Saturday, May 11, 2013

Some Thoughts About My Kindle Fire


Since this Christmas, I am the owner of a Kindle Fire from Amazon.
I already own at home:
  • A Samsung laptop
  • An Ipad (1st generation) which is still working great
  • A Blackberry bold
But I was eager to add a new peace, especially for all what is to read things. Here are my different uses of the gears I own at home:
  • The Laptop: I use it to blog, to do my Exel's spreadsheets, sometimes to go on the Internet, to upload photos. I still believe nothing replace a computer when it comes to editing and creating things.
  • The Ipad: I use it to watch youtube videos mostly, which I do a lot. I also use it to read my Flipboard, or some newspapers like Lefigaro, or the Huffington Post. I also uses several apps, but to be honest, it is not something I do on a daily basis.
  • The Blackberry:   I use it for social media usage, such as tweeting, Foursquare's checks in, or Facebook reading. I also uses it to get fast info, for example on websites like wikipedia.
What I use the Kindle for:
  • Read books: I got couple of books, and I am pretty happy about it. It is easy to read
  • Watch US channels. I don't know how, nor why, but I am able to watch some US TV channels on the Kindle... Like History Channel, Showtime, ESPN, ABC... Love it
  • Read websites and blogs: I love the screen and the size is perfect. I love the flipboard app.
I love the Kindle Fire, and I believe this is what I use the most now. The size, the screen quality, the battery life are just great. Also, what I love is how sharp the digital keyboard is. I have always been a fan of Blackberry because I always consider nothing compares to a hard concrete keyboard. The Kindle fire is amazing, especially when I go to conferences to take notes, even though I experienced some problems after a little while, the app to take notes (I use the draft of the email app) tends to bug and freeze. Maybe there are better applications I need to look for. Also, I love the book store. Really well done, it is always easy to find what you are looking for.

What I don't like
  • The limited number of applications: All the apps I own are great. But Kindle is working on Android, which counts a huge number of apps. Nevertheless, I can't download (at least officially) any of them! This is silly.
  • The bug when I take long notes as I already said.
  • The OS is not as simple as the Ipad's one. At the beginning, you struggle to closes some apps or to look for them. But after a while, you adapt. But there is still room for improvement.
  • Some videos I can't watch on websites, due to restriction of the web browser. Nevertheless, it is ten times less frequent than the problems I have on my Ipad...

I highly recommend the Kindle, which is cheap compared to the competition, and propose a great added value to a computer, smartphone and traditionnal tablet;