# Picked up a Fire HD yesterday



## cleee (May 15, 2009)

I have the larger size Fire HD on preorder with Amazon but picked up the smaller one yesterday at Staples. I figured if I liked the small one, I'd cancel the larger one. Now that I have used the smaller one, I may keep the pre-order and use the larger one too!

Out of the box, the devices feels great. It's more square than the original Fire, which I like and it was about 65% charged so I could turn it on right away and get to it. I have an original Fire as well and this one feels much more sleek; the original Fire felt kind of clunky to me for some reason. The responsiveness of the touch screen is definitely much better on this one and the screen is gorgeous. I watched and episode of Who the Bleep Did I Marry? last night and it was in HD. The picture was amazing. I don't really play a lot of games on the Fire so my main issue was going to be books, music and video so I wanted to check out all three of those things first.

*Video*
As said above, the screen is beautiful. To take full advantage of the screen's capabilities though, the program you are watching needs to be in HD. Even if it isn't, it still looks great. Out of the box, I loaded up Netflix and it kept freezing on me. I checked Amazon and saw that there was an update for the device so I downloaded and applied that and Netflix works without a hitch now.

*Sound*
I put Slacker radio on and couldn't wait to try out the powerful speakers and was slightly disappointed at first. For one thing, like on my original Fire, the volume slider does not provide much volume at all until it is about 3/4 of the way up. This is the case with both headphones and through the back speakers. Not sure why that is but once you have the volume up, the sound is good. It's much better through headphones though. If you put the volume up to the loudest because you are doing stuff in the kitchen or whatever and want to hear the device, the sound distorts a little bit and gets a little unclear. It's not the end of the world, but I was expecting a better experience. Had I been designing this unit, I would have put the speakers on the front. Since they are on the back and you are looking at the front of the device, the audio is going away from you. Had they been located on the front, the sound would be coming at you and to me would have been much better. Not a dealbreaker though.

*Books*
_Hooray for text to speech._ I wanted to type that 50 times. I LOVE the text to speech option on the older Kindles and was so sad to hear it was being removed. Robotic voice or not, it was so nice to be able to prepare dinner while listening to my book being read. I read a lot of technical manuals as well and better absorb material when I hear it rather than just reading it so it was helpful there too. The voice on the new Fire is light years ahead of the one on the older Kindles and there are an assortment of speeds to choose from. I cannot say enough about this feature. Interestingly enough, Amazon removed it from the older Kindles because of a lack of customer demand for it, but then went ahead and added it to the newer devices. It's a good marketing ploy, but older folks that want simplicity and not the bells and whistles of a tablet should protect their old devices with TTS at all costs.

The sepia screen and TTS makes the reading experience on this Kindle just divine. I have a Nook with GloLight that I absolutely love and use to read in bed because I can read for longer periods of time on that device but the new Fire will be my go to device for reading at other times. I see myself using TTS so very often and just have to say that is the number one reason I purchased this Fire.

When I got my original Fire, I had read online that the Targus Playbook case fit the device so I grabbed one on clearance at Staples. The old Fire though did not fit; there was a half inch gap left at the top of the case so I cut the styrofoam insert that came with the case, laid a strip of that on the bottom holder of the Targus case and used that. It wasn't ideal but it worked. Since the new Fire is more of a square, I tried putting it in the Targus case and it fits PERFECTLY. This is the case I have: http://www.amazon.com/Targus-Truss-BlackBerry-PlayBook-THZ05102US/dp/B004TLH6GM/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1350739334&sr=8-1&keywords=targus+playbook+case

One minor issue that's a little frustrating is that the volume buttons and power button are literally flush with the top of the case so blindly sliding your finger across the top of the devices to press them is a bit of a pain.

I am going to take it outside on the balcony this afternoon to do a little reading and see how it fares outdoors in a bright atmosphere.

All in all, this Kindle is outstanding. It won't replace my iPad for some tasks but will definitely be my go to gadget for leisure. Now, what to do about the larger one I have on preorder.....


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## Broadus (Nov 29, 2010)

Congratulations on your Fire HD, and thanks for the observations. I'm looking forward to your follow up. I'm really interested in hearing more about your reading experience on it.

I have an 8.9 HD on preorder and am trying to talk myself into leaving it there. So far, I do not have a tablet, though I had an iPad 3 32GB but returned it because I was not $600 worth of happy about it.

But $369 for a 32GB Fire HD would not be as bad for such rapidly changing technology.

Plus, 8.9" seems like it may be the perfect size for a one-tablet person.  

At any rate, looking forward to your updates.


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## HappyGuy (Nov 3, 2008)

When the iPads came out and up until recently I thought, "Why would anyone want a tab?" Then I got the Fire HD, just to see what all the fuss was about. Wow, glad I did. It has almost (not quite) become my primary reader. And while I didn't think I would play games on it, Angry Birds, Tetris and a couple of others have caught my eye (and some of my time as well). But probably one of the most useful apps I've found is Evernote. I can keep all my notes, phone books, recipes, etc. in one place and use them on other devices. Amazing! If only it had a USB or SD card port, so I could store movies, music, pictures, etc. off of the Fire. Oh well, maybe in the next iteration. No, probably not - everyone seems to be going for "the cloud".  :>(


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## cleee (May 15, 2009)

Broadus,

I would keep the pre-order for the larger Fire. I'm going to keep mine as well. The device is really fabulous but I read a lot of message boards (like this one) and the smaller screen requires a lot of zooming in. That won't be nearly as necessary on the larger one. Amazon's great return policy will enable you to actually get your hands on one and see if it's for you. 

I tried using the function in which you touch the reading glasses and it is supposed to make the web page you are reading look like a book, on televisionwithoutpity.com and it selected a random post from the page and only displayed that. The post it focused on was midway down the page, so I closed out that page and tried again. It pulled the same post. I guess that feature isn't message board ready yet. I haven't tried that features on any other web pages but will try that soon. The single post it displayed was great though. It felt like I was reading a Kindle book. 

Then I tried doing the same right here on Kindleboards. I opened up this thread and hit the eyeglasses and my first post showed up looking like a book but the responses underneath it were responses in another thread (that I can't locate). None of the two replies to this thread showed up. 

I put the HD next to my original Fire and really don't see too much of a difference in the amount of glare. When in a kindle book, the mirror effect seems less on the HD but that may be me seeing that because I'm supposed to see an improvement rather than that really being the case. The screen on the HD looks way more crisp when looking at color book covers. 

I think if you are a Prime member and looking for a single tablet with the main focus being books and media consumption, this is an excellent choice. The App store for the iPad has way more content and I believe the Amazon App Store has a good bit less than whatever the "main" Android store is, but it looks like the most popular apps are all available.

Did I mention that I LOVE the text to speech function? 

I'm going to try to get it out into a bright sunny situation and see how reading a book looks. I'll post back once I try it.

Edited to add: Okay, I found it. Using the eyeglasses, the book format shows my initial post, and then the "curse my old Kindle Fire" message that was the first response in the thread directly below this one. It shows a bunch of replies to that thread and then Betsy's App of the Day Magic Coral post shows up.


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## alabamasooner (Oct 20, 2012)

I don't have a Fire, just a regular Kindle for reading (and a few games to go to sleep with).  However, I have often thought about upgrading but have always been too chincy.  With the new Microsoft Surface soon coming out, I'm thinking again but trying not to let the dollars drive me.

What are benefits of Surface ($200+ more) versus Fire?

Thx, Steve (AlabamaSooner)


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## Ann in Arlington (Oct 27, 2008)

alabamasooner said:


> I don't have a Fire, just a regular Kindle for reading (and a few games to go to sleep with). However, I have often thought about upgrading but have always been too chincy. With the new Microsoft Surface soon coming out, I'm thinking again but trying not to let the dollars drive me.
> 
> What are benefits of Surface ($200+ more) versus Fire?
> 
> Thx, Steve (AlabamaSooner)


I don't know that there are any -- not having seen an actual 'surface' device, or even a review.

The Fire is closely tied to Amazon's ecosystem and also compatible with a wide range of android apps that can be loaded from other sites. As I understand it the OS for the MS device is NOT android but Windows 8 -- it's possible the apps you need or want would not be available for the device. They're certainly not available from Amazon -- you probably have to buy them through Microsoft somehow and I don't expect there would be many available elsewhere.

No idea if the current Kindle for PC would work with it either, which would mean your kindle books would not be available to you.

Bottom line, for me, though I have no antagonism toward Microsoft, I sort of feel like they're behind the power curve on this. Apple and Android have too large a share of the tablet/phone market now for MS to make any headway unless what they produce is an absolutely STELLAR device and a ridiculously low price.


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## omnibus34 (May 25, 2011)

From what I've seen in print, the surface starts at $499 and that's with the tablet OS rather than a normal windows OS (7 or . I did'nt see anything compelling in either case. Just my 2 cents.



alabamasooner said:


> I don't have a Fire, just a regular Kindle for reading (and a few games to go to sleep with). However, I have often thought about upgrading but have always been too chincy. With the new Microsoft Surface soon coming out, I'm thinking again but trying not to let the dollars drive me.
> 
> What are benefits of Surface ($200+ more) versus Fire?
> 
> Thx, Steve (AlabamaSooner)


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## cleee (May 15, 2009)

I take back my slight criticism of the sound. I realized when I got home today that the speaker on the left side doesn't work at all. No wonder it didn't sound as full and rich as Amazon said. I chatted with support a few minutes ago and they had me reset it and so forth and still the speaker is dead so they are sending out a replacement.


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