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I updated some links that weren’t working and added some new things to the accessories page. After the holiday rush, it’s interesting to see what people’s reactions were to the Kindle Fire after owning it for a little while. I’m happy to see that my impressions were confirmed and that the vast majority of people were really happy with it based on the customer reviews on Amazon. Hope everyone out there had a good holiday and is enjoying their Fire!

Yep! I’ve used it quite a bit the last few weeks in a variety of settings and it’s been great. I traveled over the holiday break so I had a chance to watch some video and read a book and some newspapers while on the plane. Here is what I’ve been impressed with, and what I think could be improved:

I Love
Browser speed. I show this in the review video, but after looking at tons of websites, I can confirm that it’s plenty fast and way faster than initially reported by some of the mainstream tech sites that had pre-release Fires.

Books. For indoor reading, it’s quite good. I took it outdoors to test that, and surprisingly the screen is much brighter than my laptop and can be read in the bright Arizona sunshine. However, the glare is too strong and you wouldn’t want to do that for long. That said, indoor reading is fine and enjoyable.

Movies. It’s perfect for a plane ride and makes the time fly.

Size. It fits in my front jeans pocket. I’m a guy, so my pockets are probably larger and looser than a girl’s, but it’s nice to not have to have a backpack or bag to carry it in all the time.

Improvements Needed
Video formats. If you transfer video from your computer to the Kindle, you need to have it in mp4 format. 99% of video files on your computer are either .avi or .mpg, so this requires you to convert the video format. It’s annoying and seems like a weird oversight or something since hardly any video is in mp4 format.

Mobile browsing. I’m not sure if this is the fault of the Kindle, or web designers, but there are occasionally websites that are just difficult to navigate because of weird advertisements or videos that take up the whole screen with the tiniest “x” button that is impossible to accurately tap. The result? You go to the ad’s website. Maybe there’s an adblocker app for the browser…I’ll have to check.

So overall I’m still very happy with the Fire. If you’re thinking about buying this as a gift for someone, they won’t be disappointed.

I’ve got my video review of the Kindle Fire up now! I’m adding more videos for each function tonight as I get them done. If there is anything I don’t cover or something you would like answered, go ahead and post a comment on this blog post and I’ll either do a video for you or answer directly on the blog here with an updated FAQ section.

So ours was shipped out yesterday and we received it this morning. We’re testing it all day today, and then creating a series of videos which will be up on the site tonight. We’ll create one which will be a general overview/review, and then we’ll have separate detailed videos for each major function showing it in operation and our thoughts on those functions. At the very least, we’ll have the overview/review up tonight, with all of the detailed components no later than tomorrow afternoon.

*edit* It WILL be up tonight 11/16, probably by around 6-7pm EST. I had to run out and buy a better video camera that could show the quality of the Fire’s screen. My old one was a blurry mess close up.

Amazon announced today that the Kindle Fire will be shipping today, a day early. I think in part this is to hold off the wave of criticism that the Fire will be available in stores on Tuesday, yet wasn’t schedule to ship until then for a lot of people. This is reflected in some of the impatient people angrily giving 1 star reviews based before they’ve received their Fire.

In other news, the usual tech sites have released their reviews and overall they are very positive. The complaints were that the screen is too small for proper magazine viewing, and that the browser isn’t as fast as they would have liked. The reviewers admit that these minor shortcomings don’t detract from the fact that, at $200, the Fire is a great product for the money.

I’ve updated the review on the front page to take into account the numerous reviews I’ve read, and we’re still planning to put up a nice long video review in the next day or two.

So we have our Fire being overnighted to us the day it’s released. The only variable is whether we’re early enough on the waiting list to get it next week. Our plan is to spend the entire day playing around with it and testing it out, then doing the video later that night and getting it up on the site the same night.

Once the video is up, I’ll post it on the main page as well as on the blog here and you can ask any questions in the comments section about anything I may not have covered, and I’ll either directly answer you here or create an update video addressing multiple questions or anything major I might have overlooked.

We’re also going to most likely pick up a Nook Tablet just so we can do a direct comparison and then judge what exactly the extra $50 gets you beyond the 8GB of extra space.

I’ll post an update the day we get the Fire just to let you know when to expect the review, but I’m hoping it’s Thurs/Fri this week.

We have the Kindle Fire pre-ordered and we’ll have a detailed, no B.S. walkthrough of all of its features and what our thoughts are as soon as we get our hands on it. So check back here the first week after its released and I’ll update you guys and let you know when to expect our video.

In other news, Amazon just announced an awesome new benefit for Kindle owners who have their Prime membership. The Kindle Owners’ Lending Library will allow you to “borrow” books, as many as 1 per month, with no due dates. The Prime membership seems like an awesome complement to the Fire with all of the other benefits I read about. We’re definitely trying the 1 month free trial when ours arrives, so we’ll show you everything that comes with the membership and how it all integrates with the Fire.

Just wanted to say hi to everyone visiting the site, and also let you all know that I’ll be updating this once new products are released for the Kindle Fire. Right now there seem to be just the cases/sleeves/screen protectors released, but I anticipate there will be other useful accessories released soon. As soon as they are, I’ll put the good ones up on the site.

For now, we all have to sit tight and wait in anticipation for the imminent release of the new Kindle Fire! Hopefully it lives up to the hype