Choosing the right tablet: How I got to the Kindle Fire
I've been using the Kindle Fire for a few days now and I love it because it's exactly what I needed.
The techie part of me always gets riled up when I see good deals on better hardware specs out there. But that was the reason I took so long to settle with any tablet to begin with. I read so many reviews and looked at so many deal sites with an itchy trigger finger on the buy it now button that anyone could see I was a commitment-phobe. And so this post is not really one to convince you to get the Kindle Fire, or to convince myself the Kindle Fire was the right purchase for me (to avoid buyer's remorse).
I simply want to share a little backstory as to how I finally chose a tablet, which may help someone else figure out how to pick one for themselves.
If you look through my eBay selling history, you'll see in the past couple of months, I've sold off every brand of tablet there is. And so let's start at the beginning.
Honeycomb Android on the Acer Iconia Tab
This was the first inexpensive tablet I played with. The Honeycomb experience was still new and novel so I kept trying to like it. The Google integration is the reason my phone is Android as well and so I thought, of course I need an Android tablet. But after the first 3-4 hours of using it, the novelty wore off.
After I had it all set up with the apps that I thought I needed, and I tried to actually use it, I realized I left it sitting around most of the time, not even touching it.
The first thing you have to do when you want to choose a tablet is to really analyze your workflow and find the gap that you want the device to fill. If there isn't a gap, you're not going to use the device. I'd say most people don't use tablets once they buy them. They end up giving them to their kids to play games on or just leave them laying around (the tablets, not the kids).
Since typing out long emails or replies on these tablets is really never an option, that's the first thing to think about - what will I use it for? Or buy the accessories that make typing an option. Because the on-screen keyboards for such oversized devices are really dissatisfying, no matter what case and what angle and what position you have it in.
Every time I'd launch the Kindle app to read something, I would hate having to hold up such a heavy device (1.69 lbs) and so I'd immediately put it down and that means, I'd move on to doing something else. I didn't immediately realize it, but this should have been the sign that led me to a smaller device.
WebOS on the HP TouchPad
Who could resist the $99 TouchPad firesale? When I found out, I immediately ordered one. I had heard great things about WebOS (in its defense, it is extremely intuitive and I was sad to see HP killed it off since it's probably the best user experience out there - hopefully the open source community develops it).
Even though the OS was often sluggish given the hardware could not match its needs, the lack of any developer support for common apps really killed this option for me. I could overlook the lag since the experience was so enjoyable. But not having apps for common Internet services I use, or having to use a zoomed in version of the phone app for WebOS was a real turn off for me. Evernote was the biggest one I use that didn't have a good enough app. I use it for all my notes and thoughts and I can't have a subpar experience for that and Kindle.
Again, when I picked it up to read on, it was far too heavy (1.63 lbs).
It was here I began to realize which apps and uses really mattered to me and which I could live without: Evernote, the Kindle reading experience, reading emails/documents, and some light video-watching/games when bored. Beyond that, I never use a tablet. I have a laptop or desktop for everything else.
iOS on the Apple iPad
Everyone thinks I hate Apple and iOS. I don't really. I co-exist every day owning a Macbook Pro and a Windows desktop and Android phone. I figured if there is such a rave about the iPad, there must be something I'm missing.
The experience was a bit better on the iPad, but there were still apps I had to use the phone version of and zoom in (GroupMe for one). I don't mind if an app doesn't exist, but if I have to use the phone version of it, the designer in me dies a little inside when all the pixels show up in 2x mode.
I admit, I don't like how locked down iOS is on customizations. I'm all about making my devices my own - and it has to be more than just changing a wallpaper. Though, I tried to put that to the side when using the iPad.
It all came down to the size of the screen and the weight (1.3 lbs). I couldn't use it as a reading device nor could I type on it again, regardless of the positioning of the case. And so, it was here I realized even though everything else had been fine on all these tablets, I needed something smaller.
Weighing, quite literally, all my options
For the next few days, I Googled every possible article and review on how to choose the right tablet size for you. Nobody really had any idea. They only commented on the hardware and how the resolution of the screen was.
I suspect you could make a quick questionnaire to help people figure out the gap in their lives that a tablet needs to fill and then tell them the best tablet size accordingly. You'd get tons of hits.
As I looked for smaller devices, I looked at the Samsung Galaxy Tab 7, Samsung Galaxy Tab 7 Plus, and rumored to exist Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.7. All of them run Android Honeycomb and have differences in processing power mainly. And I threw the Kindle Fire in as part of the comparison for fun. The prices of these other devices was absurdly high. If I was going to spend that much money, I dreamt of instead buying an Asus Transformer Prime (quad-core + 1 extra core) with keyboard dock instead. The prices on those devices needs to come down because their hardware is antiquated now. I suspect it will soon. Spending that kind of money on a device is a huge commitment, and that drove the commitment-phobe in me toward the Kindle Fire. I had looked it up on Craigslist and a guy was selling it for $140 in my area! For that amount, I had no issues whatsoever committing to a smaller device whose main purpose was to help me do what I had wanted to do all along: read. To be fair, I looked into the eInk displays as well but my eyes don't hurt when reading LCD screens (some people's do), and I wanted to have the flexibility to do a little more than just read books (articles, tweets, Evernote, etc. too), so I went with the Kindle Fire and I must say, I'm happy with my decision.
Kindle Fire impressions
The Kindle Fire experience is definitely locked down to what they want you to see - Amazon products. People probably don't know this but I am an Amazon fanboy. I have Amazon Prime, Amazon Cloud Player where all my katha and bhajans are uploaded, and even some small music purchases from the Amazon MP3 store. I order EVERYTHING off Amazon now that I have free shipping, and the instant videos are actually pretty good.
And so, this ecosystem is amazing for me. I suppose this is how people who are Apple fanboys feel when all their music is in iTunes (how you people like that software is beyond me, though iTunes match may make me convert!), etc.
I didn't know how much of a difference the full-fledged Kindle experience made to just having the Kindle app on a tablet by another provider. I have already emailed so many satsang book PDFs to my Kindle and having them there at the touch of a fingertip makes reading them so much easier. I have my Vachanamrut, my Swamini Vato, etc. all ready for regular reading.
I have already read 40% of a new book I'm reading just because the Kindle Fire is that lightweight and portable, that I take it everywhere and I leave it propped open whenever I'm working at the computer so I can take small breaks and read whenever I get tired of doing whatever I'm doing.
7" is the absolute perfect size for a tablet. You can hold it in portrait and type on the keyboard and in landscape, you can get an alternative keyboard called Thumb Keyboard on there and it's perfect too.
Amazon Instant videos and Netflix satisfy the need for videos. There are plenty of games on the Amazon appstore too. And their free app every day promotion means something new to play with regularly.
Amazon Cloud player and music store are always in use for music, as is Pandora which quickly lets you buy any music on the Amazon MP3 store if you like it.
1-click shopping is amazing - I've already bought so much more because the tablet is always with me when I remember what I need to buy.
It's nearly replaced my phone as the device I take to bed with me at night to read, to set my alarm on, etc.
So now my gripes:
Holding it up. You need a case. I bought this Marware case and it's perfect. I prop up the Kindle in landscape mode on my desk and read every spare chance I get. I needed one with a strap so I could hold it up as well as prop it up. So the book-like cases, though they look really cool wouldn't really work.
Sluggish response to screen presses. After rooting it, I was able to install an app that sped things up though. It flies now.
Blocking the Google Market and Google integration. This is what made me root my device. Disclaimer: After playing with it for 48 hours, I have already bricked my Kindle Fire by rooting it so beware. Thankfully, Amazon is sending me a new one. I will root it again - I think I went overboard with the customizations though, so I'll be more careful this time. It took me about 30 minutes to root it (downloading the files you need is what takes like half that time). And then for about 2 hours I just went app-crazy installing everything and anything onto it. It's still running Android 2.1 so apps are plentiful and it's basically an oversized phone so the phone versions of apps run perfectly fine on it (as opposed to Honeycomb-tablet specific apps which sometimes are non-existent for services). All I really need is the Gmail and Calendar sync app - everything else doesn't matter.
I'm not going to end this review by saying you should buy a Kindle Fire. But if you're in the market for a tablet, first figure out why. Do you want to draw on it? Get a Lenovo Android tablet with Wacom digitizer. Do you want to write long emails and notes on the go? Get an Asus Transformer (Prime) with laptop dock. Do you want to read? Get a Kindle Fire.
