Which one of you cool foolios has an Amazon Fire HD tablet?

[Iggo]

What do you like about it?

What do you not like about it?

[Warpy]

1. I have a slightly older model

I got it so fiber art magazines wouldn't keep cluttering this place up. Now I get to read them, admire the pictures, and never have them sitting in piles in inconvenient places. I've got a bunch of books on it.

I do notice I have a hard time going to sleep at night when I've read the tablet for a while. However, I do love having a pile of books reduced to the size of a tablet.

The browser is clunky and the keyboard is annoying, but that's usually not what I use the thing for.

[Liberal Jesus Freak]

2. We have 4...

Clearly, we're fond of them. We surf the net, email, watch movies (especially handy when traveling or during basketball season)...and, of course, use them to read. For me and my husband, they're perfect. No complaints here

[ginnyinWI]

3. I do

Good: it's cheap, it gets me on the internet and has aps I can use: Scrabble, WaPo, NYT, Cookie Jam, and You Tube are the ones I use most. It seems to have enough memory for whatever I want to do. I can stream Netflix with it (another ap) and do also read Kindle books on it. Takes decent photos, too.

Bad: sometimes an ap won't work just right, but then I just close it and open it again. A game can freeze up if you let the tablet go idle without closing it. Then I have to shut down and restart the tablet.

I use my smart phone for most of my communications--chats and email, texting and phoning so don't need it for those. I could theoretically Skype with it.

[NightWatcher]

4. The in laws got one for my daughter and it sucked

It had some kids' program (Freetime) loaded onto it and there was no way to remove it. The kid's program took up most of the storage and there was no way to delete it, nor room for anything else.

The settings were not intuitive either. It was a pain to setup and use. We asked for credits for an iPad but they got us a kid's Kindle instead, thinking it was th same thing.

I'm an Apple iPad/iPhone/Mac user and will be for the foreseeable future.

[trixie2]

5. I chose NOT to get an Amazon anything

Working in a library I had a lot of patrons complain about Amazon products. One family was in Europe on vacation and downloaded a book from Amazon. They did not realize, that merely by location, they had just defaulted on one of the rules. Thou must not purchase from Amazon outside of the US. Their product was wiped and it has been a 3 year fight to restore any functions on the device.

You are just paying for the right to use their device at their will.

[GeorgeGist]

6. I see you don't recommend anything on DU either.

[trixie2]

15. I have an android tablet

I am very happy with it. Some in my family have Apple products and they like their products. I chose the Android because I like to control the apps myself and don't have to deal with what Apple has built into the product.

My sister got an Amazon Fire for a gift once and really did not like it at all. She said her books would just disappear from the device and she downloaded a children's app and could not get the thing off of it and it drained her memory.

When I was helping the patron in 2014 I had found a nice article that was the flip side to her problem. Her problem was that even though she put an ebook in her cart it was actually purchased through Amazon UK and therefor violated the agreement. Here is a snippet of the article:

As Boing Boing's Cory Doctorow put it in a blog post yesterday:

This fine print will always have a clause that says you are a mere tenant farmer of your books, and not their owner, and your right to carry around your "purchases" (which are really conditional licenses, despite misleading buttons labeled with words like "Buy this with one click" — I suppose "Conditionally license this with one click" is deemed too cumbersome for a button) can be revoked without notice or explanation (or, notably, refund) at any time.

Here is a link to the article. There are more current articles but this one just states it all.

[GeorgeGist]

7. My daughter got her techno-phobic mother one for Xmas ...

she uses it often. No problems.

[chelsea0011]

8. It's a good tablet. We have Nooks and IPads in our house and the Fire HD

is certainly better than the Nook (no longer use) and competes with the IPad. Fire works really well with Netflix if that is your thing. Has a great screen for viewing. We have a Nook account with many books and had to download an app to circumvent getting the Nook app because it wasn't available at Amazon's app page. I prefer the IOS driver for searching the internet but the Fire gets the job done. I think for the price a Fire is a good choice over the IPad.

[UTUSN]

9. You asked:

Don't like:

* clunky navigation
*icons for favorites one small size, some no labels.

Do like: for reading, but i like books better

[Phentex]

10. I use it all the time...

I had an ancient ipod. Like the very first generation which eventually could not be upgraded and therefore nearly rendered useless. I can still use it for surfing and reading but not much else.

I now have a fire tablet. I like that it's very fast, easy to carry in my purse, seems to hold a long charge and is overall good for surfing and reading. And watching videos/netflix.

I don't like that I can't quickly scroll back to the top of a page with just a tap. Some websites don't do well with it and just stall. And the maps suck. Some game apps will suck up all the space and have to be deleted. The keyboard can react very slowly which is annoying as hell.

But it's so portable, I think the pros outweigh the cons.

[Heddi]

11. I have one

what I like --

* it replaced my 4+ year old kindle that I lost on a trip recently.

* that I can read in bed without using a headlamp

* that it is also a tablet
* that it has expandable memory via SD Card

what I don't like --

* heavy. Heavier than the kindle. Can get uncomfortable holding while lying in bed for a long time so have to reposition.

* Battery life---meh. Not the greatest. I'm used to kindle needing a charge every 30ish days. I find that this has to either be turned off completely or always plugged in to keep from going from 100% - 50% in the span of an 8 hour sleep

* can't use Google Chrome browser. Come on, I'm a big girl. I can like Amazon AND Google AND android AND mac all at the same time. All of my other devices - android phone, macbook, iphone, use Google Chrome. It makes it easy. Except on the Fire HD.

* not all apps that are otherwise Android-capable can be easily downloaded via the Amazon App Store (Instagram, for example). You have to do a 3rd party work-around to get these apps (not hard, just like 3 extra steps)

* only wifi enabled, can't add to phone plan for 3/4G service, which limits it's usability as anything BUT a kindle when out of wifi range (think: road trips).

* screens aren't as customizable as with other tablets -- we have had ipads in the past and currently have a Google Nexus tab that we use on the boat for navigation. As with ever electronic device, this is filled with Amazon-centric bloatware that you can't remove, and you can't move to the 2nd "page" because the 2nd "page" is for books, and #3 is for Amazon Videos. I have Amazon streaming and watch it on my TV(s) but not on the Kindle. I"d ike to get rid of that and move the less-used or never-used apps off the homepage. Alas, Amazon knows better than I and doesn't want to allow me to do that.

On a scale of 0-10, where 0 is nothing and 10 is the best ever, I'd give this a 7/10. It is useable, it is not the worst (looking at you, ipad 2nd generation), and not the best (still looking for that one). For the price, it works.

[WinkyDink]

14. Yes, a tablet is not a phablet.

[Codeine]

12. My youngest has one.

Having used it and my iPad Mini and can honestly say the Fire is just a horrible piece of unpleasant, ill-designed, unintuitive shit. It's fine for the kid, but I would never want to use the damned thing myself.

[uriel1972]

16. Go on... say what you REALLY think...lol... nt

[WinkyDink]

13. Got me 2, and I LOVE'EM!! Kindle Fire HDX 8.9". Fabulous photos! Great video! Syncs with Samsung

SMART TV.

Posters should be specific about what model they have.

https://www.amazon.com/kindle-fire-hdx-best-movie-tablet-8-9/dp/B00CLH5O9W?th=1

[sarah FAILIN]

17. I bought my son one for Christmas

He promptly modded it and turned it into a large gaming device.

Idk if it does what it was meant for, lol

[crazycatlady]

18. I have one and a Samsung tablet

I bought the Amazon one with a gift card when it was on sale ($40). I couldn't stream Prime videos on my Samsung, which is the only reason I bought it.

It pretty much acts as a TV for me (Netflix and Prime). But for $40 it has done the job considering the price.

The Samsung was supposed to fully replace a 2012 Fire tablet that stopped charging.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

19. I have a Fire; make that two Fires. Neither is an HD.

Biggest drawback is that it is a way for Amazon to keep you informed of your many shopping options at Amazon. The free access to apps at the Amazon Fire store is really "free" access to apps at the Amazon Fire store.

They can be rootkitted (?) to overcome that. I can elaborate when I have more time.

I like the devices though.

[annabanana]

20. I have one, and am quite satisfied.

I don't particularly mind being tethered to Amazon for apps etc, and the Amazon coins help keep the costs in line.