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The first apps that I installed were Twitter, Hootsuite, Androidirc (Android IRC client, which unfortunately for the Kindle Fire you have to pay $4.95 for), Facebook, Angry Birds, Solitaire, Airport Mania, Tumblr, and LastPass.
A little bit of back story, my birthday is the 21st of this month and Kindle Fire was on the Amazon wish list that I printed out for my parents. Only three items were on that list: Amazon Kindle Fire, Mockingjay, and ER Season 15 (final season).
They bought me a Kindle Fire — which I am elated about. Unfortunately I could not wait until the day of my birthday to open it so I opened it yesterday. I just figured this would give me an excuse to write a blog post to do somewhat of a review of my thoughts on the Kindle Fire.
At first I was a bit disappointed that it came with no documentation, then I discovered they have nice help documents on the Amazon website, and the Fire comes preloaded with a user guide, so all is well on that front. Obviously one of the first things I did (after setting it up to access our Wifi network — this is where the online help documents came in very handy for how to find the MAC address!) was installed some Apps.
The first apps that I installed were Twitter, Hootsuite, Androidirc (Android IRC client, which unfortunately for the Kindle Fire you have to pay $4.95 for), Facebook, Angry Birds, Solitaire, Airport Mania, Tumblr, and LastPass. Firstly let me say I will not be using the LastPass app because it is only a 14-day trial which really disappointed me a lot because I love LastPass. Also, with Angry Birds…I’ve discovered that the controls with touch on that particular game is far better than trying to use a mouse on the Google Chrome or Google+ version of the game. The only reason I installed Solitaire is because it is a great game and a great little time waster.
One disappointment I had was that within the first 24 hours of using my Kindle Fire, it apparently had a crash, but thankfully with the help of people online I was able to reboot it by holding the power button for 30 seconds. This was a quick fix, thankfully. Also, when they say that turning off the Wifi will help battery life, they mean it. I pressed the power button this morning to wake up my Kindle only to see a message “Battery too low to power on”. So, here’s a tip either turn off wifi if you’re going to leave it on overnight, or just hold the power button to initiate shutdown mode rather than sleep mode.
Now, the thing that I really enjoy is that when you register the Kindle Fire with your Amazon account you receive 1 free month of Amazon Prime ($79 annual price), which gives you access to a buttload of content: unlimited instant streaming of thousands of movies and TV shows with Prime instant videos, a Kindle book to borrow free each month from the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library, and FREE Two-Day shipping with no minimum order size.
I have already started taking advantage of this streaming by watching the first episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation. I am not sure not whether I could actually finish every episode of that series in 1 month (my free trial ends March 16th), but I would like to try. Hopefully I could perhaps get my dad to pay the $79 for Amazon Prime as part of my birthday gift, because it definitely looks like it is worth it.
All in all, if you are looking to get a tablet but don’t have a lot of money to spend, you should pick the Kindle Fire because at only $199 it is a heck of a lot cheaper than Apple’s ipad 2, and works just fine. I’ll admit typing is a little awkward but I will also admit that I have never in my life used a a portable device with a touchscreen until I opened up my Kindle Fire package yesterday.