A few years ago Dallas said he was going to get me a Kindle for Christmas, but I kind of hemmed and hawed and said I didn’t really need it. When the Kindle Fire came out late last year, my ears kind of perked. It is more than an e-reader, it has many of the apps that I have on my iPhone and that you can get for your iPad, it has a web browser, you can play video and music and do all kinds of things. And I love the iPad (Dallas has one for work and I’ve designed iPad aps), but the Kindle Fire costs several hundred dollars less than an iPad. A couple of our friends got Kindle Fires over the last couple months and I got to get my hands on it and try it out. I really liked it…

Long story short, I’d been talking a lot about the Kindle Fire, but Dallas knew I probably would never buy it for myself… so he surprised me and bought it for me. He told me he was going to buy a new, bigger computer monitor and when I came home from the gym I went into the office to see the new monitor, I thought, “What the? That looks the same size.” Then my eyes drifted over a few inches and I saw the Kindle Fire!

So, I’ve had a weekend to use it now, and I really like it. I like how it’s smaller than the iPad and I can hold it by both edges with one hand. I also like its smaller size in my purse. I’ve been reading books a lot on it and find it pretty comfortable to read on. I still have to do the outside test, though. You’ve probably noticed me taking all my Words With Friends turns very quickly – I’ve been playing on this new device!. Some of the screens on the Kindle Fire kind of annoy me. Like how you can’t rearrange the order of apps or books, except to sort by name or date used, but they don’t annoy me too much yet.

One of the reasons I thought I didn’t want an e-reader was because I bought used books for really cheap, like $0.75, and when you buy an e-book, they’re full price. The thing I have been enjoying is that you can get a sample of pretty much every book to try before you buy. I was buying books for really cheap before (mostly on Half.com), but then when I got them, sometimes I just wouldn’t like them. Reading a sample chapter or two before committing to the full-priced book has eased my mind a bit. And how cool it is it to have as many books as you want available to you at all times on this one little device?

Sure, the Kindle Fire doesn’t have a camera or 3G and some of the other things that the iPad has. But I don’t really need another camera. And I haven’t been missing the other features so far. I still wanted the Kindle Fire mainly to use as an e-reader. The other things are gravy. I think for what you pay, it’s a great functionality compromise. Overall, I’m really liking the Kindle Fire.

P.S. I just read that in just 3 months since its launch, the Kindle Fire has become the most popular Android tablet. Which leads me to another thought: This is my first Adroid device and it’s been interesting to see how the interface compares and contrasts to iOS.

[Read more →]