Amazon’s $199 Kindle Fire arrived in the hands of early adopters this week, and we were among those who preordered following the announcement seven weeks ago. Now that it’s safely arrived in our hands, we’ve started poking, prodding and yes, tapping the Kindle Fire to give MacLife.com readers a quick look at this new budget-conscious, seven-inch Android-based tablet.
The tech press has been whipped up into a frenzy over the Kindle Fire, which many bill as Amazon’s “iPad killer.” After months of rumors about its very existence, CEO Jeff Bezos finally took to the stage in late September to confirm the Kindle Fire was indeed real. This week, the tablet finally arrived in the hands of eager early adopters, on its way to even more consumers this holiday season thanks to the bargain-basement price of only $199.
Our Kindle Fire arrived in an unassuming plain brown box containing only the diminutive tablet, an AC adapter and a little brown “getting started” card which you can see in the photo gallery below. (There’s also a manual, but it’s in the Docs app on the device itself). After using an iPad for nearly two years and a variety of 10-inch tablets such as the Asus Transformer and HP TouchPad, the Kindle Fire looks positively tiny by comparison. Despite Apple’s aversion to the form factor, a seven-inch tablet definitely has its advantages and makes for a nice fit somewhere between a smartphone and the iPad.
Anyone familiar with the mostly shunned BlackBerry PlayBook will be right at home with the Fire, which reportedly uses the exact same design template but completely different components inside. A pair of stereo speakers are embedded at the top, which is a little jarring at first after being used to the sound coming from the opposite side with the iPad. You’ll have to get used to it, though -- video only plays in landscape mode and can’t be rotated, so the audio will always be coming from the left side.
Steve Jobs may have been mocked over the years for his pursuit of single-button devices, but the iPad looks downright button-heavy by comparison to the Kindle Fire, which sports exactly one small bump at the bottom of the unit (doing double-duty for power and sleep mode). It lights up when the Fire powers on or when the device is brought out of sleep. The rest of the magic is all in the software, including navigation back to the home screen, rotation lock or changing volume.
Next to the power button is a 3.5mm stereo headphone jack and a micro-USB 2.0 port for charging or loading your own content. Plug it in, unlock the screen and the Kindle Fire will mount as a mass-storage device on your desktop -- no drivers required -- where you can drag and drop DRM-free music, video and other media. There’s only 8GB of onboard storage (and only 6.54GB of actually available when you unbox it), so you’ll likely want to take advantage of the many streaming solutions available (more on those in a moment).
Kindle Fire has a great feel to it with a slightly rubberized back side that makes holding its svelte 14.6 ounces quite easily for extended periods of time compared to the iPad 2’s 1.33 pounds. It’s downright obese compared with the rest of the Kindle line, but that’s to be expected under the circumstances. The tablet powers up in a respectable 38 seconds, and on first boot you’re prompted for a Wi-Fi connection. Since ours came directly from Amazon, we didn’t even have to sign in to get started -- after a required software update and reboot, the Fire greeted us by name and we were ready to go with all of our Amazon content ready and waiting (a nice touch).
The “slide to unlock” feature requires a right-to-left swipe -- a small bit of finger gymnastics after using iOS devices for so long. Once inside, you’re greeted by the Fire main menu, a dark grey virtual bookcase where your content resides. There’s a menu bar at top with current time at center and Wi-Fi/battery status at right (tap here to access settings), a search field just below, then shortcuts for Newsstand, Books, Music, Video, Docs, Apps and Web, a carousel of recently viewed items and finally, a shelf for up to four Favorites, which expands with another shelf when you add more.
If that layout doesn’t sound familiar, it’s because Amazon has gone out of its way to disguise (or even advertise) that the Fire is actually running Android 2.3 Gingerbread -- in fact, you won’t see it listed anywhere, including under the Device settings. Amazon wants this to be its own experience (“Kindroid, anyone?), and they’ve done a great job of doing so, making the often labyrinthine stock Android experience far more user friendly.
The Fire comes preloaded with several apps: Pulse News Reader (which sadly doesn’t yet support syncing content from other devices, but it’s promised soon), IMDb, Amazon Shop, Audible, QuickOffice, Gallery (for photos you add to the device), Contacts and Email. Facebook is also here, but it’s simply a shortcut to the mobile browser version. Otherwise, the built-in apps are all quite good, and the web browser itself feels as fast as Mobile Safari and maybe a touch faster than the stock Android solution. For everything else, there’s the built-in Amazon Appstore, since Amazon has likewise chosen to shun the entire Google ecosystem in favor of its own -- not surprising, considering they’re an e-tailer themselves.
There’s no doubt that Amazon’s Appstore has far less content than Google’s Android Market, which is not available on the Fire (enterprising hackers are already hard at work on this dilemma). However, Amazon has been sweet talking developers into submitting their apps to Appstore as well as Google Market, although it’s unlikely we’ll ever see officially sanctioned Google apps such as YouTube, Voice, Google+ or Gmail here (users can add their Gmail account via the built-in Email app, of course). Amazon’s bonus trump card is their “free app of the day” promotion, which has offered up goodies like Read It Later Pro and Plants vs. Zombies in the past.
So what’s available from Amazon Appstore? If you already use apps like Evernote, Pandora, The Weather Channel or Box.net on other platforms, you’ll find them all here, along with streaming giants Hulu Plus and Netflix. Unfortunately, there’s still plenty missing, including solid apps for Google Reader (such as Reeder for iOS), Twitter and Instapaper -- although third-party offerings such as TweetCaster and InstaFetch aren’t half bad in the meantime. Magazine app Zinio proudly boasted its availability on Amazon Appstore, but it wouldn’t show up in the Appstore for us -- we had to sideload it for now using instructions posted on Zinio’s website. The same goes for apps like media streamer Plex, which is available from Amazon but marked as incompatible with the Kindle Fire for reasons unknown to even the developer. (These issues are likely to get cleared up in time.)
If you’re already deeply connected with Amazon’s various services, the Kindle Fire will be a no-brainer for you. That includes Instant Video for streaming video, Amazon MP3 with Cloud Player for music, Newsstand for magazines and of course, Kindle for e-books. These are really the stars of this show -- particularly Instant Video, which until now didn’t have a client app for any mobile platform, which makes it an exclusive for now. (Cloud Player is available through the Amazon MP3 Android app or any HTML5 web browser.)
If you subscribe to Amazon’s $79 per year Prime service which gives you free two-day shipping from almost everything on the company’s website, you not only get unlimited video streaming for thousands of movies and TV shows, but you’ll also enjoy the new Kindle Owner’s Lending Library, which is exclusive to Kindle device owners with Amazon Prime. Of course, you can also buy or rent Instant Video titles that aren’t available free, but only at SD resolution -- even if you view them on another HD-capable device such as the Roku. (A free month of Amazon Prime is included with Fire, but only for new customers.)
Comparisons to the iPad are inevitable, so let’s get them out of the way. The Kindle Fire isn’t quite as touch responsive as the iPad, and the screen isn’t quite as crystal clear as Apple’s media darling. That said, the Fire looks and sounds quite good for the money, besting some of the tablets costing twice as much (or more). There are a few glitches left to iron out -- for example, you currently can’t change the volume while viewing video in the Hulu Plus app. Some apps like iHeartRadio (for listening to terrestrial radio stations over the internet) may be offered in Amazon Appstore, but clearly haven’t been tested on the Fire. (On launch, the app notifies you there’s a newer version but it’s not available, then locks up while trying to connect with Facebook to sync your favorite stations.)
Overall, the Kindle Fire is a pretty solid device compared to other Android tablets already duking it out in the marketplace. At $199, the Fire is more likely to be an impulse buy or gift for a loved one, where the $499 price of entry for competitors (including the iPad) is more likely to make potential buyers budget their money first. Amazon has done an admirable job of creating their own mobile device experience -- familiar enough to be comfortable for previous Kindle owners, yet vastly improved over stock Android. It may not be the ultimate tablet, but for brainless, fun media consumption, it hits all the right spots (especially with your wallet) and is likely to only get better over time with software updates.
We’ve got a full review of the Kindle Fire coming up soon, but in the meantime check out a gallery of the device in action below!
Follow this article’s author, J.R. Bookwalter on Twitter
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Bownse
November 23, 2011 at 1:51pm
Given the actual end-cost of the iPad to anyone I know who has one, the $199 price is much less than half price for about 80% of the functionality. That's darned good return on investment.
If you already have a Kindle and/or do your shopping with Amazon (at least part of your shopping), then jump that % even higher.
If being off-grid for more than 10 movies worth of viewing (what it holds approximately) then maybe I'm watching too much video and should read more. ;)
lessilb
November 21, 2011 at 5:00pm
I received my Kindle Fire on the 18th and sent it back the following day. Although I like the feel of it and felt positive about the apps and the viewing and reading experience, the deal breaker was the insufficient memory which significantly limits its usefulness for me. The 5+ GB available for loading music and videos into the Fire is woefully small. If I wish to watch videos offline (for instance on a transatlantic flight), there's not enough room for books, videos and music to keep me happy for 7 hours in the absence of a wifi connection. An SD card for increased storage would have been a better idea but for now, I'll stick with my iPad. I've looked at the Nook but the extra $50 plus the cost of a memory card takes it too far from the "impulse buy". I'll wait for the next version (or a 7" iPad).
