Amazon Kindle Fire Review

Kindle Fire, Full Color 7" Multi-touch Display, Wi-Fi
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When you have a product that was synonymous with digital books such as the Kindle - people tend to take notice when you try to expand your horizons to areas which you haven't been known for and try to see if lightning does strikes twice. The kindle fire was Amazon's first foray to tablets that was introduced to us late last year and from a sales point of view: it has been a big hit for Amazon. The kindle line of e-ink ebook readers while not known for aesthetic superiority in both hardware design and software interface was a big hit. The simplicity of the product, the company's reputation for stellar customer service and best in class price point made it a juggernaut in its field. The ethos that made its Kindle brothers successful was brought along into the Fire with mixed result.

The specs if you look at it was downright underwhelming: Close to a pound in weight (14.6 oz), 1 GHz dual core processor, 8 GBs of Hard Drive space (6.5 GBs available for sideloading your personal files), 512 MB of RAM, 1024 x 600 IPS screen that's more prone to glare compared to other tablets and a design that borrowed heavily from RIM's Blackberry Playbook that it's downright pedestrian as design goes. The mediocre aspect of the design and feel of the product made it feel rushed so that it could be released when the holiday season arrived last year.

While the User Interface was elegant and simple, the OS which uses Android Gingerbread as base was downright pathetic when first shipped with the tablet. It lagged, crashed and froze...a lot. The silk browser does not deliver on its promise and tends to be more bug filled as it crashed most of the time and old tabs tend to reappear from time to time even if you close it to name a few. The carousel feature back then also was a problem since you cannot delete the items from appearing in the UI and swiping to go to the next item tends to be jerky. The deficiency and shortcomings of the software was in part because of Google's open source software which is a resource hog and Amazon's growing pains as a first time OS designer.

The past couple of months though has brought improvements to the OS though as Amazon fixes these bugs. The main UI has improved by being more seamless when you use it as it doesn't lag as much anymore. The ability to remove items in your carousel was also introduced though it would be advisable for Amazon to introduce a feature where you can have the item you open not appear in your carousel instead of constantly deleting them one by one every time you open them.

While my review showcases more of the negative aspects of the product - I still recommend the product for others to buy. The reason I've loved the product was because of the tight integration of the services Amazon offers here. The books, music, TV shows and movies you bought are in the cloud. The app store which is still in its infancy is also tightly controlled and has more quality control compared to the Android store. The usual competitive prices and amazing customer service also brings a lot to the table.

If you have $200 to spare and you like Amazon's ecosystem - this product is a must buy, but for it to be as successful as its e-ink Kindle brothers...it needs to improve the quality and ergonomics of its hardware and software design.

3.5/5 Rating