Kindle Fire Product Review

I purchased my Kindle Fire 2 months ago from Walmart when they had them on sale. Buy 1 for $199.00 and receive a $50 Walmart Gift Card. I could not believe it since had not seen any deals like this anywhere. I ended up purchasing 2 Kindle Fires because it was such a sweet deal. One for me and one for my 11-year-old son.

The way I worked the deal was to purchase one and take my $50 dollar gift card and used it to help pay for the second one and got another $50 Walmart Gift Card. The manager said this was okay to do. That was a Savings of $100!

It felt like Christmas when I opened my box. I was a little worried it might be difficult to set up, but to my surprise it only took a few minutes to sign in to my Amazon account and I was immediately registered. Wow, so easy! It also had an on-screen tutorial that shows you some of the features.

The first thing I did was to set up my network. All I had to do was put in my username and password for the router. That was it and I was on my way to surfing the internet. Following are the Positives and Negatives of the Kindle Fire.

Positives

• Setup was Easy! Just register or sign in with your Amazon account.

• Easy to follow screen instructions.

• Impressive Screen quality. Very impressive, especially when watching videos.

• Hundreds of Free Apps to choose from in the App store. Some of my favorite apps are for weather, email, twitter, Facebook, news, Netflix, Hulu and You tube. The Netflix app is amazing. The video quality outstanding. Sign in with your account and instantly watch movies and tv shows. Remember some of the apps you use will also have to have wi-fi connection, but many of the games, you just download and you don’t need wi-fi. Read the descriptions of the app if you not sure if it needs wi-fi to use. 

• You have access to Amazon’s collection of digital music, video, magazine and ebooks. Amazon offers Free ebooks everyday and is updated hourly. Love this!!! So far I’ve only purchased 3 books out of the 500 ebooks I have.

• You receive a Free Amazon Prime 30 day membership to try which includes: Access to Free movies, ebooks (kindle Owners Lending Library) and Free two-day shipping on Amazon orders. Prime membership costs $79 a year.

• One of my favorite things is the Cloud service Amazon gives you for Free. You get 5GB Cloud storage. This gives you access to everything you purchase from Amazon. You can buy an ebook, download it then remove it from your device and it will still be there in your cloud until the next time you want to download it. This is very important to me because I already have over 500 ebooks, most of them I got free that I can store in the cloud instead of on my device. I prefer to do it this way, allowing me to not take up my internal storage. Love this!  You do need to have access to a wi-fi connection to connect with the cloud, so I would suggest you download any books or games before you leave home if you will not have wi-fi access.

• Sound quality was excellent. I do have to use ear buds since I am hard of hearing. You can hear sound without ear buds. Easier to hear when no other noise was on in the room.

• Reading ebooks on the Kindle Fire. There is a back light on the Kindle Fire that you can adjust the brightness of if you want a dimmer background light while reading. You can not completely turn it off though. So if you hate reading with a back light you might want to choose a regular Kindle. This is not a problem for me since I prefer to read with one. Also, wanted to mention you can adjust the font size when reading your ebooks. This is a great feature for me since I now have to use reading glasses when reading.

• Downloading ebooks is easy. Just go to the book store on the Kindle Fire and search for books you want or see what books are available. When you find a book you want all you have to do is click the buy button and it instantly is installed on your Kindle Fire. After purchasing, you can remove it off your device and store it in your Cloud on Amazon until you are ready to read it. I love this feature!

Negatives

• The first thing I noticed right off was that it felt heavier than I expected, but not really a problem unless you are going to be sitting for hours reading or using it. I ended up purchasing a case that had a stand to hold it up with when my hands got tired of holding it.

• The touch screen worked great, but I highly recommend that you get a stylus pen to use touch screen features. I don’t know if my fingers are just big, but it was hard to click some things and a stylus pen made it easier. A touch screen stylus pen does not come with the Kindle Fire so you will need to purchase your own.

• The battery got quite warm when I used it over an hour. It wasn’t so hot you couldn’t hold it, but it was noticeable enough to be uncomfortable. The case I purchased later took care of this problem.

• I was not impressed at all with the battery life of the Kindle Fire. The battery was only lasting me around 4-6 hours. They advertise that it’s suppose to last up to 8 hours. I did give Amazon a call and they said running your wi-fi will cause the battery not to last as long. This was not a huge issue for me since I don’t really travel much and use mine at home where I can always plug it up to charge it. I need to mention here that it came with a charger that plugs into the wall outlet. You can purchase a car charger. So just keep this in mind if you are purchasing a Kindle Fire mostly for travel.

• The Kindle Fire does not come with a usb cord, camera, microphone, GPS and no expansion slot for storage. You can purchase a usb cord separately to connect to your computer to use to transfer files and pictures back and forth. Hopefully, if they come out with a Kindle Fire 2 they will add these.

•  I need to mention that on occasion I have had the Kindle Fire screen freeze up, but all I had to do was turn the Kindle Fire off and back on again. This can be aggravating at times if you are in the middle of doing something, but has not been a huge problem for me.

All in all, I love my Kindle Fire! It is so easy to use and portable. When I feel like laying on the couch to surf the internet I use the Kindle Fire case I purchased that has a stand that sits it up and surf the internet, check emails or watch a movie. I would strongly recommend that you purchase a Kindle Fire case, a touch screen stylus pen and some ear buds and a usb cord for the Kindle Fire. This is all you need.

My son loves his and with all the free game apps available it saves me money! Not to mention the hundreds of Free ebooks available for Free!

The positives outweighed the negatives so I would rate the Kindle Fire an 8 out of 10

Following are Affiliate Links to purchase your own Kindle Fire and accessories. If you have any questions about the Kindle Fire I did not address here, feel free to email me or leave a comment.