Be Excellent To Each Other

Does anyone know when these are available in the UK? Also, have any of you early adopter chaps got one yet? Was thinking of getting one for the wifes birthday but not sure whether to stick with a standard kindle as she already has an iphone - is it worth the upgrade?

No official UK release date announced as yet but Grim has an imported one and I'm sure he'll be along shortly to ruminate upon it for you.

It's not a Kindle. If she wants to read books, get her an eInk Kindle. Full report tomorrow.

Cheers, that would be appreciated.

What Grim... said - it's not a Kindle, it's an Android tablet. It seems to have some interesting features - namely the browser, and hopefully a hell of a lot of built-in Lovefilm stuff - but it's in no way an ebook reader.

I'm interested in Grim...'s views as I might ask Kern to bring one back for me.

Except in that way that you can read ebooks on it surely?

Yeah, but you can on your PC or your TV, too.
Although it's better than that, obv.

More tomorrow.

I didn't mean you can't read books on it, but it's not a dedicated device for doing so, like a Kindle is.

/checks email on his old Kindle

Shut up.

So, the Fire then. A bit of background - I watch a lot of video on my commute to work on my phone. This was bad because (a) my phone was small and (b) it hammered the battery. When the good Doccy G revealed he was going to the USA, I put an order in for a Fire. I literally only wanted it for video playback on the train. I considered using the iPad, but Mrs Grim... uses it at home and she is (obv) home way before I am. Also, I've found that people using iPads on the train are a little 'elbow-y' due to its size, and I don't need any help being too wide for my fellow commuters

The bad points first (in no particular order):

• It's heavier that it should be. It's not as heavy as an iPad, but it's denser, which confuses your brain. Doccy G has charts.
• It doesn't really work in the UK yet - you can't download apps unless you have a US Amazon account with a credit card. You can still sideload them fairly painlessly, though.
• It's lacking physical buttons - presumably to keep the bezel size down, there is only one physical button on the device, which is a combined lock / power button. Android UIs normally require a home button, a back button and a menu button at the very least, but the special UI on the Fire makes sure those buttons are only a tap or two away. It drove me insane when I first used it, but I got used to it really quickly. It doesn't even have physical volume buttons.
• The one button it does have is retarded - it's on the bottom, so you press it by accident, and it sticks out a little, so it gets pressed when you rest it on things. Again, I've got used to it now (and you can turn the whole thing over for everything but the lock screen anyway), but it's a face-bendingly stupid design decision.
• There's no built-in Android Marketplace. There's the Amazon one (which does seem to have plenty of things on), but the real one isn't there.
• The UI is still growing - it's mostly really, really good, but there are a couple of dumb things (the advanced settings for wireless, for example, are at the bottom of the pop-up list of wireless networks). Hopefully they'll fix these fairly quickly with updates.
• The videos don't have names - this is the one thing I bought it for, and GRR. Because I load all my own videos on from my PC, they show up under 'gallery' rather than the baked-in 'video' app (which is only for videos you get from Amazon - which you can't do yet). So the thumbnails are really small, and they don't have the filename written anywhere. To get it, you have to long-press the icon, hit 'more', then hit 'details' (which is the only option under 'more' anyway). Much bah.
• It's got no roaming wireless like the Kindle has / can have - just normal wireless. It happily connects to your phone if you can set that up as a hot-spot, though.
• No calendar app built-in. What the fuck?

And the good bits, again, in no order:

• It's a lovely size. It's comfortable to hold for ninety minutes in one hand, you can put it into your pocket if you have big pockets (if you see what I mean).
• It uses micro USB to charge, like every other device in your house. Except for certain ones. YOU KNOW THE ONES I MEAN.
• The video playback is lovely. It's fast, it doesn't stutter, and it looks great. There is also a really handy 'skip back ten seconds' button.
• The screen is great overall, and bright enough (if you wind it up in the settings) to melt your eyes. Almost.
• Battery life seems great. I fiddle around with the Internet and watch videos for about an hour and a half on full brightness, and the battery hardly gets dented - this might account for some of the weight.
• The Silk browser, which renders stuff in Amazon's cloud before sending it to your device, or something, makes quite a difference when you switch it on (for Beex, at least). The browser is perfectly good on the whole, and as I'm used to an Android keyboard I don't have any issues with it (like the Doc had).
• The book reader, as you'd expect, is very good. Obviously it's not as good as a "proper" Kindle screen-wise, but it's more than capable of showing you your books. You can see the covers in colour too, which is nice.
• It's really, really cheap*. Like, stupid cheap. And it doesn't feel cheap at all. It's a nicely-made bit of kit, and feels much more mature than it is - it had some serious testing before it came out, and it really has hit the ground running.
• Widescreen TV shows fit on the screen perfectly.

Others:

• The built-in email app is perfectly usable, although it doesn't do conversations (like Gmail does).
• It has speakers and a headphone jack.
• You can root it and put any Android OS you like on it, but the lack of physical buttons makes that a not-really appealing prospect.
• Viewing angle is very good.

So, there we are. In conclusion, while it does depend on what you want it for, it's a perfectly capable device. It's not as good as an iPad (although it fits my specific needs better), but then it's less than half the price. I'm really happy with it.

*Especially as I've not paid for it yet!

The version of Gingerbread that's on the cheapo tablet I bought as the Home, Volume, Menu and Back buttons in the notification area, so the lack of buttons shouldn't be an issue.

(It's annoying - as my tablet has got the physical buttons, I want to remove the ones in the notification area to leave more room for actual notifications, but I can't see how)

I'm pretty sure android (from version 3.0 onwards) does have a UI designed to work without physical buttons. On 4.0 I think there's an option to add a bar across the bottom with icons for all the physical buttons. Kindle Fire is based on 2.3 right?

I was reading about this the other day and my face did indeed bend when I realised how fucking stupid an idea it is. Seriously, anyone spending five minutes trying to use the thing's going to stumble across this so it's not like it can't have come up during testing which implies it's a purposeful decision to have it there. Insane.



This I didn't realise (the no buttons thing, not the rootability) and is very disappointing. I've never been able to come up with a solid reason to get a tablet over and above my current netbook but assuming it was cheap enough I had considered picking one up when they arrived in the UK and instantly blowing away Amazon's crippled skin for vanilla Android. A lack of physical buttons will instantly render the vanilla OS pretty much unuseable though which sucks ass. Although it does sort of explain why Amazon were so non-plussed about the idea of people buying one and sticking proper Android on the thing because they'll have known that few will bother once they realise this designed in limitation. The crafty fuckers.

ETA: Unless what Lewie's just said is true of course.

Interesting. How cheap is cheap though (apart from currently free).

However, like your bah, not having easily visible file names is a bit of a dealbreaker at the moment, but hopefully that will be fixed soonish?

What memory size is it? Do you get an option? Can it play any file type you wish to throw at it?

Not in the way you mean, because the entire UI layer is bespoke. It's also not Android in any technical fashion as it doesn't comply with Google's requirements (hence there is no mention of Android anywhere on it). Comparing it to various Android versions isn't meaningful.

Yup. Basically, the Kindle Fire is much more dense than the iPad 1, but much less dense than the iPad 2. I think the iPad 1 has a lot of fresh air inside.

Very much in agreement with this.

That's legitimately disappointing. Is there a workaround? A player app perhaps? Some of my TUAW colleagues are running http://www.thefireblog.com/ which has reasonable coverage of Fire-related hackery.

Reports that I read of this suggest it slows things down, which was a bit crap.

$199.

8 GB (total; 6.something GB available for your stuff). And no, there's only one model.

Ooh. I bet it's £199 when (if) it's launched here.

Edit: Actually, I bet it's £189. Mark me.

3/10

Is it suitable for having on the coffee table in the living room so I can do twitter and email and read Beex whilst watching telly and things?

For coffee table use, I would suspect a 10" tablet would be better, the Fire has a smaller screen, which is great for travelling, but not so much for sofa surfing.

Suitable? Yes. Best? Maybe, or you might be better with an iPad, depending on which exact features you care about most.

Cost.

Can you expand the memory using SD card?
Is there "cloud" storage if not? 8 gig really isn't very much.

Your basic Kindle Fire questions answered!

The £100 tablet I bought the other day does all that, so it depends on screen size really. Mine is only a seven-incher.

Aye, but I can't download them because I'm not American
I'll sideload some stuff onto it at some point.


The UI is fantastic.

Cheers chaps, normal kindle it is, as it sounds like with an iphone this is probably overkill. for my parents as a web browser, however....

I meant more in reference to the fact that they've hidden all of Android aside from the very specific parts they wanted to expose. As a Kindle Fire it's great because, well, it is a Kindle Fire with all that entails. As an Android tablet though, which is how I'm viewing it, it's shit (while still running the Kindle software I mean).

Pretty high res screen for a 7''-er. I bet it looks pretty sweet.

How do you mean? The guts of it are still there, and it is (to me at least) very recognisable as Android - it uses the notification bar, and the settings are the same, etc. While it probably doesn't have the openness of a normal Android tablet (I've never actually used one), it's a perfectly good tablet none-the-less.

I'm probably being too harsh on it to be fair. Reading your list of bullet points I came away with a very 'not-Android' feeling, but mostly it probably boils down to not having Android market access and the lack of physical buttons. The former is one of the main pillars of Android to me--as iTunes is for iOS devices I suppose--and the way you navigate and control the UI using the buttons is just baked into my experience of Android so not having them would be very weird.

Meh, that's a pretty anemic defence of my post isn't it? I'm just mentally comparing it to a straight Android tablet with which I'd be able to run the Kindle app and buy things from the Amazon app store and everything else you can do with it; except I'd be able to do other things as well which you can't do on the Fire (e.g. Android Market, Gmail app, etc). So to me it's differentiated from other tablets by what it can't do than what it can if that makes any sense?

It does, yes. The 163ppi screen definitely looks one notch nicer than my 133ppi iPad.

I successfully ha><0red my Fire on the train this morning, and now it is happily running Mobiplayer, gMail and Google Play. Most useful.

In long-term news, I'm getting fed up waiting for Amazon to release in the UK, but I'm still really pleased with it. It gets used for about 1% web browsing and 99% watching films, and I can't really fault it (now that I've got Mobiplayer, anyway).

Help me Beex!
I note that the kindle fire is currently mucho cheap on Amazon. My father has an ipad which is on its last legs and it gets used not a lot, so i'm trying to save on a replacement. Is the Fires web browsing/email easy to use/not complete shite?

If it's anything like the Nexus 7 then it's fine. I'd perhaps get him to go to a shop where he can have a look, though. The smaller size might be a bit off-putting and feel like a bit of a downgrade for someone used to a 10" tablet.

cheers,
apart from thinking about one when they launched in america, i'd not paid much attention to the fire - they are viewable in shops then - i thought it was an amazon only thing?

Yeah sorry I just looked and I didn't realise that they were quite so dissimilar from the Nexus 7. I think Grim... has one. I'd be tempted to tell him to just get one of these, though:

https://play.google.com/store/devices/d ... =microsite

Only another £60 but you get the nicer screen and aren't lumbered with the Amazon browser and stuff.

Yo. A Nexus 7 is more technophobe-friendly than a Fire, I reckon. The Fire is great for consuming media, but even though it has a bigger screen I still browse the web and check my emails on my phone.

Christ, that is cheap, though. Perhaps buy one anyway to see what you think he'll make of it, and just keep it if it doesn't look like his thing?

Yeah, i think that what i'll do. I could do with a new kindle and amazon are pretty forgiving on returns in the worst case, cheers

No worries - but bear in mind it's no better for reading books than any other tablet. If you need a Kindle, get a Kindle.

I was just looking at the Kindle Fire myself, 10 quid to get rid of ads?!

£99 is cheap though, but I want a 7" tablet that has a 3G sim slot, and that I can put all my films on easily.

Still... £99...

£10 off just for some ads?!

Ads?!

Dammit they're not ads, they're WITH SPECIAL OFFERS!!!!!!111

Which are only on the lock screen, no?

I don't know, to be honest.

Grumpypants was wittering to me about a Kindle Fire for £99 in the Ka yesterday but then she stopped and complained as I drove over Holmfirth in second gear (up and down) and instead wanted to know why I didn't change up (third bogs diwn around the bends at it is hard to get over 30mph anyway), but i dunno if the offer is atill on. £99 sounds good.