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Comment by JPKab | Hacker News Reader

Original Kindle Fire owner here:

As a Kindle for reading books, it's great. Certain apps (limited due to it not using Android market) are great. Browsing any webpage? Awful experience. Youtube? Annoying, because you are stuck using the crappy browser instead of a dedicated Youtube app. I would like it much better if Amazon didn't fight so hard to keep Google anything off of it. After using my brother's Nexus tablet, I wanted to cry going back to it.

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It is definitely annoying, however you can side-load the latest YouTube apk (you also need "Google Services" apk if you want to be able to log into your account), making the original Kindle Fire a pretty good YouTube machine. The YouTube app serves up the 720p stream even though the screen is slightly smaller, and it looks very nice and crisp.

I disagree when it comes to reading books, though. My Kindle Paperwhite, and even the Kindle2 before that, are superior reading devices. The Fire is a decent video/games device, but the only reason I use it in preference to the Nexus7 is to get access to Amazon Prime streaming.

For what its worth, you can side load APKs on an unlocked Kindle just like any other Android device. Obviously that still doesn't get around not having access to Google's own apps like Gmail though.

I also have the original kindle fire onto which I have installed a custom ROM of Android 4.1. I am quite happy with it although I do wish it had a microphone.

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