Armed Polite Society

Main Forums => The Roundtable => Topic started by: Sergeant Bob on December 09, 2011, 05:57:03 PM

Title: Kindle Fire
Post by: Sergeant Bob on December 09, 2011, 05:57:03 PM
Posting with one now. Anyone else take the plunge?
it's a Xmas gift for the wife so I'd better get proficient with it so I can instruct her.

Instructions? I down need no steenkin instructions!
Title: Re: Kindle Fire
Post by: Doggy Daddy on December 09, 2011, 07:48:07 PM
I just went to Amazon to check out the Fire.  I've been looking at an e-reader or a tablet and was disappointed in some of the "features" on the Nook, so I thought "maybe the Fire".

Nah.  I read some deal breakers in the one-star reviews.  You just might want to go read the instructions.  And be thankful you ordered it as a gift.  Apparently, they would have otherwise pre-loaded it with your credit card info.  One poor sucker got home to find an empty box on his doorstep.  Then he got the "thanks for buying from us" emails from Amazon where the thief had used the pre-loaded credit card info to buy a new music library.  No way to password protect it either.  So if you leave your Fire in the cab, you might as well have left your credit card in the cab... and the thief gets access to your email too. 

Also, 6 usable gigs of memory, and you can't stream videos?  They have to be loaded on the device?

Nah.

DD
Title: Re: Kindle Fire
Post by: drewtam on December 09, 2011, 08:25:40 PM
I got the nook color about 9 months ago. I really enjoy it.

The nice thing about the nook is that it has a micro-SD slot. Which is first in boot order...

So I can boot to my microSD card (Android OS) -OR- pop the card out and boot to regular Nook OS. No fuss, no mess, warranty fully intact. Access to both Nook and Kindle and every Android app on the market.
Title: Re: Kindle Fire
Post by: CNYCacher on December 09, 2011, 11:51:05 PM
Sorry but to me if you are getting a color screen (which implies a backlit LCD screen) then you are missing the entire idea of an e-reader.  Just forget it and get a tablet.  The entire appeal of an e-reader is that e-ink displays use almost no power.  They use zero power showing a static image.  You can turn on a kindle and flip the page and leave it laying there for a year, the screen will never "shut off" in the sense of you losing that image off the screen.  Power is only used to update the screen.  This is why an e-ink screen kindle (all of them BUT the Fire) can be used for months without needing a battery recharge.  A fire needs to be recharged after hours of use.  What's the point?  Get a cheap tablet.

plus I see nothing but bad reviews on the fire
Title: Re: Kindle Fire
Post by: Doggy Daddy on December 10, 2011, 12:06:46 AM
Sorry but to me if you are getting a color screen (which implies a backlit LCD screen) then you are missing the entire idea of an e-reader.  Just forget it and get a tablet.  The entire appeal of an e-reader is that e-ink displays use almost no power.

I agree.  Odds are that I'll just grab the cheapest Nook and call it good.  That was the original plan, then I got to speculating about going with the Nook Color or the Fire.  Another consideration was sharing 2 Nooks on 1 account so that my wife and I could access the same library.  It appears that would be cumbersome with the Color because of the tablet functions; both tablets would sync so we wouldn't be able to go to our seperate Facebook pages (for instance), or if we were reading the same book, it would sync to whatever page was last read by either of us.  Would still have the page problem with the cheap Nook, but I think if we didn't read the same book at the same time we could have 2 open at once as long as we didn't try to read each other's.  Did that explanation make sense, or am I deluding myself?  ???

DD
Title: Re: Kindle Fire
Post by: roo_ster on December 10, 2011, 12:32:34 AM
No, because I really don;t need an intermediate step between laptop & droid phone.
Title: Re: Kindle Fire
Post by: makattak on December 10, 2011, 12:36:02 AM
I've been posting from a Kindle fire at home for the past week.

I already have a Kindleand was under no delusions that it be an Ipad or a Kindle. I love both my Kindle and my Kindle Fire.

I stream movies with the prime membership and it has been playing Christmas music pretty much the whole past week.

So, if you want an Ipad, get an Ipad. If you only want to read books, get the Kindle.

If you want to read books and have portability and streaming music and videos (generally just USE the Internet) the Kindle Fire is great. It's like a netbook tablet to me.
Title: Re: Kindle Fire
Post by: makattak on December 10, 2011, 12:40:28 AM
Oh, I forgot battery life: I used it under my normal usage, streaming music, reading APS, checking news and mail, watching a movie for 12 hours. (Obviously not continuous.) The battery held up and was still at 10% when I plugged it in for the night. Again, fits my usage perfectly
Title: Re: Kindle Fire
Post by: Zardozimo Oprah Bannedalas on December 10, 2011, 02:09:49 AM
No, because I really don;t need an intermediate step between laptop & droid phone.
Perhaps this would be more to your liking?
http://www.asus.com/Eee/Eee_Pad/Eee_Pad_Transformer_TF101/
Title: Re: Kindle Fire
Post by: Chester32141 on December 10, 2011, 09:15:32 AM
My wife uses her Kindle Fire to watch NetFlix and surf the web... has a beautiful picture ... didn't know her CC info was pre loaded ... I'll have to see if there is a way to remove it ... her laptop is better for all her uses but she wanted something smaller ....   :cool:
Title: Re: Kindle Fire
Post by: roo_ster on December 10, 2011, 09:16:45 AM
Perhaps this would be more to your liking?
http://www.asus.com/Eee/Eee_Pad/Eee_Pad_Transformer_TF101/

Nah, my laptop is a beefy critter that can handle some serious visualization and number-crunching without overheating.  Not as much as a big tower, but it is the best compromise for the road.  

I'd smoke that pretty thing in under a week.  I have the distinction of burning up three standard-issue work laptops in a year with my normal work use, not abuse.  They found a more robust lappy for me after that.

I just have a maximum number of computer-ish things I want to care for and feed.
Title: Re: Kindle Fire
Post by: seeker_two on December 10, 2011, 10:21:29 AM
No, because I really don;t need an intermediate step between laptop & droid phone.

This is exactly why I'm looking at one. I want something I can browse the Internet with in house & hotel without having to lug around a laptop but with a larger screen than my cell phone. I'd been looking hard at the Blackberry Playbook (esp. since I could tether it to my Torch if wi-fi wasn't available), but the Fire's lower price has also piqued my interest.

Has anyone experience with both the Playbook & the Fire to compare & contrast? Which one would be a better choice for this Internet "duffer"?.....
Title: Re: Kindle Fire
Post by: Nick1911 on December 10, 2011, 11:15:17 AM
Does anyone know of an ereader with a large enough screen to display PDF pages of an 8 by 11 sheet of paper?  All the ones I have tried have had completely unusable screens  for actual page viewing.
Title: Re: Kindle Fire
Post by: brimic on December 10, 2011, 12:08:58 PM
really want the fire. i was going to order one but needed a readeer before i went on vacation a month ago so i ended
up with the kindle 3 instead [actually posting using the kindle right now in a coffee shop] the web browser kinda sucks on the black and wwhite version but its good enough to get me a google map to a gunshop i want to visiit today.  i would buy any readers from walmart so you dont have to worry about the cc being preloaded. my biggest fear is the kids going onto wifi and sshopping.
Title: Re: Kindle Fire
Post by: Ben on December 10, 2011, 12:11:27 PM
Does anyone know of an ereader with a large enough screen to display PDF pages of an 8 by 11 sheet of paper?  All the ones I have tried have had completely unusable screens  for actual page viewing.

I think the closest you're going to get is probably the Kindle DX, which I think is, even with a recent price drop, still overpriced.