Kindle Fire Review

The Kindle Fire is a 7″ slab of glass & plastic offered either as a small, somewhat limited ‘tablet’ or color-screen e-reader with bonus features.  The need to classify the device highlights why it has been so difficult for many tech pundits to review – it defies classification.  Not because it’s a revolutionary product, but rather because it exemplifies the ongoing shift toward the ‘Post-PC Era’, where devices are defined by their utility alone.  The defining traits of products are no longer speeds-and-feeds; they are defined by the uses they fulfill courtesy of their software and content.  So, how useful is the Kindle Fire?

 

Design
The Kindle Fire has a pleasant, solid feel, with a nice soft-touch backing and an appealing minimalist design.  It’s heavier than you expect at a glance; weighty enough to feel dense and solid, yet light enough to handle with ease.  Unfortunately for e-reader fans, it’s not the featherweight object needed for extended one-hand holding/reading.

The slightly rounded corners and firm plastic frame provide a comfortable, if somewhat difficult to grasp object.  This is an area of ergonomics where nearly all current tablets fail.  Wrapping your hand around the side and pinching your thumb on the frame makes you appreciate the relatively wide bezel of the market-leading iPad – those with larger thumbs will worry about blocking a portion of the screen when trying to hold it firmly.

The 7″ IPS display is framed off-center, leaving a larger bezel at the bottom than on the other 3 sides.  It would be better both practically and aesthetically if there was a physical home button to justify the lower bezel’s extra width.  It just feels like something is supposed to be in that space, but there is neither a physical button nor a touch sensitive area – just dead space.

Ultimately, the only real mistake in the Fire’s physical design is the placement of the power button.  The device is devoid of buttons and ports save for speakers on the top and a tightly grouped headphone, USB/Charge-port, and power button on the bottom. The power button placement makes it too easy to accidentally prompt the device to turn off.  This flaw has been noted in nearly all published reviews; it’s hard to imagine that this wasn’t noticed by testers long before final production began.  Someone decided it was cheaper to ship it as-is than to fix.  To be fair, it’s not a deal-breaking issue and you quickly become cautious about resting the Fire on it’s end, but it’s worth noting as evidence of a version 1.0 product design.

The 7-inch form factor is surprisingly nice (my apologies, Mr. Steve Jobs).  It’s large enough to feel roomy compared to a smart phone, yet small enough to fit in a large pocket or purse.  The 7″ size presents an equal number of good and bad trade-offs as compared to 10-inch devices, which allows me to justify yet another gadget in my arsenal: book reading, video, music, and many games are better at this size; while typing, creativity, web browsing, magazines and more complex apps/games clearly need the 10″ real estate.  It’s time to get used to the idea that the future includes a 1″ screen for your wrist, a 4″ in your pocket, a 7″ in a large pocket/purse, a 10″ in your bag, 24″+ on your desk, and 50″+ in your living room – in other words, you will carry and use many devices because they are cheap, thin, light and useful – and each is uniquely suited to a specific set of tasks.

Hardware

The Kindle Fire’s screen is sharp, bright, and vibrant.  The lock screen images of highly magnified print objects are indeed a nice touch and make it an inviting screen to slide to unlock.  Off-angle viewing washes out a bit more than the iPad, despite being IPS.

Software performance is ‘zippy’ for the most part, with occassional bouts of stuttering or lack of responsiveness.  In all honesty, I’ve never seen an Android-based device match the fluidity of the iPad/iPhone.  To me, this is more annoying than many seem to think – because any lag, stuttering, or unnatural scrolling breaks the illusion of ‘physical control’ that the entire touch-based UI paradigm is based upon.

The Kindle Fire’s touch screen also lacks the precision of Apple products.  Hold it up to a light at an angle and you’ll see the array of dots in a grid (connected by very thin lines) at a 45 degree angle and about 4mm apart.  Compare that to the iPad’s tight 1mm pure grid lines.   Does the density of touch sensor array contribute to accuracy?  It would appear so, since I noticed the same dot-pattern and missed touches on the HP Touchpad.

The obligatory rundown of specs feature:

• A Dual-core 1Ghz OMAP4 processor, courtesy of Texas Instruments
• 512MB RAM.  (Based on testing other devices, Android appears to need 1GB, especially when heavily skinned.  This is a competitive shortcoming for the Fire, but the iPad performs flawlessly at 512MB so hopefully it can/will be remedied in future software updates.)
• 8GB storage, 6.3 useful.  (Despite the lack of any memory expansion and a low 8GB onboard, I don’t see this as a problem.  Amazon has crafted the best and easiest cloud storage solution available – more on that later.)
• Stereo Speakers (They are tinny, but perfectly acceptable.  The topside placement is a bit odd; for hardware based on the Blackberry PlayBook reference design, why not keep it’s best feature – forward facing speakers framing the screen?)
• A claimed 8-Hour Battery.  (My mixed-use testing for a little under 4 hours left the battery with 45% charge remaining)
• Android 2.3 powered device, but modified to the point of being mostly unrelated to other Android offerings.
• NO cameras, GPS, Gyro, or Bluetooth.  (Most are not missed until/unless you think abut the apps available for augmented-reality, location-services, etc. on other devices, but hey, $200!)

Speaking of price.  You really have to hand it to Amazon for making something of true quality at this price point.  Whether it’s of value to you, or even at the top of the heap in terms of design, fit and finish, or specifications, nothing about the device screams ‘CHEAP’!

Software & User-Experience

I love the grey-stained ‘hardwood flooring’ motif coupled with the orange accent colors.  It gives the device a true sense of its own character, and is easy on the eyes, stylish, and equally as ‘minimal’ as the hardware design.  UI is a clear advantage over the Fire’s nearest competitor: the more erratic white/grey ‘anything-goes’ aesthetic of the Nook Tablet.

The clearly labeled quick-access text menu provides instant access to the core functions for books, movies etc.  It represents a missed opportunity, however, to use gesture-based controls – a swipe from the top of the screen anywhere would be an ideal way to call up that navigation and search bar from anywhere in the interface – instead, it’s limited to the top of the ‘home’ screen.

Below it, the Carousel is both useful and frustrating…It grows and grows without the ability to edit or delete items, and is often imprecise to use.  Still, it is a useful way to see/return to recent activities.  Again, it’s a missed opportunity to use gesture control to create a ‘task-manager motif’, though the device doesn’t actually seem to support multitasking at this time.

At the bottom of the screen is the “Favorites” bookshelf, which feels redundant.  If the items therein are truly ‘favorites’,  I’m likely to use them often, which means they’ll already be in the carousel!   In addition, I already have search and text-based groupings to quickly navigate to organized content listings.  The favorites is overkill and should give way to a cleaner home screen with more useful functions (widgets?).

Navigation overall is pretty straight-forward and easy to learn, and quickly passed the 9-year-old test, wherein I give the device to my daughter and see how quickly she can grok it’s functions.  Again, a hardware button on the face would have been a good way to institute the ‘home’ control and provides greater adaptability for future software functions (how happy was Apple to have that button to quickly call up Siri?!).  Overall, the UI exhibits some sluggishness as previously mentioned, but since it’s all in the software and the hardware should be up to the task, I’m hopeful for updates to iron out what are mostly minor issues.

Content

The essence to tablet devices, as previously mentioned, lies in 2 things, and neither is hardware, which is irrelevant beyond the bare basics of form.  The 2 things that matter are the Software and Content.  The device is merely a window into a world of activities and entertainment provided by the UI and content; and it is this TRUTH that makes the Kindle Fire the first device to join the iPad in the Post-PC world.  Android geeks may desire to ‘build their own experience’ out of a slab of glass, but 90% of the market wants a finished toy – not an erector set.  The Kindle Fire is just that, finished.  The content, from books, to movies, to music (cloud player), and even apps (presuming developer interest continues as rumored) is superb, and bests anything other than Apple’s ecosystem.  Only Amazon has the pieces in place to provide a complete experience…B&N straddles awkwardly between being the curator and protecting its limited internal offerings, and Google has allowed Android to become so fragmented and co-opted by device makers that they can’t put the genie back into the bottle to regain control.

The Kindle Fire is a seamless, friction-free gateway into the world of Amazon, and will likely suck dollars from your wallet without you even noticing.  The Amazon Prime membership ($79 per year) is nearly obligatory, as the selection of movies and TV shows rivals or bests Netflix and provides a great streaming experience.  The Kindle Fire has a huge leg-up over most competitors with a movie-rental store as well, offering $3-$4 rentals of recent releases that can be viewed on the Kindle Fire (even when off-line) and on a myriad of TV-connected boxes (Roku, Tivo, DVD players, Smart TV’s etc.)  The application market is nowhere near the size and quality of Apple’s App Store, nor as broad as the barely-curated Google Market, but the big name items are in there and more seem to be coming, based on developer interest in the platform.

The Cloud

Amazon’s cloud services shine on the Kindle Fire, and stand out as easier to understand, access and control than Apple’s iCloud.  Every content screen has a simple switch to choose between local content and that housed on Amazon’s servers.  When using Wi-Fi, it’s completely seamless to the point that even 8GB of local storage is irrelevant.  Step outside of Wi-Fi range, and the pinch of that 8GB sets in.  There’s a confidence and simplicity in knowing that Amazon’s got your purchases backed up in perpetuity.  Given that the Kindle Fire is sold at a loss, it’s clear Amazon is hoping to make up the profits by enticing you to buy more from their store – there’s no question the Kindle Fire will succeed in that mission.

For 90% of the market there are now 2 choices – Apple and Amazon.  The only downside to both of these content-heavy platforms is that the abundance of distractions pull you away from FOCUS – it’s hard to stay reading when you can jump to the web, get alerted to make your next move in WordsWithFriends, or feel the pull of Facebook. For that reason, people interested in READING should be sure to have a dedicated eReader in addition to any of the ‘tablet’ options.

In Closing…

Welcome to the Post-PC era.  The Kindle Fire is NOT an iPad competitor; for some (myself included), it actually offers a complimentary experience, focused more on reading and portability than unlimited-application capabilities; though time will tell if it can hold a spot in my usage patterns

Primarily, the Kindle Fire is a device for personal content use; not for business, not for creatives, not for hackers, not for students…not exclusively anyway.

Kids (though the device needs spending controls to prevent rampant purchasing), mom, dad, grandma, and non-geeks will love it.

PS> I typed out the majority of this review and notes on my iPad, finished and published from my MacBook Air, and will check comments later on the Kindle Fire.  Which illustrates the differences between these devices.

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