I remember when Apple announced the iPad, I thought, sweet, a big iPhone. Pretty cheap, so I'll buy one. Only I didn't. I did a year later, but I barely used it. A year after that, I sold it back to Amazon and bought a model with LTE connectivity. That has been awesome in travel situations, not because it's a tablet, but because I could connect my laptop and use the cellular network without a contract. That was kind of an expensive luxury.
Last year I bought a Microsoft Surface RT. Again, seemed relatively cheap, and seeing Windows 8 (or its RT variation, at least) in a touch environment seemed essential to getting it. It's nice hardware, and the OS is actually very nice. The touch keyboard and kickstand are fabulous for lunch-at-the-bar. The only thing I'm not crazy about is that IE bogs down on heavy script pages, and because it's RT, you can't install a different browser.
These devices were interesting to the extent that I wanted to see how my sites worked on them. Tablets are still primarily consumption devices, so they've never been something I've really got a ton of use out of. I can see why they're popular, but they're not entirely my thing.
So last week, some former coworkers of mine, now working at Amazon, launched a service that allows web app developers to package them as apps in their store. That's awesome. That made me curious about the current cost of the Kindle tablets, and what do you know, the 7" Kindle Fire HD was only $159. Low risk way to experiment, for sure.
But after a week, I'm shocked to find how much I love it. Consider my use case: I don't care about apps, the web is my app, and I listen to music and browse news feeds and my forums. As it turns out, a 7" tablet is far more ideal for media consumption, not to mention pecking out stuff with your thumbs.
Since I have Amazon Prime and use Cloud Player, it literally arrived with all of my music and playlists (as long as it's connected to WiFi). It does Prime movies too, but that's true of virtually everything with a screen now. There is one app I use, for Facebook, and it's consistent with the similar app on other platforms.
Oh, and the screen is high enough resolution that reading, you know, Kindle stuff, is actually pretty solid. The battery won't last for weeks, but I'm pretty easily getting 12 hours of music and browsing between charges.
It's not the most elegant UI, which is Amazon's own front over Android, but the hardware is pretty nice. I'm shocked. For $159, the bang for the buck is just completely huge. I'm really impressed.
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