Amazon's new tablet, the Kindle Fire

[dfagdfsh]

so to fire users, some questions:

1. is this thing worth it without amazon prime?
2. can i stream from hulu+?
3. is it good as just a tablet? I don't really see myself reading books
4. ... and, can you torrent books?

 

[Jr Mouse]



so to fire users, some questions:

1. is this thing worth it without amazon prime?
2. can i stream from hulu+?
3. is it good as just a tablet? I don't really see myself reading books
4. ... and, can you torrent books?

1. Yes, but you take away one of the nicest features. Plus you miss out on the free shipping...
2. Yup! There is an app.
3. Yes it can be enjoyed, but the size does lend itself well to e-books.
4. I believe you can load any content that's in a readable file format to the Amazon Cloud and also sideload stuff.

 

[cioni2k]



so to fire users, some questions:

1. is this thing worth it without amazon prime?
2. can i stream from hulu+?
3. is it good as just a tablet? I don't really see myself reading books
4. ... and, can you torrent books?

1. Yes absolutely. My Prime one-month trial just ended and I won't be renewing. The content for digital VOD streaming just isn't there yet. I do like what they are doing as perks such as free 2-day shipping and 1 free book a month with the Lenders Library, but not enough at the moment to warrant the $79 price tag for me. You can still purchase movie/tv-show rentals and streams through the market without a prime account, I believe (someone correct me if I'm wrong). Also there is a Netflix app for TVshows/Movies streaming which works very very well and has a larger library at the moment. I imagine we'll probably see a Crackle app in the future which is good for the occasional movie stream, and there is always Hulu+ as well.
2. Yes, there is an official Hulu+ app available for free through the Amazon App Store
3. Its good as a tablet. I use it as a tablet and ereader for when I travel. Browsing is good for sitting on the couch or in bed, and there are a bunch of cool other available features/apps that you would want out of a tablet (Netflix, Hulu+, Android Games, Productivity apps (Word, Excel, PDF, etc.), Facebook, Twitter, etc. etc. etc.). You won't have the full feature-set of, say, a Samsung Galaxy Tab, and the Amazon App Store is a little limiting at the moment (The fire is still only about a month old to be fair), but the Kindle Fire only costs $199 and is great as a media consumption / ereader device to boot. Also, another workaround to the limited Amazon App Store is side-loading apps. Currently, I've sideloaded the official Android Facebook & Twitter apps, YoutubeHD, Dolphin Browser HD (Much better than silk right now), and others within minutes and with no issues at all. This sideloading feature isn't 'illegal / outside of normal use' and is built in to the custom Fire Android OS.
4. You can torrent books, sure. I dont do this but I imagine you can convert a torrent epub to kindle format or PDF format through a conversion tool, or even find a torrent with that format as well. Loading is easy with Cloud storage, a physical USB data transfer to internal storage, or even a side-loaded Android Dropbox app & account (works very well).

 

[NorCal]

Is there a preferred format for books that I will be loading from cloud storage, will one look better or be formatted better? e.g. PDF, mobi the Kindle AZW

 

[alocsin]

What is the browsing like on this? Can it only do wikipedia and Amazon in 3G?

 

[cioni2k]



What is the browsing like on this? Can it only do wikipedia and Amazon in 3G?

The new Kindle and Kindle Touch, yes. The Kindle 3 / Kindle w Keyboard can still do experimental web browsing over 3G (but it's really only worth checking your email in a pinch, very slow and clumsy). Don't be confused, the Kindle Fire is Wifi only and has no 3G

 

[TACO_FLAVORED_KISSES]

is this the best hand-held pdf reader on the market? If not what is?

cheers

 

[TACO_FLAVORED_KISSES]



Does anyone have a lot of experience with the Fire? My main question is whether anyone uses it for classes/textbooks?
Are the textbooks in color? I'm curious if the e-reader books are in color and how the charts/tables are? I tried asking the Amazon reps and my answer was: "try it out and return it if it doesn't work" but they didn't know the answer...

Please report back if you purchase.

 

[Harry280]

 

[Harry280]

The Amazon Kindle 4

The Amazon Kindle 4 (aka Kindle 4th Gen, Kindle Touchless or just plain Kindle) was announced as a sidenote to the colour Kindle Fire and touch-enabled Kindle Touch. But in many ways it was the most significant of the three, because of its extraordinary price.

The UK remains the poor cousin to the US in the world of dedicated ebook readers. While many are on the market, to be a real success they need the vertical integration of being linked with a book seller, both for usability and the subsidy to the initial purchase price.

A stand-alone reader needs to make a profit for the manufacturer from the retail price alone, while a book seller device can make its money from the books and so can afford to be priced cheaply. And Amazon as the biggest book store can subsidise its ereaders the most.

As a result we really only have Amazon's Kindle, missing out on other book seller-tied devices such as the Nook and Kobo.

Worse, we currently only have one of the new generation of Kindles, the others being restricted to the US (presumably for supply reasons). And to add salt to the trans-Atlantic wound, our new Kindle costs £89 compared to $79 (around £50) in the States.

But we do at least have one of the next-gen Amazon Kindles, and it's still very, very cheap. So how does it stack up?

Well, unlike the Kindle Touch and Kindle Fire, the plain Kindle is basically a cut down and repackaged version of last year's Kindle 3 - now renamed the Kindle Keyboard - rather than one with new technologies and features added.

That's not necessarily a bad thing, because the Kindle Keyboard was the best ebook reader on the market in terms of screen, book choice and price.

If you put the price of the US version out of mind, £89 really is cheap as chips for an ebook reader, especially one as accomplished as this.

As well as opening up ereaders to a new market, when the reader is priced this low you're less worried about taking it into environments where you might think twice about using expensive electronics, such as the bathroom or the beach. While not exactly disposable, it's not £500-worth of iPad to wreck either.

Amazon famously sells more books in Kindle ebook format than in print these days, and this price point is only going to accelerate that trend. Check out more information on http://freekindleebookreaderreview.wordpress.com/2012/04/18/kindle

 

[Jr Mouse]

http://techcrunch.com/2012/04/26/co...-android-tablet-market-and-all-the-mindshare/

The researchers say that as of February 2012, Amazon’s Kindle Fire now accounts for 54.4 percent of all Android tablets in the U.S. Given how many different models of Android tablets there are out in the market at the moment, that gives it a strong lead over the rest of the field: the whole range of Samsung Galaxy Tab tablets, added together, only accounted for 15.4 percent of the market, with the Xoom following at seven percent, comScore said.

I called this.

 

[kimberlysun]

Kindle Cover

Kindle cases are currently in high demand, along with the tablet they were designed to safeguard, which is officially called the Kindle e-Reader. The monitor of a Kindle tablet - like that of any computer or computer-like device - is very delicate and should be protected against muck, fluid, dirt, and other potential sources of damage.

Another popular kind of cover is the Kindle Cover with Light. Made in seven colors, it has a light that plugs into the gadget, rather than using a battery. The light lets the person to read in an otherwise inadequately lit setting. More recently, clip - on lights are being offered individually for those who do relatively little reading in the dark. And finally, there is the Marware Eco - Vue Kindle Leather Cover, with a handle in the back into which the user's hand fits snugly, to keep from dropping the tablet. Learn more about Kindle Cover