[chuinard]

I read the first few sentences of this and stopped when he said it was downright terrible. Having just received one for Christmas myself, I really have no idea where all the Fire hate is coming from. Sure, it's not an iPad, but it is absolutely a gap between my phone and my MacBook that I am now happy to have filled. Laying in bed watching Arrested Development, playing Angry Birds on a slightly larger screen, or browsing the web all work just fine. It also was neat that all the apps I got on the Amazon Appstore already sync'd directly to the device.

I'm also really impressed with how Amazon took the physical buttons (menu, back, and home) off the actual device and made them part of the UI by tapping a little arrow at the bottom of the screen.

Yes, the power button is misplaced, but overall I am very satisfied with this $199 tablet that I am finding myself using pretty often so far.

[phaus]

I've played around with most companies' flagship tablets, to include the iPad. With the exception of my windows 7 tablet, the kindle fire was the first tablet that I actually purchased. Overall I love it, but there are a couple of things that really hurt the experience.

The biggest issue for me would be that the kindle fire often doesn't respond to input very well. I often find myself having to press a button 2-5 times in order for it to register. I know I am hitting the button because the button animation seems to be working correctly. I hope that they finally manage to fix this issue with another update. This alone brings the device from 4.5 stars down to 3.5 in my opinion.

The only other issue I have is that magazine/comic books are being sold for the kindle fire as if they are actually readable. This is more of a complaint against magazine and comic book publishers who should have started optimizing their content for digital display years ago. I shouldn't have to manually zoom in every time I turn a page and then pan around. The print magazine industry is rapidly becoming unprofitable, so why aren't these companies busting their asses to create e-reader friendly versions of their products?

[alexholehouse]

Completely agree - I've found the battery outperforms the 8 hours advertised (with Wi-Fi off and lowish brightness, i.e. the kind of settings you're likely to have while travelling, which is presumably when battery would be most important).

Also the weight is such a non-issue - it's lighter than most hardback books, whereas I found trying to read off the iPad waaay more clunky (from a lying position).