Amazon Kindle Fire

Can Amazon's astonishingly-priced tablet live up to the hype?

The Amazon Kindle Fire is what the tech world likes to coin a game-changer. A gadget with the potential to irrevocably alter a sector of the market to the point of no return.

A fully-fledged Android tablet with a top-level ecosystem of multimedia content for less than half the price of its competitors isn't just changing the game, it's changing the entire sport.

The long-awaited, 7-inch, Android 2.3 Gingerbread tablet, which Amazon has been diligently plotting for the last couple of years off the back of its Kindle e-reader successes, also arrives at the perfect time with the tablet arena at a crossroads.

Check out our Hands on: Kindle Fire review video. Warning it has actual (virtual) fire in it.

Despite a flood of Android Honeycomb tablets arriving throughout 2011 offering stiff critical competition to the iPad, nothing has really stuck with consumers who still, by-and-large, see Android tablets as poor-man's iPads for the rich-man's spending power.

£400+ for an undeniably luxury item is just too expensive for some, but the stunning demand for the largely mundane HP TouchPad fire sale proved people do really want affordable tablets.

Now, once Amazon decides to launch in the UK (at present there's no launch date or price in the works) everyone can own a tablet with real pedigree, minus the buyers remorse. It costs just $199 in the US, which works out to about £125.

From Amazon's point of view, the idea is simple. It believes it can replicate the success of its all-conquering Kindle reader devices by once again taking a hit on the hardware.

The built-in ecosystem of books, magazines, apps and movies Amazon has built allows it to do what LG, Samsung, Motorola can't, and what Apple has no reason to; abandon any thought of profitable hardware.

This is the first Kindle to boast a colour screen, a holy grail to some users of the device, and with a 7-inch, 1024x600 display it falls at the smaller end of the tablet sphere.

With Android 2.3 (not the newer tablet-centric Honeycomb 3.0 software) on board, it's also the the first to run anything other than the non-native software. However, Amazon's custom designed user interface takes precedence.

Since Amazon announced the Kindle Fire, and its price point, excitement has been at fever pitch, but it remained a gadget none of us had ever seen up-close or played with.

What would be the use of a $200 Android tablet that doesn't work, has a terrible touchscreen or buggy, unusable software? We flew over a device on launch day in the US, so it's time for the hype to subside and for the testing to begin.

Upon lifting the Kindle Fire from the extremely bland Amazon packaging, we felt like we'd seen this tablet before. The device bares a striking resemblance to RIM's BlackBerry Playbook, although Amazon will hope that's where the similarities end.

The glossy jet-black device has a 7-inch screen, just like the PlayBook, along with the same soft and comfortable rubberised, matte casing around the back and edges. At 0.45 inches, it's slightly thicker than the PlayBook (0.4-inches), but does have a thinner bezel.

Just like the PlayBook the device feels exceptionally well-built and it doesn't appear that Amazon has scrimped on this in order to keep costs low. This Kindle could probably take a kicking and keep on ticking.

There are no buttons on the face of the device, which gives the Kindle Fire a really clean look. In fact, the power button, nestled closely to the headphone jack and the MicroUSB charging port, is the only physical button to be found.

Both the power switch and the headphone jack feel like they're in the wrong place and would be better served on top of the Kindle Fire.

There's no volume switches or screen locks, but we understand Amazon's desire to keep the design smooth and minimalist. With that in mind two tiny speakers rest at the top of the device.

Tellingly, there are also no cameras - front or back - something which Amazon has obviously deemed expendable, but users hoping to video chat might see things differently.

You can add the lack of a GPS sensor to that list too, but Amazon has made it clear that the Kindle Fire is a media consumption device, not a means for communication (no microphone either) or navigation so it's difficult to criticise too much - especially at this price point.

Kindle fans will be pleased to know that intrinsically, this still feels like an Amazon Kindle device rather than a tablet PC. At 431g, it's far more comfortable to hold in one hand than the iPad.

We found the best grip saw the thumb rest against the side with the pinky finger resting along the bottom. Trying to hold between thumb and index finger proved a little more taxing.

On the inside of the device, the Kindle Fire boasts a 1GHz dual-core Texas Instruments OMAP processor, the same one that rests inside the PlayBook that, if you remember, bragged of a 'do everything all at the same time' prowess.

The Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 offers a Tegra 2 chipset, but it remains 1GHz dual-core at its heart. The Kindle Fire, like the iPad, only has 512MB of RAM however, compared to the 1GB on the PlayBook and most of the Honeycomb tablets.

Another slight downer was the decision to pack in only 8GB of internal storage, which equates to just 6.54GB of usable memory.

There's no room for an external SD card slot here, so you're really not going to be able to cram much of your own music, videos and photos onto the Kindle Fire.

It's a very strange decision from Amazon. 6.5GB doesn't go very far with today's hi-res digital magazines, high bit-rate MP3s and, HD video. And that's before you start loading apps onto the device.

One of the most positively surprising aspects of the Kindle Fire is the 7-inch, 1024x600 IPS LCD screen, which once again boasts the same spec sheet as the BlackBerry PlayBook.

As soon as we switched on the device, the vibrancy, crispness and pureness of the colours on that 169ppi screen really shone through (the iPad is only 132ppi). This remained consistent on our journey throughout the user interface.

Text is equally crisp and vivid, especially when we zoomed right in to read books and web pages. In that respect it reminded us of the iPhone's Retina Screen, but let's not get carried away. It isn't that good, and definitely cannot match up to the Samsung Galaxy 10.1's HD display.

We had no issue with the quality of the video playback (when fully buffered). As with many things on the Kindle Fire, it's not the best and not the worst, but it's decent. It's certainly nothing to be upset about given the price point.

Whether a 7-inch screen is enough for you to fully enjoy a movie or TV show is a matter of personal preference.

Touchscreen

Moving past the look and onto the feel, the capacitive multi-touch screen on the device also dodges another potential bullet with consummate ease.

This was definitely an area where the $200 dollar device could have fallen over, but we're happy to report that the Gorilla Glass-coated display performs comparably with most of its main competitors. You will have to contend with rampant fingerprints, though.

It responded well to the deftest of pushes and prods, while double-tapping and pinching to zoom were efficient. Typing is always going to be more difficult on a 7-inch screen, but the keyboard is nicely spaced in landscape mode and we found mistakes were minimal.

iOS devices are obviously the standard-setters in this department, but we're happy with Amazon's solution.

Interface

The Amazon Kindle Fire runs Android 2.3 Gingerbread, which is primarily smartphone software, rather than the Android 3.2 OS used on tablets like the Sony S1 and S2.

However that's mostly irrelevant seeing as Amazon has covered up most traces of the Google's operating system with its own attractive and refreshing custom UI.

The skin brings a lot of the upsides of Android, iOS, WebOS and of course the original Kindle readers into one neat, tidy and functional experience.

Naturally, the homescreen takes the form of a book shelf. Your recent items appear on the top shelf; be they the book you're reading, the webpage you're browsing, apps you're using and games you're playing etc...

Each of which are represented by an icon or a WebOS-like card, and it also looks fabulous in landscape mode.

Flicking through them is a breeze, although the motion can be a little too quick on the trigger at times. We often caught ourselves swiping past our intended target.

From the homescreen, you can hit one of these icons at any time at any time and it'll return you the point of your previous visit, so it's a good hub for multitasking.

The lack of a physical home button on the device can get a little annoying at times, especially as the on-screen icon tends to disappear very quickly, but it's only a minor quibble.

Key settings like volume and connectivity can be accessed from a drop down menu in the navigational bar, which can also be pushed to receive notifications. In this area, you merely touch the top of the drop down notifications bar, rather than pull it down.

Some people might be frustrated that these controls are hidden behind a touch gesture, but we found it to be intuitive and easy to get used to.

On the shelves beneath the recent items sit your favourite apps, which can be placed wherever you desire, by pressing and holding the icon, a la iOS. There's no folders functionality though.

Hubs

The Kindle Fire is undoubtedly a straight-up media consumption device rather than a communications or navigational tool, hence the lack of cameras and GPS, so it makes sense that the top tab features all of the lovely media content Amazon wants you to by to offset its hardware losses.

There's Newsstand, Magazines, Booms, Music, Video, Docs and Apps, joining Web which is the only tabs that doesn't want your business.

All of these store-fronts are extremely well laid out and very user-friendly.

Beyond the UI, Android does shine through in some areas for example, word suggestions are omni-present when typing, but the bespoke Kindle keyboard is your only option.

The menus and settings will be familiar to Android phone and tablet owners, while learning to navigate around this device won't be too challenging for first time buyers or Kindle graduates.

It's a brilliantly thought out first-time effort from Amazon that helps push its primary goal of pushing its multimedia content.

Performance

On a $199 tablet (we'll come back to this argument many times throughout the review) it's asking a lot for everything to run as smoothly in the engine room as it does on the top line devices like the iPad 2.

After-all, even though a Ford Ka will get you from A to B, it won't do it with the same smoothness, style and speed as a Lamborghini.

In the main, the device and user-interface is slick and the pace is acceptable without ever being iOS-quick. However, a start-up time of 36 seconds is extremely pedestrian compared to the iPad 2 (22 seconds) and the other top-of-the-line Android tablets.

On occasions we did experience a little bit of a lag when opening apps, and selecting new items from within apps, but it wasn't something that was overly annoying or apparent. Other reviewers have made a much bigger deal of this than we feel is justified. It simply isn't that bad.

We certainly didn't experience any lag when turning book pages as some reviews have claimed. However, apps often quit on us during our tests, which will need to be sorted by software updates.

While the Amazon Kindle Fire only costs $200 (£125), you might want to set aside another £25 or so for a passable set of headphones, as the audio quality through the built-in speakers is one of the most disappointing aspects of this device.

Battery life

The Kindle Fire boasts a massive 4400mAh battery, which takes up most of the space under the bonnet.

Amazon advertises a lifespan of 8 hours of video playback and 7.5 hours of continuous reading, but that's with the Wi-Fi turned-off, something that's not possible when browsing the web or streaming video.

We found that within about five hours of constant use, which included listening to music, watching video, browsing the web, playing games and reading books, we had about 15 per cent of battery life left and so put the device on for another charge.

In our tests, the iPad 2's battery life gave us 9.5 hours of constant general use, while the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 clocked in at around nine hours.

Six hours, give or take, is not really enough is it especially if you're on a long journey, so we'd advice scrimping on connectivity when you don't need it, or turning down the brightness.