Why I'm Returning My Kindle Fire | Hacker News Reader

Why I'm Returning My Kindle Fire

artima.com

113 pointsjohndcook84 comments

I returned mine too. It's not safe to let the kids use it. Amazon insist you have one-click purchase set up even to watch free prime content, and they don't let you set up a pin or a password just for the pay-for stuff. So it's trivial for my children to run up outrageous bills.

(I installed and very soon thereafter uninstalled the amazon prime app on my TV for the same reason: when you watch free prime content, they still seem to send you a $0.00 invoice for every single free thing you watch. Then when your children watch something else, they charge your card, and the "invoice" gets mixed up with all the other $0.00 invoices in your amazon folder or inbox. Fuck That Shit. At least Netflix is safe against that shit.)

If it wasn't Amazon, it'd be a clear-cut scam. But it's Amazon, so I have to hope they come to their senses. Until then, we're getting an ipad, and we're sticking with netflix (even though we have prime ... for now anyway).

I also returned mine. I was expecting a more polished experience from Amazon. Even for $200 the software feels unfinished and nowhere near as responsive or intelligently designed as iOS. The lack of hardware volume controls and placement of the on/off switch are the killing blows.

This isn't buying a Honda and expecting a BMW-class experience. It's buying a Honda and getting a car that only starts after three tries, only reads square CDs, only streams music from EMI, and refuses to brake until the pedal is pressed in the exact special way at the exact time. The iPad just drives.

They're struggling to compete both high and low. The iPad is pressuring them to put out a product that can use Amazon's VOD while BN is pressuring them to put out a device with a price that competes with the nook which has partnered with Netflix.

I doubt Netflix has any interest promoting either iTunes or Amazon services. It would be as stupid as Borders allowing Amazon to run their website. Hopefully this creates a nice trifecta of choice that benefits everyone.

On a side note; Borders was powered by Amazon from 2001 through 2008, until they decided to go separate and compete directly with Amazon. Of course this only mattered until Borders merged with B&N in 2010.

Borders did not merge with B&N.

Ah, indeed, I was wrong - B&N purchased the brand and customer list - the merger was something that was rumored, but never happened.

Amazon rushed this product. Also their treating of engineers like replaceable cogs, made sure that over time the best ones left, and whats left behind is either people that don't have many options, or fresh naive engineers that don't really know what they are doing.

When I left, they had very hard time hiring new engineers. They had it easy during the 08-09 downturn, and thought that they could be going like it.

So, the product is showing it's flawed development process.

Also, this was not build by the original Kindle team. It was done on a separate building, by a completely different team, and the hardware done by a third party.

I tried using this for just a few minutes, since my friend has one.

The slowness is quite staggering. For example, there was a copy of a dictionary on it; I tried to use Search to find a word (since paging through from "A" would be ridiculous) and it took like 20 seconds to show ANY results. This kind of functionality isn't just unacceptable, it's so bad that the Search function might as well not exist.

The ability to hold it in one hand (albeit with stretched fingers) was nicer than the iPad; but since there's no practical way to use that same hand to operate the device it doesn't really matter. When I have to stop and use both hands to operate a smaller device or a larger one, I would prefer to just have the larger one.

Not to dismiss his criticisms. The Fire has problems. But this device was clearly designed for a different market. He acknowledges it "I had read that the Fire is designed as a consumption device for Amazon products" But he decided to buy it anyway.

It seems odd to write a lengthy criticism of a product he anticipated wouldn't suit him.

EDIT: grammar

He acknowledges it after he bought it and as part of the analysis, not before buying it.

Either way, I don't quite buy the argument. Amazon was hailed as the one company that could rival the iPad ecosystem. So its not just a conduit for people buying stuff on amazon. So my expectations for the tablet are pretty high even at that price.

"Rivaling the iPad ecosystem" doesn't necessarily mean "replicating" it. And I'd point out that I believe that's concept is something overexcited journalists decided, not something Amazon promoted.

Amazon seems to have mostly promoted the Kindle Fire as a Kindle with video and games, for less than you used to pay for a black and white Kindle. For $199, that seems like a good deal and I haven't seen many reviews done on that basis. Doing a review that compares the Fire to an iPad or another $500 tablet is like reviewing a Kia and complaining it doesn't accelerate as fast as a BMW.

Yeh I wouldn't buy that argument either. So fair point. However I think the author should be criticizing it from the perspective of the intended market. eg. Clunky interface, lackluster ecosystem etc.

I went few phases:

1. Wow, first tablet..this is aweseome!!!

2. Hmmm, some slowness, buyer's remorse, should I keep this?

3. Started using it for web surfing, games and reading.

The more I use it, the more I like it.

It needs more apps (the amazon appstore is limited, a good RSS reader would be welcome, can't use the same one that I use on my phone).

Perhaps a software update or two can fix the speed issues?

I'm keeping mine for now, I use it way too much.

> Perhaps a software update or two can fix the speed issues?

I think this has been the primary complaint about Android from discriminating users for years now. I swear there have been multiple rumors that "the next version of Android will fix that" (by providing hardware acceleration of native UI elements or some such), but I will believe it when I see it.

Until then, I suspect every Android device will be continue to be unusable, including the ones with fancy n-core x gigahertz CPUs that are theoretically y times more powerful than a modern iPhone. When a flagship Android device obtains UI performance on par with the original iPhone, maybe I'll start taking Android seriously.

The day I got it, my Nexus One was noticeably faster than my original iPhone, and that was pre-JIT. It's not as polished and smooth as iOS, but claims that it's "unusable" are dishonest at best.

I'm not sure we're talking about the same things when you say "faster." Obviously, a Nexus One has a much faster CPU than the original iPhone, and will perform much better on benchmarks (graphics, JavaScript, etc.). However, I've used a Nexus One fairly extensively (as well as even more powerful Android phones like the Galaxy S II), and I think it's completely reasonable to say that the basic UI elements are more consistently smooth and responsive on the original iPhone. Granted, it's been one year since I had hands on an original iPhone, so perhaps I should amend the comparison to the iPhone 3GS.

I'll also concede that in the strictest sense, Android phones are usable: I do have the ability to use them, and many people do use them. Of course, I would also call IE6 unusable, even though it's also clearly usuable in the strictest sense.

I use the term "usable" to describe any product that I would use if someone gave it to me for free and I wasn't allowed to sell it. If you gave me the current best Android phone for free, I guarantee you I would not use it.

My 3GS is struggling with iOS 4.2.1: seconds of nonresponse in certain situations. I'm planning on jailbreaking and rolling the OS back sometime soon if I can figure out how to do it.

Ha ha ha, are you kidding? I have been forced to use the Nexus One for the last 2 weeks. Maps do not work, it often forgets caching, and never finds my current position. This worked so well on the 3g and iPhone 4. There is stuttering about 1 a day. The gmail app is awful, it never starts up on the inbox page, and doesn't seem to automatically refresh when I restart it. Putting the buttons at the bottom of the screen is plain stupid, whenever I use the keyboard I seem to keep hitting the home button.

Sure it is useable, and I with the newer OS they seem to have gotten rid of the bottom buttons.

My experience is entirely different from yours, which means you are wrong. /s

That is good to hear, maybe I am doing something wrong. Maybe Android does not work that well in South East Asia, where I am traveling at the moment, whereas the iPhone worked very well.

No shit, there's 2 and a half years between them.

Nexus One release date: January 5, 2010 Original iPhone release date: June 29, 2007

Did you read the comment I replied to, or did you just decide that the guy not disparaging Android must be an idiot?

Have you tried using Pulse as an RSS reader? I'm really enjoying Pulse, which I think comes preinstalled on the device.

You can sideload the android app market onto the Kindle pretty easily (I think you have to root it though and a rooted Kindle can't use Amazon VOD)

I'd love to read a review comparing it to the Nook Color. I have a Nook Color and it's not an iPad substitute. Nevertheless, loaded with CM7, it has a useful place for light web browsing and reading recipes in the kitchen.

Is this what you were after? http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/reviews/2011/11/lean-mean-con...

That's a review of the Nook Tablet, which is a completely different product from the Nook Color or the Kindle Fire. (Not rootable apparently either ...)

I bought one for my wife as a birthday gift. After reading the reviews, she didn't want the Fire. I returned it and got the $109 no-keyboard no-touch kindle instead, and she loves it. E-Ink is just such a better reading experience than a LCD.

Add: battery lifetime, real personalized recommendations.

I disagree with his statement about the Kindle Fire not having built-in support for .mobi files. I am currently reading Land of Lisp in .mobi format on my Kindle fire with no problems. The one quirk I did notice is even though I uploaded the .mobi file to the books directory, the book shows up in the Docs view. It seems only books purchased directly through the Kindle store are allowed to show up in the Books view. I generally like my Kindle Fire but I do find some of the on screen buttons require multiple presses to respond, particularly the back button. Hopefully this will be fixed in a software update.

If you tap quickly (bouncing your finger off the screen) it tends to work fine. I believe the issue is that it is TOO sensitive, especially in regards to thinking you are trying to drag something.

If it let me install 3rd party keyboards and it solved the touch-sensitivity issues I'd keep it definitely. As it is, I'm very close to returning it. I'm hoping for a nice custom rom at this point.

Yes I agree I find the fire to be suitable for most of my needs i.e. reading, surfing the web, and listening to music. Most of the problems I have are software related and those can be easily fixed with an update.

I was puzzled by that too, but from what I've read there's a tag defined in the Mobipocket format that specifies whether something is a "book" or a "doc". Previous Kindles (and, apparently, a lot of ebook generation software) ignore this, but the Kindle Fire does not (possibly "doc" is the default if the tag is not present -- unclear on this). You can supposedly fix the tag using Calibre, but I haven't bothered. Now that I know where they are, it doesn't really bother me.

I don't think the criticism wrt AVI is appropriate, either. I wouldn't have expected it to play AVI, and in fact am somewhat surprised that anyone is still using that as a distribution format. As a format for editing, it's somewhat understandable, but it's not the best choice for media distribution/consumption and hasn't been for quite a long time. Why would you expect a random Android device to play an obsolete/obsolescent proprietary Microsoft format?

I like the Fire, personally. It's not going to replace my iPad or eInk Kindle, but it sure is handy for reading in bed.

AVI is still the major format for non-HD videos from the torrent sites...

I bought it primarily for reading books and figured any other use I got out of it was a plus. I've since found out that it's great for video less so for other stuff. I think overall it's an outstanding value for the price.

From what I've read, the kindle fire has been underwhelming. I think this is largely due to our expectations for tablet computing, given that we now have android tablets and ipads. Would it be fair to say the kindle fire is a better kindle, but not a tablet computer?

In playing with my friend's e-Ink Kindles, and then playing with my new Kindle Fire, I would answer "no: this is a step backwards"; note: I also love reading on my iPhone 4 (which is actually where I get books; the Kindle Fire is just for development), so it is not because I'm attached to the e-Ink. The Kindle Fire just has this feel of the software having been roughly hacked together at the last minute...

I realize they probably couldn't have for numerous reasons, but the simpleton opinion is: they really should have delayed shipping it, and by the time they get it together the existing poor press is likely to have already killed them. (That that happens is something I think is stupid, btw, and causes poor incentives to not ship things: old news should rot faster, and people should care more about updating old articles with "the tiny software update they released a week after I wrote this article makes everything I said obsolete".)

Got one free last week, and for me 7" is the perfect size for typing in landscape mode. I actually quite like the Amazonized android too for the most part. Side-loading apps is a bit of a hassle, but at least you can install any android app. I put Dolhpin HD on it, runs fine. It's also not sluggish at all (maybe they've pushed an update since the early reviews?). It's much zippier than my LG revolution. Some apps seem to run way smoother than on my phone (e.g. TuneIn Radio has been flawless so far). Battery life is good. The easy to accidentally press power button at the "bottom" (using it upside down can actually occasionally be an issue for some apps that only run in one mode), and lack of a SD slot is really dumb. I'd still buy one for $200.

I bought one. First tablet. I find it just fine for the price tag and it is extremely portable. Since buying it I have used my laptop about 70% less. For some reason I cannot log into HN from the Fire. If I was able to, then frankly I would only use my laptop for development or writing long form.

I am only using it for reading books and browsing. I have also downloaded a couple of books in PDF format and sent them to my kindle email address. They read just fine, although you will need to pinch-zoom every page if the text is too small.

Sometime it freezes, and frankly I had to replace the first one (I bought it in store).

I have no idea what people expect for $199. I find it very valuable for the money. I have a feeling by the second or third iteration they will have a dedicated audience just as Ipad and Iphone do.

> For some reason I cannot log into HN from the Fire.

I noticed the same thing. Anyone have any clue what's up with this?

same here...

Did you try turning off Silk (cloud acceleration)?

>I have no idea what people expect for $199. I find it very valuable for the money.

Thing is, there are other vendors who are creating REAL Google/Android tablets in the $199 range, as he mentions. From those tablets you can get the entire Android experience, unlike the Fire (unless you root it and put another OS build on it, of course -- though that won't fix the lack of GPS or cameras).

It's funny that suddenly we say the market is full of "REAL" tablets in the $199 range, when just a month or three ago everyone was excited about the Fire because there 'were no "REAL" $199 tablets'

The Kindle Fire lowered the definition of a "REAL" $199 tablet.

At least for me, part of the reason I like the Fire is that it isn't the full Android experience - I have a Archos tablet, that I don't use for any reason other than to test things. With the Fire I look past/don't see the parts of Android that I dislike - and I think a lot of that is that I really only use the Kindle for the occasional E-Book/App, watch a streaming video, or listen to music.

For the subset of things that I actually want it for, it does well - very well in my opinion. I'm sure it likely falls flat if you expect more out of it (which it sounds like he did).

This is what I've found too. I just spent my evening enjoyably using my Kindle Fire when I could have just as easily picked up my iPad. The size is actually refreshing to me and the interface has some really nice features.

All these reviews seem really off the mark to me. The PR about this product is about what you can do with it. You can watch movies, read books, and play games. The product page makes very little mention of Android. They aren't selling it as an Android tablet. It's an Amazon Kindle tablet, and in spite of all the reviews, I think it's going to be a big hit.

I can only imagine how popular the Kindle Fire 2 will be once they have time to refine everything.

What version of Android is the Archos tablet running: 1.6? Even 2.2 is clunky compared to 3.0, and 4.0 looks wonderful.

More to the point, none of the Archos tablets (that I'm aware of) come with the "full Google/Android" experience either. They use appslib.com to distribute apps, which has less coverage than the Amazon AppStore, and it comes with none of the other Google apps either.

So you're comparing the Fire, a non-Google experience, with the Archos, another non-Google experience. Not relevant.

I have an ASUS Transformer and love it, but I have used the camera just once and never have used the GPS. I would think that is pretty common usage pattern for most tablet owners as they use their phone for both of those tasks.

I've never understood the inclusion of GPS on tablets. It's one of those features that you imagine you could use but end up not having any real world application. Most people use a tablet indoors, guess where GPS is utterly useless?

I imagine it's like people that buy an SUV for the potential off-road capabilities.

Modern GPS chipsets actually work ok in a lot of buildings. Some of it is higher sensitivity, but a lot is that they get location opportunistically (when entering/exiting) and then remember location. A-GPS helps a lot too.

I believe what most people believe is the GPS chip working is actually the location service built into the software. Unless they are transmitting in a completely different band GPS is practically useless indoors. Now with location services and AGPS you'll get a lock while indoors but the GPS chip is probably not doing much at this point.

I've got a Nook tablet without the GPS feature and I'm able to get my location from the wifi connection. It's not as accurate as a true GPS lock but good enough to get me information on the shops around me.

My tablet (iPad 3G first gen) makes for a great portable street directory when I'm in the car with my girlfriend. It's definitely not its primary purpose for me, but I find it much easier to use than a dead tree copy. Aside from having a really natural easy way to move around the map, you always know where you are. :)

I always take my tablet with me when traveling, and at least with that I don't think I am alone. It would make a great offline map if it had GPS. The iPhone runs out of battery so fast and has a tiny screen.

So any of them actually have comparable specs? It's hard to believe given that Amazon is taking a loss on the hardware.

The Kindle fire has two processors, which most of the $199 tablets don't have. Adding a camera can be a lot cheaper than adding a second CPU. A cheap camera chip can be $0.17.

Which 'entire Android experience' were you referring to, because I've yet to see 'REAL' Android tablet that's worth paying money for.

Did you turn off the cloud acceleration feature for the Silk browser? And are there any other browsers you can get from the Amazon app store?

Not in the store, but if you turn on unknown sources, you can grab APKs for both Firefox and Opera.

Silk does it. Either shut it off or use https (which always bypasses Silk)

If and/or until the Amazon DRM loses its mind and locks you out of your content for whatever specious reason Amazon can create...

Hope it doesn't happen to you.

There is the Blackberry Playbook that is exactly the same device for the same price but a lot nicer in UX. Lenovo also has the Idea Pad A1 that is slightly more in ($229) price but same form factor.

Both of these devices will get you the full Tablet experience minus the lag and general unfinished feeling of the Fire. Plus both have the Kindle app so reading amazon content is not a problem. So there is no real market for the Fire from what I can see. sure the Silk browser seems cool but Laggy execution will kill any perceived advantages.

For about $100 more you can also get the ASUS Transformer (my current Tablet). I have literally stopped using my laptop except at work once I got this. The attached Dock makes it a perfect device for my usecases.

The Playbook is only available for 200 dollars at Best Buy under a current sale, otherwise you're looking to be set back more like 250 dollars. The Idea Pad A1 only has a single core and costs more so I'm not sure it's exactly the best alternative.

I checked out that vizio, it's single core and 1/2 the storage (has an sd slot though). Unless you care about the GPS and camera, seems rooting the fire is a better choice. I doubt I'll root mine though, I'm one of the few that seems to like it.

i'm with you.

i'm rooting after the warranty expires

Since Nobody else on this thread commented about the .mobi support yet, I'll put this here: http://www.artima.com/forums/flat.jsp?forum=106&thread=3...

From the comments and googling it appears that the Fire supports .mobi just fine, except that it puts them in the "Docs" index instead of "Books". Something about some meta data that distinguishes them.

Thoughts on the Kindle DX which is on sale for $259? The original Kindle screen always seemed too small to me and the DX always seemed too expensive, but now...

The keyboard is irritating and mostly pointless, but I do agree with you on the screen resolution. I used the smaller version with the keyboard and just wished the keyboard was replaced with a larger screen.

It doesn't have wifi, unfortunately. I have a first-gen DX (and have had several of every model of Kindle since the first, actually), and am sort of considering upgrading/adding another one.

It is the best PDF viewing solution out there. If you read CS papers in PDF format, it's great.

Wifi and some way to keep in sync with a folder on my desktop (or in dropbox) would sell me completely. I don't want to pay Amazon every time I upload a PDF to the device via email.

> It is the best PDF viewing solution out there.

How is it better than iPad? I've long wanted large PDF viewer but only option DX was $$$ and b/w. I got iPad for unrelated reasons but fallen into using it for PDF reading. It's great. most my PDFs are image/graph/color intensive .5/11" non reflowable. I need to jump around lots rather than read cover to cover so page flip latency is kind of a killer.

I use both an iPad (generation 1; eagerly awaiting iPad 3) and kindles.

The kindle is much better in direct sunlight or high ambient light environment, and because it lacks other apps, is better for distraction free reading of large amounts of text.

I've used iPad, Kindle DX, and a computer simultaneously -- someone's paper on the Kindle, coding on the computer, and the iPad for all communications activity (the computer was not on the Internet).

For reading journals/journal submissions on the beach, the DX is the hands-down winner.

Thanks.

> It is the best PDF viewing solution out there. If you read CS papers in PDF format, it's great.

Unfortunately true, despite having a heavily crippled PDF reader. The zoom is completely broken (100%-150%-200% only?), and there's no scroll function whatsoever -- I don't think this is an oversight; it seems to have been deliberately crippled so people consume Kindle books and not their own PDFs.

It has a slow processor and is stuck on version 2 of the Kindle OS (the processor is the same speed as the Kindle 3, but much slower than the Kindle 4, and the RAM is the same as Kindle2).

I just upgraded my Kindle 2 to the new Kindle (the $79 one), and it is 100% better. Both because the screen is much better and the processor is twice as fast (which makes a big difference in responsiveness). The newest DX has a better screen than the Kindle2, but is stuck on a much older platform than the newest Kindles. Seems like it would be a waste to buy it now.

I suspect that the DX is never going to be updated, and will be phased out once Amazon runs out of stock (likely with the "replacement" being the 8.9" or 10" Kindle Fire).

I think the problem is people are expecting all the functionality of the iPad, this is simply a e-reader on a little bit of steroids. For me the device has been good, the issue with the .mobi files confused me also but really they just appear in the Doc section. If you go to this expecting for an iPad, you will hate it. If you want a simple e reader that lets you browse the web and download some apps, then its great.

Amazon made it very clear from the beginning that the Fire was designed first and foremost for consuming Amazon content, and it does that very well. I do not regret spending the $200 on it.

It was never advertised as a tablet or a competitor to the iPad, so I don't understand all of the backlash from the people who wanted to use it that way.

Actually it kind of was by Bezos' letter. The whole thing about "some companies are about ripping off customers with expensive stuff, we're about providing value". Well, it turns out the more expensive thing is a nicer experience so his little sucker punch was a bunch of nonsense. I think that is the biggest source of backlash.

I was debating the Fire vs. the Playbook given the similar prices. It sounds like you get a lot more with the Playbook.

I refuse to go Android with another device until they implement hardware acceleration and improve the user experience. The staggering that occurs when scrolling and moving between applications is just plain unnatural and I have a mini-aneurysm every time it does it. Plus, the battery drainage is atrocious on the phone I have. That said, I haven't sprung for a tablet yet, so we'll see where both the iPad and the best Android offering compare when that times does eventually come.

The Kindle Fire is simply a great device for $199. I am keeping mine.

And will buy the next generation when it is released.

damn did you try and use calibre??? I used it to upload into kindle 3g and kindle fire. works seamlessly

I just recently predicted consumer backlash with the Fire:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3269095

...so I guess I'm not surprised.

Wow, downvotes on HN with no explanation? Unusual, but I guess that's what happens when a site gets popular.

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