Why I'm Digging Kindle Fire
Pin ItSo for Christmas, the big gift my wife gave me a new Kindle Fire (affiliate link). It's actually the first tablet I've ever owned believe it or not - never had an iPad to my name. So why did I choose a Kindle over an iPad?
To be honest, the only thing I saw myself using a tablet for out of the gate (personally) was for media consumption. I didn't really see myself trying to use a tablet to get any real work or productivity done. I have a work laptop and also a personal MacBook Air, which is almost an iPad with a keyboard in terms of size/portability. I really just wanted something to read books, magazines and the news on without having to switch devices or read on my tiny phone all the time.
So what do I love about the Fire?
Availability of content - if there is anything Amazon does better than anyone in the world - it's distributing content. I'm able to get several newspapers on my Kindle, Pulse (my favorite Reader), YouVersion and even download free books via my Amazon Prime membership. In addition, Netflix works great in addition to all the music and videos I am able to stream straight from Amazon. I literally have a wealth of content right at my fingertips. I love it.
Size - It's only 7" so the size is perfect. A good deal bigger than my phone screen and still very portable, almost able to fit in my back pocket. The Fire is thicker than an iPad2 but appears to be more durable. Whether that is truly the case, I'm not sure but I don't plan on dropping my Fire on concrete to see what happens. The thickness doesn't bother me at all.
Price - Even though I didn't actually buy it myself, the price point is awesome. You can get two of these things for less than one base-line iPad. Hard to argue with that.
However, I do see a few areas of improvement for Kindle Fire.
UX - Mainly due to a lack of a physical home button, it's not completely easy to navigate back home. iPhones and Android phones have spoiled us to this feature. It takes several taps on the screen to get home. In addition, the lack of a physical volume button leaves something to be desired. It's a "first-world problem" but this thing would benefit greatly from a Home and Volume control on the outside.
Apps - There isn't a native Twitter or Facebook app that I know of. That would be super handy to have. Not sure why it's not on there now. I can only assume it's something coming down the road.
Despite that, for my personal needs, Kindle Fire is great. I'm sure as social TV continues to develop and our home goes full force into a second screen TV watching experience, we could get something more powerful to serve more as a television remote than a tablet computer.
However, for me now, Kindle Fire is perfect and fits every need I have for a tablet computer right now. I'm loving it.
Any other Kindle Fire people out there? What do you think about it?
