Update
 

Consumer Report review:
http://news.consumerreports.org/elec...ndle-fire.html

Engadget review:
http://www.engadget.com/2011/11/14/a...e-fire-review/

Available at best buy nov 15th
http://www.mobileburn.com/17494/news...15-at-best-buy

While I hate the site, the review is a contrast to many others

http://www.theverge.com/2011/11/14/2...le-fire-review

As is the david pogue review.

(mine is on order should be here soon)

Engadget's conclusion is typical of the reviews I've read:

The Kindle Fire is quite an achievement at $200. It's a perfectly usable tablet that feels good in the hand and has a respectably good looking display up front. Yes, power users will find themselves a little frustrated with what they can and can't do on the thing without access to the Android Market but, in these carefree days of cloud-based apps ruling the world, increasingly all you need is a good browser. That the Fire has.

When stacked up against other popular tablets, the Fire can't compete. Its performance is a occasionally sluggish, its interface often clunky, its storage too slight, its functionality a bit restricted and its 7-inch screen too limiting if you were hoping to convert all your paper magazine subscriptions into the digital ones. Other, bigger tablets do it better -- usually at two or three times the cost.


So, the Kindle Fire is great value and perhaps the best, tightest integration of digital content acquisition into a mobile device that we've yet seen. Instead of having a standalone shopping app the entire tablet is a store -- a 7-inch window sold at a cut-rate price through which users can look onto a sea of premium content. It isn't a perfect experience, but if nothing else it's a promising look into the future of retail commerce.

Having used an actual, "real" Kindle - I'm not sure I agree it looks like a fantastic e-reader. It is no better a reader than any other tablet. The e-ink is what makes the Kindle great for reading, not the name printed on the bottom. @:-)

I'll tell you tomorrow when mine arrives in the mail!!

Got mine today - and love it.

Still can't find the email client, but as soon as I turned it on, all my music, books and apps were ready for me. Slick form factor, and pretty much the death of the Playbook. $199 is a steal. If it weren't for the LTE in it, I may rarely use my Xoom anymore...

Yes, but how is book reading on it compared to e-ink Kindles?

For my money, the Nook Tablet is a way better device for travelers. The Fire only has 6mb of storage built in. That is NOT very much. It is designed to be a cloud device, and is therefore dependent on a wifi connection. As a traveler, there are just too many times I'm either not near wifi, or the connection is not reliable. The Nook has more built in storage, and also supports a 32mb SD card (which the Fire does not). I'd rather just preload whatever music, books, magazines, movies, and tv shows I want, and watch at my leisure. And the 7inch form factor is PERFECT for travel...I've always found the iPad just a bit too large.

And while I'm at it...am I the only one that has paid the extortion to GoGo while in the air, and had a connection that was sloooooow as molasses? And when I call customer service, they say "oh, that flight was very full, there must have been a lot of people on GoGo at that time, that's why it was slow." WTH???? I do not care about their bandwidth issues...if they are going to knowingly sell me a slow connection, then charge me a discounted price!

The Nook will allow me the option of ignoring a crummy wifi connection if I so choose.

8GB, not 6MB. It does not rely 100% on the cloud but you are right, if you need a lot of locally stored video content, it is not the best choice.

The main advantage over the Nook is the Amazon Prime content.

My primary use is locally stored video, so I guess my opinion is biased.

But I do agree that Amazon Prime rocks.

I am interested in seeing an answer to this question as well. I am still debating getting either a Kindle Touch or Fire, since I will mostly use it for reading on the plane.

For reading on the plane, the battery life of the e-ink Kindles is unmatched.

And would it have certain advantages over the BN product, if I am solely looking at e-readers?

first few hours
 

So, the first few hours of use now and I would say, it is NOT like reading on one of the e-ink kindles for sure. As expected it is a backlit screen and backlit screens just don't look that way. To me it is really like reading on an ipad (which i have) and so the overall after a while eye strain that might occur could still occur with this device - the fire.

the device does work pretty nicely, it isn't as snappy and polished as the ipad but it is pretty good for an android device. It IS nice to have the amazon prime and my amazon cloud content right there to access and can use it for movies/tv shows streaming, etc. The netflix player also works quite well.

Moving around the device is a bit sluggish (this is androids fault not the Fire) and the touch screen seems a little bit picky, trying to touch on the settings in the top menu requires a couple touches sometimes. For most things there is a TINY little delay.

The form factor to me is a BIT odd. Of course not as large as an ipad one tries to hold it differently, in one hand say like a phone - but of course it is MUCH larger than a phone. It also has a heft to it that you don't expect while holding it. Somehow the ipad actually feels LIGHTER (which it isn't) but maybe that is because one is normally holding IT with two hands or setting it down.

As for storage, yes it only has about 6.5GB and there is no additional storage slot, so something like the 16GB Nook color is much better in this respect (albeit 250$ and no great amazon prime content access) I'll download a move later tonite to see how big they are and get an idea for just how many one could download to the device for travel.

For me, it probably doesn't represent the best combination of form factor, readability, battery life, weight and elegant use to remain a keeper.

The best I can say is, it MIGHT be going out as a gift and not back to the mother ship.

But, I'll give it a little more time. :-)

The e-ink Kindles are outstanding to read in direct sunlight, like on the beach or at the pool. Any backlit screen - like the Fire or the Nook Tablet - gets washed out in direct sunlight.

On the other hand, if you're on a red eye and want to read and e-ink Kindle, you either have to turn on the overhead light (in which case if I'm sitting next to you and I'm trying to sleep, it's war), or you have to attach one of those little reading lights to the Kindle (or a cover that you buy for the Kindle). Those actually work pretty well, as it turns out.