Lighting The Touchpaper...The Kindle Fire Spreads Like...Um, A Popular eBook Reader?

Dec 7
08:24

2012

sarah hanaghan

sarah hanaghan

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By now you will have noticed that there are a great many Kindle Fire reviews online. You will probably also have noticed that the vast majority of these Kindle Fire reviews are positive, although there are, (as always), one or two negative points raised. You’ll have walked past the billboards, accidentally clicked on the adverts, or else seen Amazon’s new baby featured on the telly. Perhaps you’re even thinking of buying one and want to know a little bit more? Well, in any case, I hope this piece will help.

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Since the series’ initial release in 2007,Lighting The Touchpaper...The Kindle Fire Spreads Like...Um, A Popular eBook Reader? Articles Amazon’s Kindle has been at the epicentre of a minor revolution. Originally launched as an eBook reader (a device that acts like an iPod for books), the original Kindle proved so popular that the post-iPad tablet PC market made it almost mandatory for any tablet to also function as an eReader. This meant that tablets could access the Internet and do an array of other wondrous things in addition to displaying downloaded literature.

Unfortunately, this made the original Kindle look somewhat dated.

So, when Amazon upgraded its pioneering product, of course it turned out to be a tablet PC. What better way to improve a product that was threatened with redundancy by Tablet PCs, than by taking the industry on at its own game? It was a move that succeeded rather well, as the Kindle Fire’s winning mixture of high specs, cutting edge design and low price appealed to those put off by the iPad’s gargantuan ‘sell your family into a lifetime of slavery just to stand near the display model’ price tag.

Eventually, the Kindle Fire proved so successful that Amazon created an upgrade, the Kindle Fire HD. Launched earlier this year, the HD version of the Fire is the ultimate realization of the Kindle’s early promise, with a special Dolby-designed surround sound, a dual antenna Internet system and an HD screen that is crystal clear and second only to the iPad’s.

The Kindle Fire HD has the look and feel of a device that’s been microcosmically designed with a near obsessive-compulsive attention to detail. It contains arguably the best eReader on Earth, but also lightning fast Internet and movie playback to die for. Like the Fire before it, the Fire HD is a good little ‘all rounder’ a tablet that is not especially well suited to any one specific task, but handles everything equally well.

Best of all, Amazon haven’t succumbed to the current trend of announcing new products at cheap prices and then raising those prices to exorbitant levels (like some developers I could name but won’t...Oh, what the heck? It’s Microsoft. I’m talking about Microsoft, OK?). Starting at around £150, the Kindle Fire HD represents incredible value for money and a device that’s pretty close to being state of the art.

The Kindle Fire HD is smart, affordable, high spec and very, very cool. Not bad for a product that began life as a beefed-up bookshelf...