I've been focusing on 10-inch tablets in this piece, but I actually carry my 7-inch tablet more often, because I use it as a reader and in situations when my smartphone screen isn't big enough. I took a poke at Apple fanboys earlier in my piece -- but I confess I've been hooked on Kindles since they first launched.
I'm a reader, and
while I started with Amazon's ePaper products and have a Kindle Paperwhite, I
mostly carry the Kindle Fire, and it was with great anticipation that I awaited
the arrival of the Kindle
Fire HDX.
At around US$230 for the 16 GB option, it is a bargain when compared to the
similar but far more expensive iPad Mini with Retinal display. (Get at least 32
GB, at $269, if you want to watch movies on the plane; the 64 GB is a
reasonable $309.)
The new display is
gorgeous. Amazon has improved the polarizing filter so it works better outdoors
than the old Fire HD did, and it's added some decent stereo speakers and upped
the performance. The Kindle Fire HDX has the same stunning Qualcomm Snapdragon
800 2.2 GHz 4 core processor as the Nokia 2520 above.
It is a decent game
machine. During my flight to New York last week, I gamed on it all five hours
and still had plenty of battery left to read when I got to the hotel --
something I couldn't do on my old Kindle HD. This points to the real reason I
carry both a smartphone (the amazing Nokia 1020 at the moment) and the Kindle,
because I don't run my smartphone battery down while gaming or reading on the
Kindle.
Initially, the new
Kindle OS seemed a little flaky -- it was rebooting a bit -- but that has
stopped, and it is as stable as the old one (fingers crossed), which was as
reliable as an appliance. You are tied somewhat to the Amazon walled garden
with the Kindle, but it will run most Android apps (it runs a fork of Android
controlled by Amazon) and that includes Netflix.
