an iPad, solve its two biggest problems, and you’d hope to wind up with something exactly like Amazon’s Kindle Fire. '
...the Fire packs 169 pixels per inch to the iPad’s 132.  Under magnification, the difference is obvious.  In real-world use, the added density simply helps to make up for the paperback-sized page layout.  Neither device can hold a candle to e-Ink and its true print-quality resolution...
. . .
...Seven inches is a Goldilocks screen size for many uses...
...Amazon Instant Video and the Lending Library aren’t exactly an infinite buffet of content, but there’s loads of great stuff in there...

... The EFF notes some important concerns, but on their site they say that they’re “generally satisfied with the privacy design of Silk.”
  Between the EFF’s reports and my conversations with Amazon, I’m cautiously satisfied with the safety of Silk.

  Ironically, the optimization delivers at least one privacy benefit: because the connection between the Fire and Amazon is always encrypted, the optimized Silk is far safer to use over an open, unencrypted WiFi connection than it is with the cloud optimizations turned off.

  ...its ability to use documents and data from outside the Amazon store ecosystem. Here, the Fire earns high marks...

  boatloads of onboard storage is far less important to a Kindle Fire user than it is to a Nook user, thanks to the Fire’s intimate connection to Amazon’s cloud services.  8 gigs is enough for several books, a few movies, a couple of TV shows, several hundred songs, and a pile of photos.
  That might not necessarily be enough to last you a couple of weeks, but it’ll certainly last until you find yourself near a hotspot and can swap out the stuff you’re sick of for some alternatives.  [Only 6.5 Gigs are available for consumer files though.]

  [ Important - Another answer to a question often asked ]
  You can tick a checkbox in its Settings to allow the Fire to run apps downloaded from any arbitrary source (such as, downloading from a website or an independent repository)

  [ Also: ]
  I now have what I’ve always wanted: a Kindle that can open and read ePUB books.  Mantano even supports Adobe DRM . . . so at least in theory, the Kindle Fire can even import the books you might have bought from a competing digital shop, such as the Google eBookstore.

  [ He shows that work is needed on accessibility features. ]

  Finally, there’s an Android-based tablet computer that people can justly get excited about. '

Believe it or not, I've left out 90% of the article, so visit the article to get much more info.



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