Review: Kindle Fire

[jeriendhal]

So Thomas' grandma on moonshadowed's side of the family gave him a Fire for his birthday last week. It's been working pretty well so far, letting him keep from getting upset at being stuck at daycare all day now that school is out. So far his favorite app is a freebie program that shoots off fireworks when you touch the screen. After that it's probably Temple Runner, which he's no good at, but he's amused by the monkeys chasing his avatar just before he slams into a wall.

Naturally Dad has been playing with it too, so I've got a few comments on it. First off, I'm not going to give my regular 3G Kindle any time soon. Reading on the Fire is all right while I'm indoors, but the bright screen gets annoying after a while, and of course it's impossble to see anything if you're outdoors in the sunlight.

As for the other options, I'll admit some of the game apps are addicting. I'm hooked on Temple Runner and Words With Friends. Angry Birds isn't as appealing (there's too much luck involved trying to work out just the right angle for launch, especially with no references to use for your first shot.) I've also used it watch movies on my Netflix account or watch Wil Wheaton's Tabletop on YouTube. Websurfing is more limited, mostly because I hate typing out search queries on the virtual keyboard (more on that in a bit.) And of course it doesn't have the Kindle 3G's net capability, being limited to wireless nodes.

To be honest, while all of this is fun, and I'd certainly not turn down a tablet computer of my own if someone gave it to me, the Fire and other tablets just don't thrill me that much. They're toys first invented by Apple to fill a need that didn't actually exist. Yeah, they're more portable than a laptop computer, but while you can watch videos, play touch based games, or take photos or vids, they don't do any of that particularly well. And of course, aside from web surfing, I use my laptop to write, which is freaking near impossible to do for any length of time using those worthless virtual keyboards. (I know you can buy a keyboard you can unroll and hook in these days, but if you have to do that to use it the way you want, why not just get a laptop for the same price?)

So. A nice, cute gadget. But not a necessary one.

Comments

[philomytha.livejournal.com]

My son has an iPad that we use with a symbols-to-speech program as a communication aid, and that works pretty well, though he prefers to use it to watch Thomas the Tank Engine videos ;-). But when I borrow it, it's rubbish for typing on, even something short like an LJ comment. It's okay for surfing, though the browser periodically crashes, especially if I do something revolutionary like try to use Google docs.

[kk1raven.livejournal.com]

I got a hand-me-down iPad recently. I've been referring to it as my fabulous toy. It is good for things that are fun but not as a replacement for my other computers.