# Questions About the Kindle Fire 7" HD



## thailen (Aug 1, 2012)

1. What's the advantage of paying $50 more for 16GB more? Besides the obvious one of getting twice as many movies or TV shows?
2. I already have an HDMI cable from my notebook PC to my 40" HD TV(and extra HDMI cables, as well). This Kindle, I understand, has a mini-HDMI port. 
    Does this mean I either need an adapter or do I need to buy a special HD cable from the Fire into my TV and an adapter, as well?
3. Where can I buy an external wireless keyboard for the Kindle?
4. Is there somewhere in these forums or elsewhere on the Internet a guide to help me navigate thru the Kindle?


----------



## Xopher (May 14, 2009)

1. The obvious thing will be holding more apps, movies, shows, ebooks... The slightly less obvious thing is how Android uses memory and caches things. By having more space, performance will be somewhat better, since the operating system will tend to slow down as free resources get used up. 

2. Yes, you will either need an adaptor, or a new cable.

3. You'll want to get a Bluetooth keyboard. There are several out there, and there is even a thread on this forum with a list of keyboards that have been found to work. Amazon has several for sale.

4. There is a good ebook on using the Kindle Fire. I don't know if it has been updated yet for the Fire HD, though. You'll find a lot of useful info on here, and in the tips forum.


----------



## Meemo (Oct 27, 2008)

1. I had the original Fire. I waited for (and paid the extra $50 for) the 32GB Fire HD. I found myself constantly juggling apps with the 8GB of memory so decided to get the maximum memory available this time.

4. You might want to start here: http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html/ref=hp_200127470_fire_hd?ie=UTF8&nodeId=200939330


----------



## kltmom (Jan 9, 2012)

Regarding your #1 inquiry, this has been my experience having the 8gb original Kindle Fire for almost a year--I wish I had more memory!  I am constantly juggling apps in and out of the Cloud because the apps take up a LOT of space.  The space allotted to the apps is always creeping up to full.  Books and music don't take up a lot of space, but as for movies and tv shows we stream those so I can't share experience regarding any problems there.


----------



## SheilaJ (Apr 10, 2011)

I am an original Fire owner and my only gripe has been that I hit the "low application space" wall pretty quickly.  I am considering getting the HD but would like to know if the new FireHD is divided like the old Fire.  Will I have all of that 16GB or 32 GB available for apps or do they still partition a small portion for apps and the rest for music,movies and books?

I guess I am wanting primarily a games tablet.  With 2 grandsons ages 3 and 9 they play very different games and once I have a couple for each kid and a couple for me than my current fire is pretty much full on the app side of things.  

Could someone please let me know.  I'll buy the HD today if most of that 16GB space is available for apps.

Thanks


----------



## kltmom (Jan 9, 2012)

SheilaJ said:


> I am an original Fire owner and my only gripe has been that I hit the "low application space" wall pretty quickly. I am considering getting the HD but would like to know if the new FireHD is divided like the old Fire. Will I have all of that 16GB or 32 GB available for apps or do they still partition a small portion for apps and the rest for music,movies and books?
> 
> I guess I am wanting primarily a games tablet. With 2 grandsons ages 3 and 9 they play very different games and once I have a couple for each kid and a couple for me than my current fire is pretty much full on the app side of things.
> 
> ...


Yes, this is exactly what I'm talking about in my post above this one. The space allotted for apps fills up super fast, while for books and music I always have lots of space (we don't store videos, but books and music we have a lot of as well, but it hardly takes up any space). I hope someone who has the Fire HD can answer this question, because I'd like to know as well. If the space allotted for apps is anything like the original Fire, I'm going to have to rethink possibly getting the Fire HD. I know we have the Cloud and all for unlimited storage for Amazon content, but it's a pain to constantly juggle apps on and off the Cloud. We have a TON of apps! Especially because of the "Free App Of The Day" offers.


----------



## SheilaJ (Apr 10, 2011)

Meemo said:


> 1. I had the original Fire. I waited for (and paid the extra $50 for) the 32GB Fire HD. I found myself constantly juggling apps with the 8GB of memory so decided to get the maximum memory available this time.


Has getting the 32 GB Fire HD made a difference in the app juggling. How much of the 32GB is available for apps. Is it partitioned as poorly as the original Fire is as far as space for apps? How much of that space can be used for apps because that is what I primarily want on my Fire HD. I can't seem to get an answer to this question and the ones at the store you can't check for settings.


----------



## Jen200 (Aug 6, 2010)

I don't think there is any separation of space.  Under storage, it shows the total available and below that it shows what is used in each category.


----------



## Meemo (Oct 27, 2008)

SheilaJ said:


> Has getting the 32 GB Fire HD made a difference in the app juggling. How much of the 32GB is available for apps. Is it partitioned as poorly as the original Fire is as far as space for apps? How much of that space can be used for apps because that is what I primarily want on my Fire HD. I can't seem to get an answer to this question and the ones at the store you can't check for settings.


Apparently - I'd reached the point where I could only put one magazine at a time on my old Fire - the magazines that are separate apps - now I have several. But I haven't loaded nearly as many apps on the HD yet as what I had before. But even if it's still partitioned the partitioning is probably at a minimum proportionally partitioned - i.e. if 25% of the 8GB was available, then 25% or more of the 32GB would be available now.

But...I can't figure out how to tell whether the memory is actually partitioned. I just downloaded a bunch of the high-memory apps (like kids' interactive books) - will see what happens after they all download. Ideally they did away with partitioning completely - not sure what the point is, really - especially if their idea is that we mostly stream movies & music.


----------



## SheilaJ (Apr 10, 2011)

Meemo said:


> But...I can't figure out how to tell how the memory is actually partitioned, if it is at all. I just went & downloaded a bunch of the high-memory apps (like kids' interactive books) - will see what happens after they all download.


You should be able to look under settings/device and it will show how much space you have available. On the original fire it shows how much available for apps and then separately shows how much space is avaiable for everything else.


----------



## SheilaJ (Apr 10, 2011)

Jen200 said:


> I don't think there is any separation of space. Under storage, it shows the total available and below that it shows what is used in each category.


Thanks Jen, maybe they don't have it partitioned now. If that is indeed the case they have greatly improved it.


----------



## MoSo (Nov 2, 2012)

I don't have fast home internet (1.5 Mbps on a good day, around 1 on an average day), so any video I want to watch can't be streamed, it has to be downloaded to the device first.

Between the music I have on the device and the downloaded videos, it won't take long to hit even 32Gb. A SIM SD card would have been good for those of us condemned to the Land of Slow Internet.


----------



## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

It is curious to me that Amazon hasn't had a SD card slot in a device since the K1...despite a lot of demand.  I wonder what about the K1 experience convinced them not to have a card slot?  I guess keeping costs down....

Betsy


----------



## HappyGuy (Nov 3, 2008)

Well, since Amazon is in the business of selling streaming video and streaming music and really, really wants you to use the cloud for storage, making a device with an SD slot would be kind of the opposite of their ideal world.


----------



## SheilaJ (Apr 10, 2011)

Well I bit the bullet and bought the Fire HD 32 GB and the charger. I answered my own question about how much app space is allowable. It appears all the storage space is lumped to gether although you can get a listing of how much space each thing is taking up, like apps, music, books, etc.


----------



## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

Have fun, Sheila!  I fixed your image link, you were copying the HTML code, not the BB Code.

Also, you can do a screen capture of the Fire HD by pressing and holding the volume down button and the power button at the same time.

Screenshots get placed in the photos section on the Kindle Fire in a folder aptly named “screenshots”.

Betsy


----------



## SheilaJ (Apr 10, 2011)

Betsy the Quilter said:


> Have fun, Sheila! I fixed your image link, you were copying the HTML code, not the BB Code.
> 
> Also, you can do a screen capture of the Fire HD by pressing and holding the volume down button and the power button at the same time.
> 
> ...


Thanks Betsy, I've never been good at the picture thing. How do you know about the screen capture thing? Is it in the docs? (which of course I haven't read yet)

I had a new question for today. I was watching some episodes of a tv show on the fire hd that I had converted from dvd's to mp4s but I can't seem to find a place to set where I ended. These are 2 hour episodes so It would be really nice if next time I go to finish an episode it would resume from where I left off. Instead it starts back at the beginning.

It does just that on the original fire, resume from where you left off.


----------



## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

SheilaJ said:


> Thanks Betsy, I've never been good at the picture thing. How do you know about the screen capture thing? Is it in the docs? (which of course I haven't read yet)
> 
> I had a new question for today. I was watching some episodes of a tv show on the fire hd that I had converted from dvd's to mp4s but I can't seem to find a place to set where I ended. These are 2 hour episodes so It would be really nice if next time I go to finish an episode it would resume from where I left off. Instead it starts back at the beginning.
> 
> It does just that on the original fire, resume from where you left off.


I don't know if it's in the doc; but it was mentioned in a thread here and on our blog.

Betsy


----------



## Ann in Arlington (Oct 27, 2008)

The screen capture thing is undocumented. . . .mwahahaha 

For the record, when you do it, it places the screenshot in a folder named 'screenshots' on the "Photos" section -- at least on the Fire HD.

You do have to make sure you're pressing both buttons at exactly the same time, not one after the other.  It makes a noise like a camera shutter and then the shot is there.

The only video stuff I've done has been downloads from Amazon and they do remember where I left off. . . . . I would assume it would work for ones you loaded yourself but it's not something I've played with.


----------



## SheilaJ (Apr 10, 2011)

OK I followed your instructions for the screen capture and this is what it looks like for the storage capacity. Thanks so much for that little tip.










I personally had a hard time justifying buying the fire hd since I already had a kindle and a kindle fire but then today I watched my two grandsons all day (ages 3 and 9) and they each had their very own kindle fires to play on. It was great!! Always before they fought over using it. Plus I am really enjoying having all the storage capacity especially for apps which for some reason is showing up under "Other" rather than apps.


----------

