What Is the Kindle Fire: Summary

1.Tech Thursday: Reviewing the £50 Kindle Fire: Not recommended for students, great for young kids, some adults, mixed on accessibility Background This autumn Amazon announced the new Kindle Fire tablet with a killer feature: ultra-low price of £50 (if you don’t mind displaying ads on the front screen). Since many people will be tempted to buy one, I felt we needed an in-depth review for people with literacy difficulties. Kindle Fire is essentially an Android tablet with some limitations on what you can do with it imposed by Amazon. This means trade offs. Read on to find out what they are. Quick Take This is a very long post, but the key points are summarised in this mind map. I also took pictures and screenshots as I went along, so you can see everything I did to test the Kindle Fire in an online gallery.

What is the Kindle Fire: Summary Hardware The Kindle Fire is a 7 inch, cheap Android tablet from Amazon. For the price, the hardware is excellent but Amazon limited its usefulness by not including the typical Google Services available on all other Android tablets. The key features of the hardware to note are:  Excellent performance on basic tasks  Decent screen (not great but just fine)  Decent battery life in line with similar or more expensive tablets  8GB of storage extendable by MicroSD card (available from under £10)  Front and back cameras with mediocre but sufficient performance  Tinny but usable speakers  Typical connectivity options: WiFi, Bluetooth, Headphones Software

Interface and services The Amazon interface is very intuitive and focuses on access to Amazon’s services:  Kindle eBooks  Audible Audiobooks  Amazon Prime Music and Streaming Videos  Amazon Online Shop  Amazon Appstore These are all great services if you subscribe to Amazon Prime. And you can even subscribe to Fire for Kids Unlimited for a small monthly fee (more about that later).

Apps Like all Android tablets, you can run apps on the Kindle Fire. But instead of Google’s Play Store, Amazon has its own Appstore with a much narrower selection. It comes preinstalled with all the apps you need for reading, listening to books or music, watching videos and browsing the web. All of these are great. Amazon has its own web browser called Silk. It is just fine for typical browsing but it won’t sync your history across devices like Chrome or Firefox. It has a great feature called ‘Reading List’ which will save the page you’re on for offline reading. But does not have a distraction-free reading option. Amazon tries to make up for its lack of app options in its Appstore by the Amazon Underground which gives you free download of some paid apps and games. These can save you a lot of money but don’t make up for the gaps.

Huge accessibility gap: No speech recognition or smart assistant I have gotten used to dictating things like search questions or quick notes to my phones and tablets. I can now do it on all my Windows, Android and iOS devices. So the first thing I looked for was the Microphone Button on the keyboard. But it’s not there. Despite having a speech recognition product in the well-reviewed product Amazon Echo with personal assistant Alexa, Amazon did not put this amazing accessibility feature in its tablet.

Advertising One of the ways Amazon reduces the cost is to include advertising for various products on the lock screen. This is not in any way obtrusive and never interrupts your use of the tablet. However, you can pay extra £10 for a version of the Kindle Fire without promotional offers.

Other Kindle Fires to consider The Kindle Fire is the cheapest of many Kindle Fire tablets Amazon has been selling for several years now. They are known for great hardware but customers have to accept the limitation of the Fire OS which is Amazon’s own take on Google’s Android. This means all Android apps will work on the Kindle Fires but their creators must submit them to the Amazon Appstore. And only a few have. The other Kindle Fire models available now are: Fire HD 6, Fire HD 8, Fire HD 10, Fire Kids, Fire HDX 8.9. However, only the cheapest Kindle Fire is worth strongly recommending because of its price. Once the Fire’s price reaches that of competitors, they become a much worse deal. The only other contender is Kindle Fire Kids Edition with its guarantee “If they break it, we’ll replace it. No questions asked.” You may also be tempted by the Kindle Fire HD 6 for its very small size. Books, Video and Music

Media consumption: Music, Video, TV, Radio

The Kindle Fire is first of all a media consumption device. And it does a great job at that, if you get all your media from Amazon. Particularly, if you subscribe to Amazon Prime, your Kindle will come with no end of things for you to read, watch or listen to. If you need more music or videos, you can also install Spotify, Deezer and Netflix. My favourite radio app TuneIn Radio is available as is BBC iPlayer Radio. You can also upload your own music or videos via USB or the MicroSD card. Or you can use Amazon Cloud Drive with 5GB free. TV catch up services: BBC iPlayer, ITV, Channel 4 and 5 are also available. If you have the Amazon Fire TV streaming device, you can use the tablet as a remote control. You can also install apps to make it work with Roku or Chromecast. If you use a home media server like Plex or Emby, apps for that are also available. The biggest omissions are YouTube and Google Play Music. And, of course, Apple Music which has recently come to Android. You can watch YouTube videos using the web browser or some third-party apps. But it is not the best experience. The best tablet Kindle reading experience

But we must not forget the most important thing about this tablet: reading. Unless you prefer an e-Ink e-reader, the Kindle Fire gives you the best tablet reading experience of all. It has all the features the Kindle apps on Android or iOS should have but don’t. The most important are:  Audiobook synchronised reading if you have both a Kindle book and Audible book will highlight words in the book as they are being narrated.  Text-to-speech will read out Kindle books to you with a great synthetic voice. Unfortunately, some publishers disable this feature. Also, the words are not being highlighted as they are read out and there is no navigation as in the best reader apps.  A feature called Word Runner will display one word at a time at a speed you can control as in some other speed reading apps. Other great features also available on other platforms are:  X-Ray which will show you more information about characters and important things on every page. I find this great for long fantasy novels.  Word Wise will highlight and explain words on the page. Maybe distracting to some but helpful to others. Amazon also lets you find out more about the book before you start reading and you can get suggestions for things to read from an integration with Good Reads – an online community of readers. Every school library should have a few of these available to students who struggle with reading. All the key English readings could be there available in text and audiobook form. Amazon even gives you a sixth Kindle Fire for free, if you buy five.

Unfortunately, there are also problems. Some books are only available in justified paragraph formatting which makes them virtually unreadable when the font is increased even slightly – a key accessibility feature. Amazon is said to be working on a new feature to fix that but at least a few of my books suffer from this problem.

The biggest disappointment of the reading experience for me personally is that all of these great features are not available on the apps on iOS and Android in general. Reading non-Kindle books The message is a bit more mixed for reading ebooks not bought from the Kindle ebook store.

What is available:  Overdrive for reading books checked out from the public library (no text to speech)  Wattpad for reading fanfiction and books written by people from the community  Project Gutenberg app for browsing out-of-copyright books.  Some PDF and ePub readers are available but not the best in class.  Limited choice of podcast clients Podcast Addict is the best. Beyondpod is in the Appstore but would not install.

What is missing:  No other ebook store apps like Kobo, Barnes and Noble, Google Play Books.  No best-in-class ebook reader apps for students with dyslexia like Moon+ Pro or Voice Dream Reader. The best ePub reader available is Moon+ Reader but you have to download it from the website. It is in the Amazon Appstore but listed as incompatible with the Fire. Until that is changed, there is no way to read ebooks from a source like Load2Learn[] assisted by speech.  No LibriVox for open and free audiobooks Reading news and magazines

The Kindle Fire comes with an area called Newsstand. This is basically a way for Amazon to sell digital newspaper and magazine subscriptions. I tried the Telegraph and was disappointed not to find any readability improvements. No change in text size, no text-to-speech. But it would suit someone used to reading the paper edition. I also tried a Magazine with a trial subscription to Yachting World but the reading experience was awful. On the small screen, you have to constantly zoom in to even see the text and even then, there’s a limit. There’s no way to select text to make notes, no way to just read one article. You’re basically viewing scanned photos of the magazine pages. Maybe others are different. Also, you have to remember to cancel the free subscription otherwise you will automatically be charged. Luckily, you can also access news through an RSS news reader and one of the best, Feedly is available for free. Apps: The Good and the Bad

In the previous section, we had a look at apps for reading and media consumption. The message is mixed but not bad. How do things look in other areas? A bit less positive. Homework and documents The two big players in this space: Google Docs and Microsoft Office are not available. But to make up for it, Amazon has made a few alternative office suites available for free. I tried OfficeSuite Pro and it seems very good. It should meet all basic school and work needs if you don’t mind the fact that you can’t dictate your text. But it is a saving of almost £12 on the full product in the Google Play store. There is also a scanner app which can come in very handy and you can use the Fire camera to scan bits of books or assignments. For note taking, you have both Evernote and OneNote. There’s also Lecture Notes and Lecture Recordings. In general, the selection is much more limited than on the Play Store but you should find apps for most basic homework tasks. Organisation and time management The Kindle Fire comes with no calendar app preinstalled. But there are some calendar apps you can get from the Appstore. Sadly, no Google Calendar or Outlook. (There are two apps called Outlook in the Appstore but none from Microsoft.) Luckily, Calendar+ Planner claims to be able to sync with Google Calendar. But I did not test it. Of the to-do list apps, I recommended, you will find Wunderlist and Any.Do but not Google Keep or Todoist (my two current favourites). Online storage Amazon offers its own Cloud Drive and you can also download apps for Dropbox, OneDrive and Box. As always, Google Drive is missing. There are a few paid apps that can connect to Google Drive but I did not test them. In general, unless you live in Google land, you are in good shape. Communication Skype, Viber and Facebook Messenger are all available but I admit to not having tested any of them. Of course, no Google Hangouts. Social media Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn are all available, as is the Tumblr app but no Snapchat for those very hip. Instagram is also missing but some third-party apps for browsing it are available (I did not test any of them). But if you like to use a Twitter power tool like Buffer, it is available. Educational apps There is no shortage of apps for learning and study. Many of them are available under the Fire for Kids Unlimited subscription. Again, the lack of a YouTube[] app is perhaps the most significant but you can still access the many educational videos there via the browser. Games I am not much of a gamer but the selection seems quite large. People will particularly appreciate a number of free games which are paid for on the Google Play store on Apple’s Appstore. Of the Top 5 games on Google’s bestselling list, I could find 3. But classics (even I’ve played them) are mostly there: Angry Birds, Cut the Rope, Tap the Frog, Subway Surfers, Temple Run, Candy Crush, Plants vs Zombies. And of course Minecraft! I installed Subway Surfers and played a little bit and the experience was just as smooth as on my much more powerful phone. Final note on apps You will not suffer from lack of apps but you will have to make some compromises. I did find that a few apps in the Appstore would not install and there were some crashes – but these were very much exceptions. All the main apps I tried worked just fine. Perhaps the most annoying feature is that Amazon sends you an email for every app you install even when they’re free.

Fire for Kids Unlimited

Perhaps the most attractive feature for families with children is the Fire for Kids Unlimited subscription which gives you access to a large number of games and . You can have a subscription for one child or a separate subscription for up to four children. As you can see, the pricing is very reasonable (with a free trial for a month). What do you get? You can choose from two categories:  Fire for Kids (children under 10): gives you access to a large library of free content for younger children. I gave the Kindle to a family with two children for two weeks and they felt that the selection was sufficient.  Teen Profiles (older children) does not give you a special library but you can assign books and apps from your own library. The kindle will help you choose those that are child friendly. You don’t need a paid subscription for this. You can also customise exactly what each child is allowed to do. You can:  Choose specific apps, books, music and videos for each child  Set daily goals and time limits for each child. You can set a total of screen time and make entertainment conditional on meeting educational goals. You can also set limits on reading, watching videos or using apps. The biggest limitation my test family found was that you cannot give the child access to a web browser. This limits what they can do on the tablet even if the parent wants them to go online.

Conclusions

So is the cheap Kindle Fire a good deal? For the right kind of person, it definitely is. But you are not getting a full-fledged Android Tablet. If you want that, you have some great alternatives at a similar price. If you’re looking at one of the more expensive Kindle Fire tablets, they are a less obvious choice. Unless all your books come from Amazon, you may be better off with a different device. And if your main purpose is work productivity and study, the Kindle Fire is definitely a worse choice than regular Android tablet or an iPad. Who it’s for  Families with younger children would certainly find a use for this. Older children who would like to use it or school, may find some of the compromises too much. An important feature of the Kindle Fire is a peace of mind. £50 is not nothing but a broken or lost Kindle Fire will hurt less than a broken iPad for over four times the price.  Do you need a second tablet just for reading, watching videos or playing games? This would be great for you. Lack of speech recognition will hurt with searching but not as bad as in document creation.  Do you subscribe to Amazon Prime? Do you buy all your books for the Kindle? Then, this tablet is an obvious choice.  I suggested above that school libraries may want to take advantage of the 6 for 5 offer from Amazon. I am certain that they could some of their reluctant readers more engaged in reading by exposing them to audiobooks and speech-assisted reading. Who it’s not for  If you’re looking for a tablet for study or work, this is not the best device for you. You can get work done but a generic Android tablet for just £30 more pounds would be a better choice (or even an iPad but you do pay a price premium). All you give up is the superior Kindle reading experience. You can still read Kindle books on other tablets just without text-to-speech or audiobook sync but everything else is far more convenient.  If you are serious gamer, you would be better off with a more expensive, higher end device. Even the Kindle HD 8 would be better but something like the TESCO Hudl2 is just as good for just £100 without worried about some games not being available on the Amazon Appstore.  The Kindle fire is a mixed bag when it comes to accessibility for someone with dyslexia. The lack of speech recognition is particularly bad. But even the lack of some of the best reader apps for textbooks via Load2Learn is a problem. On the other hand, you get the best (but still not perfect) Kindle ebook reading experience. I also found some formatting issues in the interface when I increased the default text size (as I always do). In short, I can recommend the Kindle Fire for some people without reservations while others will need to take a careful stock of their needs. Making the wrong choice won’t ruin you but I know that there are many people for whom even £50 is a serious consideration. This is why this is a much more detailed review than I typically do for Tech Thursday. Next time Next week we will have a close look at Windows 10 Tablets and help you decide whether you should buy one or not.