If you want a device primarily to read ebooks, then get an eInk device like the Kobo eReader Touch, Nook Simple Touch, or Kindle Touch because nothing beats matching the book experience like eInk and these devices minimize unnecessary distractions. However, if you want a low cost tablet for media consumption (music and videos), games, web browsing, and more with the ability to also read books then the Amazon Kindle Fire and Barnes & Noble Nook Tablet are two solid devices to consider. I have been using both for a couple days and am having a tough time choosing just one.
You can check out several product photos and screenshots of both the Kindle Fire and Nook Tablet in my image gallery along with a video walkthrough of them below with my detailed thoughts on how they compare to each other, other 7 inch tablets, and the Apple iPad.
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| Image Gallery: Check out several photos and screenshots of the Kindle Fire and Nook Tablet. |  |
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Where do these two 7 inch devices fit in?
The Apple iPad defined and now dominates the tablet market with 68% market share. I have tried other Android tablets and Honeycomb has a long ways to go to match the iPad experience. While the iPad leads the large size tablet market, they don’t compete in the smaller 7 inch market where there are some Android devices and the BlackBerry PlayBook. I own an HTC Flyer and as discussed multiple times on the MobileTechRoundup podcast Kevin Tofel and I are huge fans of the smaller 7 inch form factor. With a 7 inch tablet you can put it in your coat pocket and take it on the go and thus the form factor lends itself to being more mobile than the 10 inchers.
Even though the 7 inch tablets are much smaller than the 10 inch tablets, we have seen pricing of them to be about the same as their larger cousin with prices in the past from $499 and up (not counting all the crazy fire sale prices when they realize they are overpriced). We now see the Amazon Kindle Fire coming in at $199 and the Barnes & Noble Nook Tablet at $249. Keep in mind there is also the B&N Nook Color that can be turned into a full Android tablet too for $199. These companies have now changed the expectation for the smaller tablets in a major way, even though they have customized user interfaces and limitations compared to full Android tablets. For example, there are no cameras, GPS receivers, and Bluetooth or wireless carrier radios. Honestly though, I don’t use these advanced features much even on my HTC Flyer so I doubt the “standard” consumer will really care.
Let’s take a closer look at each of these two new devices and then see how they shake out in the end.
Amazon Kindle Fire: In the box and first impressions
The Kindle Fire comes in a very cool plain brown box made of recycled materials with a handy zip pull that opens up the sealed box. The shipping box and the retail box are the same thing with the Amazon label on it. After pulling the zip seal off the top opens up to reveal the Kindle Fire with a plastic wrap on it and the microUSB charger adapter placed underneath. The charger is a hardwired one so you will need another microUSB cable to connect to a PC or Mac, but doesn’t everyone have 5 or 10 of these lying around like me? There is a small card in the top part of the box that shows you how to charge up your new Kindle Fire. Check out the post that James wrote that details the out-of-box experience (OOBE).
If you have ever seen or held a BlackBerry PlayBook, then you will know what the Kindle Fire feels like since the form factor and design is similar. The Kindle Fire is all black and encased in soft touch material. It is hefty and dense, but feels like a MUCH higher quality device than the $199 you just paid. I loved the design of the PlayBook and am now very happy with the Kindle Fire design as well.
Amazon Kindle Fire: Specifications
There are a few key specifications that may be of interest to you, including:
- 7 inch IPS display at 1024×600 pixels resolution
- TI OMAP 4 dual-core 1 GHz processor
- Android 2.3 with customized UI
- 512MB RAM
- 8GB internal storage with no expandability
- Reported battery life of 8 hours reading and 7.5 hours video
- 7.5 x 4.7 x 0.45 inches and 14.6 ounces
Amazon Kindle Fire: Walk around the hardware
At first glance you could easily mistake the Kindle Fire with the BlackBerry PlayBook. They are both black slabs that are not particularly thin and svelte, but they do have rounded corners and the soft touch material helps considerably. There is a bezel around the display so you can hold the Kindle Fire without touching the display. Interestingly, there is only a SINGLE button on the entire device. Yes, that’s right, there are not even volume buttons like you get on the PlayBook. There is a small on/off button on the bottom, to the right of the microUSB port and the 3.5mm headset jack. The power button glows while charging too.
There is nothing on the sides and on the top we just see a couple of stereo speaker grilles. The front has the lovely 1024×600 pixel resolution display while the back has a classy embedding of the Kindle name and light gray Amazon name printed on it. It is very simple hardware and feels like it can handle just about anything you through at it.
Amazon Kindle Fire: Software and apps
The Kindle Fire is powered by Android, but has a customized Amazon user experience that is fluid and works quite well. Both the Kindle Fire and the Nook Tablet use a swipe to unlock feature (I’m sure Apple will be suing them for this soon, right?).
Home
From the home screen you can quickly access your most recently used content (apps, books, magazines, etc.) and your favorites that you have placed on the shelf. You can also tap the words towards the top to access the following:
- Newstand: This is the place where your magazines and newspapers can be found.
- Books: Takes you to your bookshelf where you can also jump to the store.
- Music: Takes you to your media library where you can also jump to the Amazon MP3 store.
- Video: Takes you to your media library where you can also jump to the video store.
- Docs: Launches file explorer to select documents loaded on your Fire.
- Apps: Takes you to shelves filled with shortcuts to your apps. Serves as the app launcher, with a quick link to the Amazon AppStore.
- Web: Launches the Silk web browser and requires an internet connection.
The Amazon AppStore on the Kindle Fire is the same one that you can get on any Android smartphone or tablet and includes thousands of great apps and games. I found and installed about 20 apps on my Fire, including YouVersion Bible, Evernote, Angry Birds, Flixster, and more.
You can move your favorites around on the shelf by tapping, holding, and moving too and can slide the most recently used content cover flow area up to reveal your favorites on the shelf.
Navigation
The slick thing you will notice when you go to areas where your content lives is that there will be a toggle up top for Cloud or Device so you can stream content stored offline or view/use content stored directly on the device offline.
You will find the way to navigate is by tapping the back arrow or home button that appear dynamically along the bottom of the display. There is also a menu button near the center that gives you different options in different areas. To the right of the back arrow and menu button you will find different buttons appear for things such as search and bookmarks.
The Kindle Fire is an Android-powered device so tapping the top left corner will slide down the shade for you to view your notifications. A small subtle number appears in the upper left as notifications come in too.
Tapping on the upper right gives you a drop down with some very common options, including:
- Rotation lock toggle
- Volume: This is how you control the volume since there are no hardware buttons
- Brightness slider
- WiFi connection manager
- Sync: Tapping it forces a sync of your Amazon account
- More: Tapping it gives you full access to all of the Kindle Fire settings
There is also a device wide search option above the launcher and below the upper status bar that you can use to find things faster than scrolling through all the different areas.
Unlike the Nook Color, the Kindle Fire home screen also works in landscape orientation and actually has a cover flow-like user interface for your most recently used content (shown in my video).
Amazon Silk web browser
Amazon promoted the web browser and it is very good. I didn’t notice it being too much different than Android web browsers, but it is attractive and functional. There is a whole display full of settings, the thumbnail bookmarks looks great, and I enjoyed browsing on the Kindle Fire.
Settings
The detailed settings on the Kindle Fire include:
- Help & Feedback
- My Account: Manage your Amazon Kindle account here
- Sounds: Control the volume and manage notification sounds.
- Display: Control the brightness and timeout settings.
- Security: Choose to toggle a lock screen password, secure your storage, and manage administrators.
- Applications: View and manage application details for those apps installed on your Fire.
- Date & time: Toggle automatic time and select your time zone. Unfortunately, there is no 24 hour toggle so I hope they add this in a future update.
- Wireless network: Toggle WiFi on and off and then manage your network connections.
- Kindle keyboard: Toggle sound, auto-capitalization, and auto correct functions.
- Device: View status for storage, battery, and software as well as toggle the ability to install apps from unknown sources and factory reset your Kindle Fire.
- Legal Notices: Blah, blah, blah…
- Terms of Use: Blah, blah, blah…
Amazon Kindle Fire: Sideloading apps
This section is for those who are bit more tech savvy, which I imagine are probably the majority of the readers here. I understand that regular consumers won’t care too much about this capability, but the fact that it is there makes the Kindle Fire a more compelling device for more people. I understand you can also fully root and likely get the full Android experience on the Kindle Fire, but I have no desire to do this since I find the Amazon-optimized Fire experience to be compelling and something of real value.
However, you can load up apps without any hacking and as I mentioned quickly yesterday, the Kindle Fire is much more open than I ever thought it would be. I followed Sascha Segan’s guide article and installed the following on my Kindle Fire:
- Words by Post
- USAA
- Kobo
- Nook
- Spotify (Careful the play/pause/stop controls are not accessible)
- Slacker
- Google Maps
- Dolphin Browser HD
- Paid version of Documents To Go
- Already paid versions of Angry Birds and Plants vs Zombies
I also tried Google Listen and Google+, but as Sascha pointed out any application or service where you have to login with a Google account does not seem to work after installing in a sideloaded manner.
Reviewers like me need to be able to capture the screen on devices and while there isn’t an easy button maneuver on the Amazon Kindle Fire, you can follow the directions on the Amazon Fire developer site and use the free Android SDK and ADB step to capture the display on a PC or Mac.
Usage experiences
There is a decent QWERTY keyboard on the Kindle Fire that works in both portrait and landscape orientations. I like that you can tap and hold on the top row to enter a number and there is some key punctuation above the top row for quick access without having to go to a different screen.
Ebook reading is enjoyable on the Kindle Fire with a ton of customization options (see my screenshots in the gallery) and support for landscape reading too.
