Why I’ll Never Use the Kindle Fire Tablet for Reading

I love my Kindle. I was hesitant to get one at first because I tricked myself into thinking that there was something to the “real book experience” that I couldn’t get from a Kindle. I was wrong — I tried the Kindle, became enamored by the size, portability, and battery life, and now I have hundreds of e-books. I’ll probably never buy a paperback book again… sure, the Kindle has some experience problems, like the hassle of quickly flipping back to reference something at the beginning of the book, but the good just vastly outweighs the bad.

I was pretty excited to see what the Kindle Fire tablet would offer me. I was positive I would upgrade, but now that I’ve seen what it’s all about, I am almost positive I won’t. Why? I’m going to do my best to show why I will not upgrade to a Fire with a picture.

See that? It’s Angry Birds, and it will prevent me from buying the Kindle Fire to read books.

I’ve had this conversation with a few friends that own iPads. I ask, “What is reading like on that thing?” They hand it over and give me a hack, and to be honest, it’s amazing. Beautiful even. There is absolutely nothing about the Kindle page-to-page experience that I prefer over that of the iPad. But how many of my friends use their iPad for reading?

Zero. Goose egg.

The problem is that the iPad has so many other features, so many other forms of quick entertainment that it becomes almost impossible to stay focused on a book! Internet browser, Twitter, frickin’ Angry Birds. While the reading experience on an iPad is quite nice, each of my friends admit that they pull out their Kindle (or *gasp* an actual book) if they want to do some serious reading.

The beauty of the Kindle, and the reason I will keep mine for a great long while, is that it is a one-purpose device for an activity that deserves 100% of your attention while engaged in it. I like the idea of a cheaper alternative to an iPad that runs on Android, but I almost disagree with attaching the Kindle name to it. It’s going to be an impressive device that almost nobody uses for reading, just like the iPad.

So, there you have it. I hope somebody from the Kindle development team stumbles across this article and bears in mind that some people want a Kindle that can only be used for reading. The Kindle Fire is going to be a really neat device (arguably better than the iPad), but I don’t see myself retiring my Kindle 3 any time in the near future.

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Comments

12 responses to “Why I’ll Never Use the Kindle Fire Tablet for Reading”

  1. Craig Lloyd Avatar
    Craig Lloyd

    What I like about the Kindle Fire is that it doesn’t have all of the useless features that the iPad has. It doesn’t have a stupid camera, I have my phone and PnS for that. It doesn’t have 3G, I have my phone for that. I don’t need to edit video or do anything intensive. I just need a device that I can check my email, browse the web and play a few games. The Kindle Fire is perfect for me.

    However, I’ll probably wait until a root is available and the price goes down a bit.

    1. Brian Nelson Avatar
      Brian Nelson

      The Kindle Fire is going to be the ultimate “lying in bed” device.

  2. Anshul Singh Avatar
    Anshul Singh

    Nice article….i too agree that Kindle Fire is absolutely not for reading…they say u might read for 8 long hrs…but it isn’t possible with that display…on the other side kindle 3 is a no nonsense “read the book” kind of gadget…:)

  3. Robert Stehwien Avatar
    Robert Stehwien

    I got rid of my kindle because I could read all my kindle books on my iPad plus play games, listen to music, watch movies, etc.  I didn’t need to carry two devices around.

    I am buying a Kindle Fire and will be having a pit fight between it and the iPad.  The price is great, it can run flash, has access to all the amazon services from books to movies, plays games.  Won’t miss the camera since I have taken 1 picture with the iPad2 and it sucked compared to my digital camera.

    1. Brian Nelson Avatar
      Brian Nelson

      Makes sense that you’d prefer an iPad, but I fall into the camp of liking multiple devices that are designed to do a limited set of things over a single device that does many, many things. I may be the only person on Earth upset that Apple is planning to discontinue the iPod Classic, ha!

    2. Evan Wondrasek Avatar
      Evan Wondrasek

      I’d say the camera on the iPad is basically useless for taking pictures, they always turn out super grainy. But, in its defense, the camera is adequate for doing video chat which is what I use it for 90% of the time.

  4. Katherine Avatar
    Katherine

    Does Kindle Fire have e-ink? The one thing that puts me off reading on a screen is the backlit glow, but I can cope with e-ink… in good light, my Kindle is actually better than a paper book.

    As for all the other distractions, that’s important… the whole point of a novel is that it’s a private world you can get lost in, and anything that distracts from that takes away the pleasure of reading for me. The sharing of highlights etc, on the Kindle worried me a bit, until I realised you can turn them off. Then it’s OK. I just turn on my 3G connection for buying and downloading books. I turn it off to read them.

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  7. Falken76 Avatar
    Falken76

    I use my Kindle Fire to read, I don’t use it for any of the other stuff really.  It’s been sitting on a shelf for a bit now…

  8. Falken76 Avatar
    Falken76

    I use my Kindle Fire to read, I don’t use it for any of the other stuff really.  It’s been sitting on a shelf for a bit now…

  9. guest Avatar
    guest

    I really, like Really am starting to dislike my kindle. No Google Play. Play has pretty much all of the apps Amazon’s App Store. The text is meh, but that’s all Swype. No wallpapers equals boring atmosphere. Not a lot of good books mostly people who made that book in 24hours through Amazon. Carousel. I.HATE.IT. I used favorites bar as a home screen. Anyways, that’s my rant on the kindle fire, wait oh yeah no flash player. I downloaded one of the youtube downloader things. Either I cannot download videos or ads about porn pop up when I’m not even on the app. I had to download old versions of flash and dolphin browser.

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