One day with the Kindle Fire

One day with the Kindle Fire

Note to my readers who aren’t interested in the Kindle Fire: I did do a post of free books in-between my first impressions and this one.

I’ve now had my Kindle Fire for over twenty-four hours.

It’s growing on me. It’s worth noting that I didn’t think I would like a reflective screen Kindle when I first got one (it was a gift). It took a very lengthy book for me to get used to it, and then I loved it…and now I prefer it to reading a paperbook.

The Kindle Fire…I have an unreasonable expectation that when I get an electronic device, it will work flawlessly. I know it’s unrealistic…I know there are market pressures to get something out there. I know it’s really impossible to test something in all the situations which it will encounter.

I’d like my Kindle Fire to be a bit lighter. I’d (really) like an external physical keyboard.

However, it does some things very, very well.

I’ve watched an episode of the original Star Trek: The Man Trap. It ran virtually perfectly. The picture looked great, and the sound was good. I had it running propped up on something while I was writing next to it. It did very briefly stutter a bit as I restarted it once. I started and stopped it several times in different places.

I went to Starbucks, and started out sitting outside (I did eventually go inside and put a dollar in the tip jar for using their internet…that’s my choice). I had a little trouble checking a box to accept the terms. That is something I’ve noticed…it doesn’t always respond to my touches well (and we’ll just leave that line alone, thank you). It’s possible that’s technique I will learn, but arguably, one shouldn’t have a learning curve on how to touch an icon (there is apparently no way to describe using a touchscreen without it sounding a bit…dodgy).

Once I got logged on, though, my video ran fine. I adjusted the brightness of the screen (as bright as it would go), and it was certainly watchable. It looked better inside an artificially lit room, but it wasn’t bad. The image was still better than our old Zenith TV with the remote control with four buttons.

I also wanted to check: whether or not I was able to watch movies from

http://www.archive.org

I was.

They have lots of great (to me) public domain movies.

I was only able to stream them so far, because I’m not sure how you can you do the equivalent of right-clicking (“long pressing” didn’t give me the choice to save the video)..

I’ve listened to music from the cloud…no, not harps……from the vaults by Tim Curry.

I’ve downloaded and played an app: Type It!. It was free…and not very professionally designed, but did work.

I also downloaded ColorNote Notepad Notes. I got that mainly to practice typing. I have to say, it’s starting to seem to me like it may be possible to write on the device. I’m used to writing pretty much as quickly as I think…although I know I’m slowing my thinking down to keep pace with my fingers. Still, I think I will have to relearn how. I can almost fit my fingers on the keyboard properly in landscape mode, but you can’t rest your fingers without typing. I do tend to hold my wrists up when I type, but I may rest my fingertips while thinking.

I’m going to have to combine my typing with using the expander marquee, I think…where the words scroll by the Kindle guesses you are trying to type. That’s a huge shift, though…I have to look at the screen. I’m used to being able to type without looking at the device. That’s why I can write and watch Star Trek at the same time.  However, one of the great things is that if you do “fat finger” the wrong letter, it still tends to guess the correct word as an option.

If I can’t type on it, my Significant Other may end up with the Fire, and I’d end up with my SO’s netbook. The battery life isn’t that different…but a tablet sized device would be more convenient. I’ll give it several days.

The e-mail app works very well. It’s easier to check my e-mail on the Kindle than on a laptop. I like that it combines my e-mail from different accounts into one inbox, and that it just opens. I don’t have to log in every time. That is simpler than it usually is.

Playing music is easy (but I don’t put huge demands on that). Watching videos is easy.

I tried the preloaded Pulse app, which pulls in blogfeeds. I was able to pull in this blog, and I did like the interface. I’m a bit reluctant to mention that, honestly, because I don’t want to lose subscribers. I had somebody ask me about it…they are going to stay a paid subscriber (thanks, subscribers!) to be able to read it on a reflective screen Kindle, but they also want the ability to read it on the Fire. I wish they’d let people subscribe to blogs for the reader apps and the Fire, but if they don’t…I do still want people to read the blog, if I have enough subscribers or other positive results to keep it going.

I’m learning a few tricks. Well, I knew at least one of them from my Samsung Captivate SmartPhone, but I want to share them with people who have the Fire. It’s like two that I tell people for other systems: if you are using a Windows computer, when in doubt, right-click. When you are using a reflective screen Kindle, when in doubt, hit the Menu button.

With the Fire:

• Tapping something will tend to select it and start it
• “Long pressing” something (put your fingertip on it and leave it there) will tend to give you a menu of actions
• Tap the gear in your top right corner of the screen to change settings
• The menu bar at the bottom (you might have to tap at the bottom of the screen  to see it) has a home button, a back button, a search (which looks like a magnifying glass), and a box with lines which is the menu button. When in doubt, click that menu button

I want to be able to use something like Collections (one of my readers, Emily, says she was told we’ll have them in the near future), and I want to be able to edit the items in the Carousel. We can edit the items in the history for the web browser, but it would be nice to be able to get rid of items from the Carousel as well.

I miss having the incognito window option that Google Chrome gives me. That would solve the Carousel problem, for one thing.

I have a lot more to try. I’ll take it onsite with me tomorrow to work…I’ll see if I can type on it in situ. I need to try sideloading. I need to check out the cloud drive access (or lack thereof)…I’m seeing complaints about that. Oddly, I need to check out shopping at Amazon. I’ve seen people saying it isn’t that easy, and that needs to be super easy for the Fire to make sense for Amazon.

I”m hoping I write about the Kindle Touch before I do another Fire post. They thought my Touch would be here today, but not yet.

I really appreciate people sharing their Fire experiences by commenting on the blog. If you have specific questions about it, feel free to ask.

This post by Bufo Calvin originally appeared in the I Love My Kindle blog.