Customer Video Review Length:: 2:29 Mins

UPDATE: I bought both a Fire HD and a Gen 2. (as a present to my mother in law) My initial reviews were written after playing with them for like 20 minutes. I merged both reviews into one to really compare the two products. I'm still answering questions in the comments if you have any. And see the video that compares the two and gives a mini tour of the Kindle system.

My Background: I've had 4 android phones, I've had multiple e-readers and my latest 'touch' device is the Le Pan II Android tablet. I've worked on several iPads but never been compelled to spend the extra money for one myself. Wife has a first generation Fire.
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The new Kindle Fire and Fire HD are the second generation color kindle e-reader/media player/tablet devices. The original Fire received a lot of well earned 4 star reviews. It was a great product but at the end of the day, it was a first generation product. It was no iPad slayer. The Fire HD raises the bar and raises it quite a lot. Jeff Bezos said they set out to make the best tablet available period and -in some regards- they did that in spades. In other ways not so much. (more on this below in the closing thoughts)

HARDWARE:

BUILD QUALITY:
- BOTH are top Notch. I didn't expect anything less from Amazon but they really are solid feeling.
- FIRE HD lighter and while it is about the same thickness, the edges are rounded more like an iPad. sleeker look and more comfortable to hold.
- FIRE GEN 2 is heavier and 'boxier' built to more fit existing covers I guess. It's heavier too.

SIZING:
The HD is just a bit taller but a decent bit wider than the Fire. --- NOTE pay attention to accessories because THEY ARE NOT THE SAME SIZE. The cover from my wife's Gen 1 Kindle will fit the Gen 2 kindle (sorta) but NOT THE HD.

THE SCREEN:
- FIRE HD SUMMED UP IN TWO WORDS Oh. My. The Le Pan, the iPads and the Gen 2 Fire all have great screens. The Fire HD takes them all out. I read somewhere there was polarizing a filter over the Fire HD screen. Polarizers reduce glare by only letting 'straight' light though not off angle bounced light. This makes an enormous difference to this display. The off angle viewing is probably the best I have seen in any flat screen. 6 stars.
- FIRE GEN 2 Still a high quality screen. I'd same the same or better than any other high end tablet on the market.
- NOTE A few people in the comments asked about the touch response. - I do not have a problem except in the browser, it is sorta too sensitive. If you move your finger smoothly you can avoid the jitters.

THE WIFI.
- FIRE HD I admit only the geeky probably care but the wifi rocks. I have a mimo router and one quick copy from my server and I was getting almost 30MB/s. To put that into perspective, that's about as fast and an external USB Hard drive can push data to your computer. (USB 3.0 will be faster but they are rare today) -- The other thing is that I have a long skinny house and when I'm in the back bath, the Le Pan drops off. (ahem not that I surf on the potty or anything, just when I test it, you know.) With the Fire HD I can surf in the back yard.
- FIRE GEN 2 still got 20MB/sec. But consider this... at that speed you can fill the entire memory in 5 minutes. Seems good enough to me.

THE SOUND:
- FIRE HD ok I'm a bit of an audio snob. The sound is fantastic for being a tablet. Which is to say it's still only marginally acceptable. You can still buy a $15 pair of Koss KSC75 headphones and blow the speakers away BUT I will say this is the first device I would actually listen to music on. The rest I simply don't even bother. I suspect most people would call the sound excellent.
- FIRE GEN 2 still have a very good sound. For the spoken word it would be very fine. For music it is lacking in my book.

SPEED: Both are quick with the HD being quicker. The Le Pan II is no slouch but I think the HD edges it out. Since the Le Pan apparent died this morning it's hard to compare. :-(

NOTE: IT DOES NOT COME WITH A WALL WORT CHARGER It comes with a micro USB cable that can be used with your existing USB wall worts. (ie your cell phone charger) You can buy a rapid charger for it or even plug it into your computer to charge. This is an odd choice from Amazon IMO.

NOTE 2: Unlike the Gen 1 Fire, (and contrary to what you might have read) the new Kindles DO NOT support flash. Rumor has it you can hack it to install Flash I have not tried yet. I'll try to run this down by this weekend.

NEW FEATURES (as promised)

EXCHANGE CALENDAR SYNC:
BOTH - Exchange on the Fire (both) just rocks. I really like the calendar app. The contact manager can't keep up with the one on the iPad but it is sufficient. Ditto the email. But the setup was easy and it seemed fast. Love it.

SKYPE:
- FIRE HD Spent... Read more

I purchased the Kindle Fire ten months ago for my daughter. Three weeks after she got it, it was stolen. Amazon worked with our police department to find the person who had taken it. Amazon first put a hold on the person's account and shut down the Kindle Fire so it wouldn't work. Then, once Amazon had a subpoena, Amazon gave the police all the information the thief had registered to my daughter's Kindle Fire and the police were able to recover it and get it back to us. Since that time, we have purchased an additional Kindle Fire and, just recently, a Kindle Fire HD. We use them like iPads at a fraction of the cost and the number of free books and apps available is unmatched by their competitors. Our oldest Kindle Fire (ten months old) just stopped charging and I contacted Amazon via Live Chat. Immediately, they said they would send me a replacement Kindle Fire and would also email me a printing label for free shipping to return the defective one. Their customer service is incredible! The Kindle Fire itself is amazing. The internet is fast; connects perfectly to all wi-fi; the graphics are clear and sharp; the books and apps offered are endless. My teenager listens to Pandora on it constantly. I'm always reading. My husband checks the sports scores. My young sons are always playing the game apps. We have them protected in KlearKase protectors and have found them to be well-made, quality devices. I wouldn't hesitate to recommend a Kindle Fire to anyone of my friends and family.

I just received my kindle fire today. I had a hard time deciding between the HD, this, and the paperwhite. I decided on this one, because I really thought I'd like the immersion reading. I have an audible account and I've been reading along to the audiobooks. It's amazing how fast I can get through the books (at 3x speed) and I really retain the info. The immersion reading is super-easy to use and definitely worth upgrading to this. The whole point of the kindle is to read more, and this new feature makes it possible to read 2 or 3 times as many books in the same amount of time. I'm an average-speed reader and was able to read 4 books (with the help of the audiobook reading pace) in the last 30 days and one was the 800+ page Stephen king, "11/22/63".

I also tested out the text to speech. It's a lady's voice and much, much, easier to understand than the text to speech on my kindle keyboard. It also has many speed options and I think it reads faster than my kindle keyboard version. I am very, very pleased with it.

It is much more responsive than the previous kindle fire I'm upgrading from.

If you are worried about the free offers, don't be. I DETEST commercials and advertising so much, I quit reading magazines and watching television. The offers only show on the startup, no big deal. I already took advantage of a $5.00 credit for amazon video. I was able to rent two movies and it only cost me 89 cents, when it was said and done, and I was planning on renting Hunger Games tonight, anyway. So, so far, I don't mind the offers at all.

My favorite feature is the immersion reading and the text-to-speech improvements. I also downloaded all the free kindle books with the free audiobooks for the immersion experience. These are books I always wanted to read,but never had the discipline to just read them. Reading and listening to those books are worth the price of this new gadget, IMO.

Way to go, Amazon, for a great product and a great price!

P.S.
I have an iPad, and the last time I went on vacation, I left it at home and brought only my fire and kindle keyboard. I didn't miss my iPad at all and this new gen fire is even better. Seriously, it's that good.

I've been an iPad user since the original came out. I also have an iPad 3. I have worked in IT for the past few years so I would say I am pretty good with technology and fancy new devices. With that introduction out of the way, I will be reviewing key points that I have seen touched upon in other reviews. Here goes...

BUILD
The device feels nice and solid. I'm a little surprised at how heavy it is, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. The rubberized backing is always nice for added grip. It's not as nice as say unibody aluminum, but it's not $500 either.

SCREEN
The screen is fantastic. But my problem is the same as when iPad got Retina Display, other than the OS, most apps look rather pixelated. A lot of the games I tried are not high definition, at least not high enough to look smooth on this screen. Hopefully apps get updated to higher resolutions.

LOCK SCREEN ADS
Yeah there are ads on my lock screen. I'm not sure why this is such a big deal. How much time do people really spend looking at the lock screen? The first thing I thought when I saw the ads is WOW the pictures are really crisp! The ads are there to subsidize some of the $200 price tag. I might pay the $15 to get rid of them so I can customize it, but I might not. I feel like this has been blown out of proportion by other customers.

SOUND
The sound from the speakers is great. Much better than you would get from more expensive devices, very crisp and clean. I have the official Amazon case on and it has not affected the sound at all. Nothing much else to say, I doubt anyone will complain about this.

CRASHING
I've had two apps crash on opening. I don't know if it is the app or the OS. It's probably somewhere in the middle. Again, not a big deal for me. If it crashes, then I just tap it again and it works. I've also watched a few movies using the built in player as well as Netflix and Amazon Prime. No crashes for me at all. I'm sure OS stability will be improved as time goes on.

OVERALL SATISFACTION
Compared to my iPad 3, obviously the Fire HD is not as "good" so to speak. I mainly got it because I wanted something smaller. I also mainly used the iPad to surf the web, watch videos, and play some simple games. The Fire HD accomplishes this and does so much more. If you are expecting an iPad killer, or a desktop replacement, or a productivity machine, then you should look elsewhere.

I bought this to be a media device, and I believe that is what Amazon meant this to be. In this regard, I think this is a great device. In fact, I decided to keep this and sell my iPad 3, which will give me another $200+ to spend on other things. Just remember, this device is not for everyone. If you want a media device, you will be happy with this. Do not expect an iPad for $200.

UPDATE 9/18/12
Just wanted to add a few more things I have noticed over the past 24 hours.

- Power/Volume Buttons: There are a bit hard to press, which is somewhat alleviated by having the official case. Maybe it's because I'm a longtime iPad user, but this will definitely take some getting used to.

- Screen Glare: It took me a little while to notice, but I was playing a Seek & Find game while on Caltrain, with the bright Palo Alto sun shining right on me, and didn't have any trouble seeing the screen. I remembered that Amazon mentioned how the screen was changed to reduce glare, and they did an amazing job.

UPDATE 9/20/12
Two days later and I am still very happy with the device. Here are some more thoughts from me:

BATTERY LIFE
I have been playing Enigmatis (a hidden object game) for about an hour and a half each day on my commute. This drains about 15 - 20% of the battery with the screen brightness almost at the highest setting. Again, not iPad gold standard, but still very good.

SYNCING MUSIC
I have a Samsung Galaxy S3 and used an app called Easy Phone Transfer to get all my music from iTunes onto the phone. It transferred everything, including album covers, and I was hoping to find something like that for this device. I tried iSyncr, a $3 app, which did the job, but did not sync over album covers. I uploaded all my music into the Cloud, then downloaded it from Amazon, which increased the audio quality for a lot of my songs and added artwork, but this still did not show up on the device.

I got very frustrated getting all the album artwork over and eventually just gave up. It's not a big deal but I am kind of anal about those kinds of things. Just a heads up if anyone else out there is crazy about it like I am.

UPDATE 09/21/12
I got a call from Amazon Customer Service about this review, which surprised me very much. They advised me the best way to get the artwork to show up is have the songs in both the Cloud Player as well as the device, which I know does work fine. I was... Read more

I have been an Amazon customer for years having owned the first gen Kindle and currently the 6" Kindle. I have purchased the 1st gen Fires for my children for Christmas last year and I have purchased both the touch and 1st Fire for my father.

I already own an Ipad and did not feel the need to own a Fire, since I believe they duplicated the same purpose. I did however place an order for the Paperwhite, but after thinking about it, why not own a full functional device that is more than just an ereader.

I love the eInk displays and how light the regular Kindles are. One of my main gripes about tables are that they are heavier and you cant read the screen in bright daylight. I'm not really sure why the daylight is such a big deal for me, since I probably only read outside when I'm on vacation (2x a year).

Anyway, I cancelled the Paperwhite and ordered the Fire HD. I love it. It is portable, I never take my Ipad anywhere, just too big. I uploaded my entire music library from Itunes to Amazon Cloud, (so much for being locked down Apple!) and of course all of my books are on it. I regularly borrow books from my local library and was often frustrated that when I was away from home I could not search for books on my regular Kindle, becuase the experimental browser was just not functional enough.

The sound is amazing as everyone has said, as well as the display. No need to go into detail about what everyone else said. My only gripe is that the touch screen is not really as responsive as I would like, but it still works fine. The display does cut the reflection and you can read out doors. That is not to say there is no glare, it's just not an unreadable LCD screen any longer.

As far as the ads go, I don't find them obtrusive. I like knowing what other people bought or may have looked at. What's the big deal? If your friends recommend something to you, do you get mad? Same thing here to me.

I like that I can sync my email and now, actually use the Prime streaming video service. Yes, I know I could use the app on my Ipad, but like I said, I like it all packaged neatly here.

My only question is how many HD movies/TV shows can you download to the device? I like to download them when I travel and delete when I get home.

If you are an Amazon user, you should know that this tablet is no different that any other device (Apple?) that tries to get you completely integrated into their system. Should not really be a surprise to anyway that all of the shopping experiences point to Amazon.

I am pleased to have a tablet that is portable and easy to use.

Great job Amazon.

My word to the rest of the "reviewers" don't actually own the product, but write reviews on products that you don't own, to grip about a feature you read about. It's silly and clutters the reviews for those of us that actually like reading what other people are saying about a product.

**Update 10/1/2012**

After having my fire for a few weeks I still have very few complaints. I pretty much carry it with me whenever I am out of the house. I love having the option to read or if there way available wi-fi watch a movie. I wish it came with 4G but I bet it would make the price out of line with other small tablets.

The only cons I have is the typing experiences. It seems there is not predicitive text for the Silk browser which makes typing a little tough. I hear though there will be an update.

I dislike fingerprints on the screen when reading, but easily remedied with s soft cloth.

I have read 3 books and I am on my 4th and the screen is no issue whatsoever. This was my biggest concern before purchasing. I have no issue whatsoever. Just so you know, I read a lot and love the Eink Kindles, so this was an experiment to see if I could read for long periods of time with no eyestrain. Not an issue at all.

All in all I still love it. I have not used my Ipad since getting my fire.

 

I purchased the original Kindle Fire on release day last year. It served me pretty well but was extremely glitchy. It would freeze, restart and stutter while playing games. For what it was, an entry level device, it wasnt bad.

So when the Kindle Fire HD was released, I decided I might as well give it a go as well. So far the Kindle HD looks to be twice the machine the original was. I am gonna keep this short and sweet and just create a pros and cons list for you guys. I dont want to be too long winded, but if you have questions you post in the comments, I will try to respond to them for a little while today.

PROS:

1. Vibrant Screen
2. Much more responsive to the Touch than the original Kindle ever was.
3. Games that stuttered on the Original, play flawlessly on the HD.
4. The speakers are awesome, Loud, clear and crisp. No need for the Volume + app like on the original fire.
5. The device is slim, sleek and sexy. Really like the curves on the back and the styling.
6. Front facing camera works great for SKYPE. Quality was better than that on my SIII phone.
7. Wifi seems a bit faster, but not by much. Silk still isnt an optimal browser though. I have 65Mbps Download and 15Mbps Upload subscribed service.
8. Cloud sync worked like a charm, almost everything from my old fire is now on my new Fire HD.
9. The device feels sturdy and well built.

CONS:
1. The "Customers Also Bought" on the bottom of the home screen is terrible. I can care less about what others bought. The advertisements on the Lock Screen are fine and understandable, they really dont bother me at all or with the function of the device. The CAB on the home screen take away from having your favorites immediately accessible and are extremely intrusive with no option to remove it. I would gladly keep the ads on the lockscreen and pay 15 bucks to get rid of the CAB on the homescreen. Enough on that.
2. I work in a hospital and I know 11 people including my wife who now is a proud owner of a Fire HD. One thing we have all noticed is that sometimes when you unlock your device, the speakers will make a popping sound, sort of like a static or feedback. Hopefully this gets fixed.
3. Compared to the Original fire, there is a noticeable delay when clicking on apps or games. It seems more prevalent on certain apps but the same apps have no issue on the original Fire. More prevalent on the HD than on the original.
4. Magic books. For some odd reason, things I remove from the carousel magically reappear to irritate me constantly. I am a bit OCD and only want what I use to be on my carousel and nothing more. Hopefully this will be fixed as well.
5. Certain apps that were available on the Kindle Fire, are not available on the Kindle Fire HD. Accuweather for example is no longer a free app on the HD neither is ScreenDim.
6. I do not understand why we cannot use a different keyboard like Swiftkey. That would be a massive upgrade over the stock keyboard.

NON ISSUES:
1. Flash Player- It isnt so hard to get this to be a flash device. First you need a browser that allows flash to operate. Download a browser like Dolphin 8.8.1 to begin with. Not only does Dolphin perform better than Silk, it is more intuitive as well. Next download Flash Player 11.1 for ICS, make sure its for ICS. Once both are sideloaded, install, and flash should be working. It works on mine. CHECK MY COMMENTS FOR A STEP BY STEP
2. Charger not included- Again, in this day and age, most cellphones and other electronic devices use a mini usb charger. Just use the same plug for the Fire HD. I use my old Fire charger just fine.
3. Carousel- While most agree customization of the carousel skins would of been a nice touch, it still isnt a deal breaker and I didnt buy it to stare at the carousel.

I probably have over 20 hours on the Fire HD right now. From my memory that is all I can recall. If I remember anything or run across anything, new I will just edit in an update below. Any questions just ask in the comments. Overall, this device seems like a great deal. It should be much stronger once a patch is released to fix some bugs, but what doesnt need a patch these days once a product is released. Overall great showing by Amazon. Good Luck

Update #1 9-17-2012
So this is the second time that I have come home from work and the wifi on my Kindle Fire HD is acting wonky. It worked fine at work, then I got home and if I wasnt in the same room as the router, I couldnt get a page to load even though I had full bars of wifi. A reset of the Kindle HD completely fixed this and now I am outside on my front porch, far far away from my router. Hopefully an update will fix the wifi steadiness. Not sure if its because I switched to a different network or what, but I am gonna submit feedback to amazon regarding the... Read more