got the new Kindle Fire for my 40th birthday in November. Although I would love to have the iPad 2 the price tag the iPad was somewhat discouraging. I couln't justify to myself on spending the extra $350 vs the Kindle Fire. Anyway, here's my review of the tablet so far after 3 weeks of use...
Though smaller than the iPad at only 7", the Fire actually serves as a better e-reader. The smaller size allows me to hold the kindle in one hand. The backlit screen is a bit tough on the eys when using to read books but that was expected. I have not picked up and finished a book in over a decade and after getting the tablet I have already finished 2 books so I definitely consider this a plus.
Best part of the Kindle Fire would be the content provided by Amazon. Music, video/movie streaming as well as books and magazines are available for purchase. And if you are a Prime member like myself, you get to rent 1 book for free per month and unlimited streaming of select movies/videos.
The negatives... only 8GB of storage and about 6.5GB is usable since the Android based operating system takes up a large chunk of storage. There is also no slot for SD cards to add additional storage space like for example the nook color tablet but Amazon does offer free 5GB cloud storage to alleviate the problem and if you don't install every single app available the 8GB is more than enough for most users. The only time this is an issue is when you're out of wifi range and want to access items in your cloud storage. The Amazon silk browser also is a little slow to respond at times so I find myself not using it to surf the net as much.
All in all, the Kindle Fire at $199 is cheap and fun to use with terrific content from Amazon. I would recommend this tablet and rate it 8/10.
