Google Nexus 7 Burns the Amazon Kindle Fire!

I thought it would end up with the Kindle Fire being left with nothing but sparks when compared to the Google Nexus 7. Sure enough, that's pretty much the results.

The Kindle Fire is admittedly older and uses an older, rewritten (read "crippled") version of the Android OS. Which is fine if you are giving the Fire to a non-tech savy person, as they will probably not know the difference with their use of the Fire.

The thing is, the Fire is heavier than the Nexus 7 - noticeably heavier and thicker. So for reading in bed, the Nexus 7 wins out.

Reading PDFs on the tablets? The Nexus 7 is smoother while scrolling through the pages and seems to load them quicker, especially on the larger PDFs we gamers know and love.

Gaming on it? Only game I've tried on both is Angry Birds Space. It looks sharper on the Nexus 7.

Movies is where the Fire may actually overtake the Nexus 7, and not because of picture quality, which should be sharper on the Nexus. The Kindle Fire allows you to access your Amazon Prime free videos collection. If that is going to be one of your main uses for your tablet, the Fire does something that the Nexus 7 does not.

Ease of use? The Kindle Fire doesn't have buttons for volume control, it's all on screen. I much prefer physical buttons for such, so point to the Nexus 7 for providing such.

Bluetooth? The fire lacks bluetooth. The Nexus 7 synched promptly with the bluetooth keyboard I got with my HP TouchPad (back when HP killed the TP and released it at rockbottom prices). If you ever want to use your tablet for extensive emailing or blogging, you need a keyboard. The onscreen keyboard is not sufficient.

Price? $199 for the Fire. $199 for the 8GB Nexus 7.

Except for accessing the Amazon Prime Video Library, the Nexus 7 beats the Kindle Fire hands down. The Nexus is much more bang for your buck, and I'm enjoying reading the RuneQuest 6 rulebook on it in bed ;)

Kindle Fire and My Gaming PDFs - A Working Combination

It took a while for me to figure out the best (and simplest) manner to integrate my gaming PDF collection with my new Amazon Kindle Fire.  With the iPad, it was easy enough to use the relatively inexpensive GoodReader to access my DropBox account and read my PDFs.  As far as I can tell, there is no GoodReader app for the Android OS.

Luckily for me, Amazon was offering QuickOffice Pro for free last Monday.  Normally 15 bucks, this app connects directly to my DropBox account and allows me to read by PDFs.  The fact that it also allows me to work with MS Word and Excel documents is a plus.

I've also used Box.Net to bring my PDFs over and read them using Adobe Reader.  This is kinda the no frills, free method (assuming you have a Box.Net account).

I'm sure there are folks with more experience then I have with Android, just keep in mind, not all Android Apps work on the Fire.

As for how they look?  The Fire screen is pretty damn sharp.  I have no complaints.  The iPad's 10" screen makes for a better reading experience in general, but the Fire's screen and size makes for a better "in bed" reading experience.

Alright, got my Kindle Fire (not my actual picture - I borrowed it from another site - the wife is currently playing with mine).

Here's my quick first impressions:

It's much lighter then my 1st Gen iPad.  Part of that is going from a 10" to a 7" screen.  Part of that is the metal case of the iPad.  Part of that is that the Kindle Fire is significantly slimmer.

The screen is bright and vibrant.  Works well for my Kindle book collection, playing movies via Amazon Prime (and the movies seem to load quicker then Netflix does on my iPad) and playing Angry Birds. ;)

I've uploaded Netflix and Hulu to it but I've yet to give them a try.  Didn't have a lot of time to spend with i tonight as the contractor is starting work tomorrow and we had to get things ready.  I need to upload some PDFs onto it still.  I didn't see a Dropbox app for it, but there is a Boxee app, so that should work.  I also need to upload some standard ebooks and some comics.

The touch screen responds well - better then the HP WebOS Tablet that was all the rage for $99 bucks 2 months ago.  I'll say it's about as responsive as my iPad.

My mother's reaction (she's knocking on 70 soon) upon seeing it and getting to play with it - she wants one for Christmas.

My wife's reaction - she has yet to put it down since she picked it up 20 minutes ago - and she wants her own for Christmas.

I'll play with it later when my wife relinquishes it ;)

Awaiting The Fire

Yep, I'm waiting on the delivery of my Kindle Fire today. Well, technically I'm at work and my son is waiting for the delivery, as he is off today, but lets not split hairs.

I'm hoping this is a viable and affordable alternative to the iPad. I love my iPad, but carrying a $800 piece of electronics on the NYC Transit System is probably the choice of fools. Carrying a $200 piece of electronics on the NYC Transit System is probably also foolish, but $600 less foolish ;)

I want to see how well the Kindle Fire handles my PDF collection. More tonight.