Bought my sister a Fire HD for her Birthday.....
 

Well, I gave her the dosh for for it as it made sense for her to order it using her own Amazon account (the Fire HD then comes fully setup). She bought it round yesterday, so here are my thoughts after half an hour of fondling her new toy:

Firstly, it looks and feels somewhat more expensive than it actually is. They've mastered the old Japanese engineering knack of creating that feel of premium.

Second, it's slick. I'm talking full on Apple slickness here. And the screen is superb. Same PPI as my Nexus 7 but I get the impression (more engineering smoke and mirrors, perhaps) that this is a bit nicer than my Nexus 7. In spite of this, it also feels a little lighter. Seriously, this is perfect for reading books indoors. Oh, and unlike the Nexus, the built in speakers are actually very good. You can watch a movie in your hotel room without having to use a set of cans.

Now for the problems: The feeling of closedness is inescapable. This device makes Apple seem open! For one thing, there's no launcher, at least in the conventional sense of the word. And then there's the smaller store (only option unless you root the device and put vanilla Android on it).

Speaking of the store, like Google Play, it can give you the impression they sell something when they don't. For example, in the search I typed in "Swift" and it immediately finished "Swiftkey 3" but then found no results. Also, I doubt you'll ever find products competitive with Amazon in this store. Forget Netflix - you will be stuck with Amazon's inferior (in the UK at least) LoveFilm streaming service.

Also, this device has GPS but I couldn't find a built in mapping application. Nor was I impressed by the options in the store (but then again, I only know Google, so some of the options may well be excellent).

All in all though, I can't complain. The Fire HD is remarkable value for money, giving a premium end user experience at a relatively low cost. Most users aren't going to notice the closedness of the device and the Amazon ecosystem as it will deliver all the books and entertainment content they need, while providing a full on web browsing experience.

For business travellers, this device offers compatibility with their email and calendar services, whether they be Google, Hotmail/Outlook or the corporate Exchange server (corporate policy allowing). The available office options may well be good enough for delivering presentations (bearing in mind the device gives HDMI output) and the premium version of the built in Office application claims compatibility with Google Drive and Microsoft Skydrive.

I was tempted but then I saw the 64GB Playbook was only £129 from Currys and jumped on that instead, compatibility with the BlackBerry being top of the list of added benefits.

Have had the 7" Fire HD (32GB) for a couple of days and it's a mixed bag. I also have an ipad (v1) and the Fire feels even more "locked-in" to Amazon than the ipad is to Apple. It's not really, but the Fire is anxious to give you the chance to go to Amazon and buy something.

I already have an Amazon account as I have 4 ereader Kindles and a few other things on the account - a Paperwhite and a DX for myself, a Kindle Keyboard for the spouse, my ipad and my son's ipad, my daughter-in-law's Kindle Keyboard, my phone). Downloading movies to the device is pretty simple and relatively quick, considering I have terribly slow internet service.

The Silk browser is fairly good, with some glaring omissions - while it is a tabbed browser, there is no way to create a bookmarks toolbar and there is no way to create bookmark folders. If you have, say, 50-60 sites you visit frequently, you get to scroll through the list. Very clunky. There is no ....... utility available (yet, that I can find). When you first open the browser, it comes up with three rows of websites - Frequently Visited, Trending and "Recommended" - haven't figured out how to get rid of the last two yet.

The speakers on the case are pretty good, certainly sort of "car radio-ish", fine for listening to most movies and the Spotify and Pandora apps work well to stream music.

Tablets are getting more expensive and laptops are getting cheaper, so I am not sure I am sold on the utility of tablets - some people manage to get real work done on them, but I am not one of them, they mostly fall into the "toy" category for me. $229 for a toy is expensive but doable, but the Apples, creeping up appallingly past the mid$400s and into the $500s well equipped, seem too expensive for toy status.

The vast majority of LTE data plans is 5GB - the average Netflix stream is 1GB/hour.

Good luck with that.

As I said - 3G/4G is not a realistic delivery method for movies.

As a result of caps rather than speed; 1GB/hour is under 3Mbits/sec, well within better 3G speeds if uncapped. With uncapped Sprint Wimax (nominally "4G", but slower than many of the 3G services on other carriers IME) I've had a fairly good experience watching non-HD Netflix.

You are confusing typical 4G LTE *plans* (many of which have data caps) with 4G LTE capabilities. 4G LTE is plenty fast to stream video with decent quality. That was my point. You're correct that many data plans make hours of streaming cost prohibitive.

Note: VZW Business users and those with grandfathered personal accounts still have unlimited 4G LTE with VZW.

How does it compare to the iPad 1? Better? Worse? The same?

Well, obviously the FIRE HD is smaller, but that's pretty much why I bought it, as I find the ipad V1 cumbersome to lug around and too heavy to hold in one hand comfortably.

The Fire HD is much easier to load apps on from places outside the Amazon store - it doesn't take jailbreaking the device, just some sideloading. (Which Amazon sternly warns you against, blah blah blah.) I was able to replace the browser, add Flash capability back in, load some of my favorite stupid Android games (mostly card, puzzle, crossword type stuff) that aren't in the Fire store. The Fire is really meant for a streamlined, non-power-user experience and it doesn't really want to allow a lot of customization. I see people screaming on Amazon because they can't change the screensaver or add themes and skins, and that is just not something I really give a ... whatever ... about.

Both of them come with only the usb cable to charge with, which takes freaking FOREVER to charge. Amazon offers you their "fast charger" wall wart for $10 when you buy the device - BUY IT, it's the difference between a 12 hour charge time and 3-4 hours.

I do prefer the way the Apple opens with a screen that is fully customizable to the horrible "Carousel" on the Fire HD, which is populated with the most recently opened or downloaded items, which have icons so huge you can only see about 3 of them without swiping to the left. Along the top is a swipeable ticker that offers you: Search, Shop, Games, Apps, Books, Music, Videos, Newsstand, Audiobooks, Web. (There is a video at Amazon that makes this all clear.) On the other hand, the Fire offers the chance to save the programs/apps you want to see to the "Favorites" screen, which is one tap away and bypasses the Carousel all together, which is A Good Thing.

The Fire HD has the same problem the ipad did when I first got it - there aren't a lot of apps specifically designed for it yet. The Amazon store doesn't do a particularly good job of telling you which apps are designed for the new Fire HD vs the old Fire, unless you are looking directly from the device.

Right now I use the iPad to read a few magazines (because of the larger screen) and it sits upstairs in a speaker doc to play the Spotify and Pandora apps when I am reading in bed. I used to travel with it, but between my Samsung Galaxy S3 and a Garmin GPS (and my netbook with a wifi hotspot from the Samsung), I don't see the point in bringing it with my anymore.

I chose the FIRE HD over the Mini mainly because of price point and similar features. The Mini is almost double (for the configuration I wanted) and it certainly isn't double the value, particularly since I am not locked into the Apple way of life. No doubt the Mini will be a more polished product, but a toy is a toy is a toy. For me, tablets are toys, not productivity tools - if I have work to do, that requires a laptop. Tablets are for reading magazines, reading the web, playing games, watching media and occasionally checking my webmail email while traveling.

I'm sure there are people out there who manage to get all their work done on an ipad, but I can't live without a regular keyboard, and by the time I add up the ipad, a keyboard, the AC power cable - the heck with it, throw in the 13" laptop and use it instead. A lot of the programs I run (ThinkorSwim, Trade Station, Telechart) have a really brain-damaged app version, compared to the full PC version. When I work, I don't want to sit in a coffee shop using an unsecured wifi, either.

The proprietary Apple cables drive me nuts, too. I'm happy to be able to carry ONE cable to charge my phone, Kindle ereaders and Fire HD.

For those with a Kindle Fire HD, is there a calendar app you'd recommend?

I want one for day/week/month view & add things like meetings, trips or birthdays of family/friends. Pretty simple stuff. Being single & self-employed I don't need to sync it to anyone else's calendar.

Any input appreciated.

Cheers.

I do not have a Kindle, but I am very satisfied with this application on my Android phone:

http://www.amazon.com/Mikado-Softwar.../dp/B004TTMYQG

Thanks Mia. I read the reviews for that & it looks like it's better for phone than tablet. Saw this in one of the reviews:

"This is a great calender app for phones and but not so good if you need to use it on a tablet while away from an internet connection. That's because it stores your calendar on the Amazon cloud and if you aren't connected and logged into the app store it won't run. I understand the reason, they do it so that you can share calendars between devices but it's a poor choice. The right way to do it would be to store the calendar locally and sync it with a cloud based calendar when connected. That's the right way to do it and if they start doing that I'll start using it again"

Cheers.

I do have an Android tablet, but I have not installed any third-party calendar application on it because the standard Android calendar application is more than adequate for the way I use the tablet. Does the Kindle have any standard calendar application?

Business Calendar uses the standard Google calendar database, as do most third-party Android calendars. The current and future entries from this database are available offline, and I can use Business Calendar on my phone when there is no internet connection. I did obtain my copy of Business Calendar through the Amazon store. I cannot explain why the reviewer's experience is different.

Turns out it does, but you have to register it w/ an email account? I have email loaded on the Kindle but for some reason it's not recognizing it for the calendar function. FWIW - I don't use the calendar function on my email. When I try to add my email account it says I've already added it but calendar says it isn't. I've been slammed last few days, so haven't had a chance to contact Amazon & figure out the problem. I'll do it when I return from London in a couple of weeks.

Cheers.

Amazon's system may be different, but other Android calendars sync with Google's online calendar:

https://www.google.com/calendar

You would need to have a Google account to use the calendar, and this would typically use the same login credentials as a GMail account, but of course there is no requirement to use the email portion if that doesn't fit with your requirements.

The new Kindle Fire HDX line is quite impressive. However, now I'm tempted with the plain HD for $139 as a tablet for the kids.