People throw around a lot of big phrases when they talk about the Kindle Fire -- "iPad killer" being an oldie but goodie. But after spending some time with the 7-inch Fire, one thing is abundantly clear: this ain't no iPad killer. This right here is something else entirely. Less a "tablet" in the sense we've come to think of it than a content-delivery device, the Kindle Fire is a window to serious, non-stop entertainment consumption. And Amazon shopping. Lots of Amazon shopping.
WHAT'S NEWRight off the bat, let's agree on one thing: the Kindle Fire is not an "Android tablet" -- not in the way the Xoom and all its Honeycomb successors have been, at least. The Fire is Amazon's closed-platform media viewer, a Kindle with the power of color and touch, a screen on which you can watch, read, and listen to just about anything Amazon has to offer. If you buy the Fire from Amazon, when it arrives at your doorstep, it'll be linked with all your Amazon accounts (Cloud Player, Kindle, Prime, App Store) and allows access to all that content either streaming from the cloud or downloaded to the device itself.
WHAT'S NEWTo start at the beginning, Amazon has rendered setting up the Fire more or less moot; when I first powered it up, it was already linked with my Kindle books, Prime subscription, and one-click payment settings. The selection of music I'd uploaded to my Cloud Player appeared on the Music area, and albums transferred to the device's internal storage with a click apiece.
But syncing isn't just about mirroring content from device to device; it's about making sure all your devices are on the same page, whether or not there are any pages involved. I rented, downloaded and started watching Horrible Bosses on my commute home, left the Fire in my bag, and picked the flick right back up on a Roku box's Amazon app over dinner. That's thanks to Amazon's WhisperSync, which tags your place anytime you're connected to the Web. Video quality was excellent, and the screen is especially good for video: the widescreen display has almost as much screen space as the much larger iPad when watching widescreen video, and it's very clear, bright, and colorful. The debate about reading on an LCD like the Fire's, versus an e-ink display like the other Kindles, rages on, and it's mostly a matter of personal choice.
Physically, the Kindle Fire is nondescript, but not unattractively so. It's just a black square. Perhaps a little chunky, but a comfortable size for carting around, for sure. If you're thinking "what could be the difference between a 7-inch tablet and a 9.7-incher like the iPad, really?" just hold one in your hands. It is significantly smaller, which is better for some things (like reading books) and worse for others (like web browsing or reading magazines).
I realize now that I completely skipped over any discussion of the Fire's user interface -- and with good reason. I didn't even have to think about how to use the Fire; I just kinda...used it. The custom skin Amazon has built over Android is as akin to browsing flesh-and-blood books, discs, and magazines as any I've ever seen. Everything is organized on faux-wooden shelves, as you can see in the top picture. What I was looking at last is on top of the pile -- just as it is on my desk or the floor in front of the nightstand -- and my faves are never far out of reach.
On the homescreen lie two shelves. The first and largest, which Amazon calls the "carousel," is a chronological list of the last places you've been, be they Web pages, books, movies, or tunes. Below that, you pin your favorites (a long press on an item on the carousel offers the option to save things on one of these "shelves"). These can be anything, so I chose my current earworm album, a Prime streaming series I'm working my way through, a book I've been plugging away at, Popular Science, and the New York Times.
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