Ok, it's here! I'll leave others to create unbox videos for their Kindle Fire - there will be thousands of those to choose from. Instead, I'm going to use this post (which I may update a few times) to record my first impressions of the Kindle Fire. It's a bit thicker than I thought it would be, with a rubbery black backing (which means it doesn't slip out of your hands as easily), and a bit more square than the nookColor (and heavier, it seems). After turning it on (what, wait to charge? never!), it connects via WiFi (so, be prepared with whatever security info you need at your location). It then registers with Amazon - since this one was ordered on my account and not marked as a gift, it immediately added itself to my account and skipped having to type in my name and password. It then wanted to download an update, but you can skip that if you want (I did, for now). Next, you are run thru a quick tutorial (four pages or so) on how to move using the carousel and how to pin content to the home page so that you can find it quickly.Once on the home page, the Fire sync'd to my Amazon account (which took a while) and there are two items pinned in the favorites area: Pulse and Amazon. Clicking on Amazon opens up an Amazon shopping app and turns on 1-click ordering for the device. Basically it looks like the same app I have on my Android phone. Pulse is a news app and installs pre-configured with a few sources for news, sports, science, etc. The first thing I had to do after bringing up a page to read was adjust the brightness - I'm in a well lit room, but the default brightness was still much too high (great for outdoors, perhaps) and I could feel it in my eyes (which are probably tired from working on the computer all morning). From within the news item, you can quickly go back home (the carousel) or just bring up a list of other articles from the same news source or all the installed sources (what did I read - an article about trying to get students to use libraries instead of Google when writing research papers and an early review of the Kindle Fire!).
Back to the home page - it's still Syncing. Ok, I'll click on Apps - there's a list of all my Amazon Android Apps; I clicked to install Hulu Plus, then Audible. Netflix is supposed to be coming, but I don't see any sign of it yet in the Appstore (Update: Netflix is now there, but not easy to find). Audible, btw, required a separate login, even though most of use no doubt use our Amazon logins, now. While that was authorizing the new device, I jumped over to the Amazon Prime management page and confirmed - yes, I now had my 30 day trial of paid membership! Which means streaming videos for 30 days and I can rent two books (one this month and one next).
If you grabbed Quickoffice Pro yesterday, the phone version is the one that works with the fire (the HD version is for larger tablets). OfficeSuite Pro 5 is also compatible with the Fire, if you managed to get it when it was free last month. All of the Angry Birds apps seem to be compatible (and I have all but one from the free offerings in the last few months -- if you don't, you can still get them for 99 cents each; grab all three for less than the cost of one in the Nook app store.
One hiccup - I decided to get a game and bought it from the PC. There doesn't seem to be any way to send the app to a particular device and also no way to refresh the list of apps on the Fire itself. So, it thinks I should have to buy the app to get it on the Fire - it's only a dollar, so I thought, why not see what happens if you try to re-purchase an app. Apparently, the answer is that it hangs up and you have to force close the Appstore. There also needs to be a way to remove apps from your library (just as we eventually were able to do with Kindle books), as I need to get rid of some "free" versions of apps that I don't use, as I now have the full version of them, instead.
Back to my library, the two graphic novels I pre-ordered are downloading, as is a cookbook I sent to the fire. No sign of my archives, though (maybe I'll have to wait more than just a bit to see them there; I do hope they show up eventually, though). So, I'll take a break from books and wander over to Videos - looks like there is a Julia Child TV series (The French Chef, Seasons 1-10) included in the free Prime Shipping library. I'm not sure how much I'll absorb in 90 days, but there are definitely worse things I could be using. You watch the video in landscape mode, which puts both speakers on one side (the left) of the screen (so much for stereo). So long as the area isn't too loud, though, there is enough volume (controlled by tapping on the screen) that you can hear it easily (even the intro, which claims S&H Green Stamps is the sponsor!). At least the USB, power and headphones jack are all on the right side when watching (since I may end up having to plug in, eventually). Pressing the screen brings up controls for the video (scroll bar to back up, go forward), audio (slider for volume) and to leave the video. I paused the video, exited, then fired up my Roku - I should be able to start right where I left off, but that presumes I can find the same show again. The Roku controls are much more primitive and I ended up watching Ken Burns Jazz for a bit, instead. I finally found "TV Shows: A-Z" and then located "The French Chef"; and the resume function works just fine. Julia started back on the Beef Stew recipe right where I'd left off on the Fire. What they really need, though is a "last watched" option under the Amazon videos, so that it doesn't take a week to find what you were watching. On the Fire, itself, the show you were watching ends up on your shelf, so it's easy to find it quickly.
Back to books, there are now archives showing. Sadly, they are incomplete, just as with almost all my Kindle devices at this point. Neither of the books I mentioned in an earlier post are missing (in fact, two different books named Abyss are missing). There are a couple of books on Jobs, but not the Steve Jobs biography I bought this morning (the first books shown under "most recent" are some Vook editions from last June). With any luck, the archives will fill in some more, but, sadly, I suspect they will remain permanently broken on this Kindle, as well. Speaking of Vook Books, most of which have enhanced content, you can load some of them up on the Fire (even if the book page says you can't, since I did), but you won't get any of the enhanced content - it is still locked into an Apple device format, apparently. This isn't true of all enhanced editions, as Cornwell's The Fort won't even load up on the Fire in order to read it, even though you can read the text portion on pretty much every other Kindle device and app; I found a number of other enhanced editions that simply refused to load on the Fire (I'll try to see if I can get around that using Read Now, but that isn't looking very promising in the Silk browser, as I keep getting a prompt to allow offline use, but I can't get a click to register on the message box, so that it will continue -- the browser also keeps crashing on the Cloud Reader page and crashed once on the Manage My Kindle page).
So, what about the Kindle Touch 3G? It's here, it looks pretty much like the Kindle, minus the buttons for page turning (instead, you press your finger in the lower 2/3 of the screen, along the left side for back and anywhere from the middle to right side for forward) and any buttons other than "Home", which looks like a menu (it is a bunch of soft stripes). The menu is instead reached by pressing along the top edge of the screen. With any such presses, you have to stay long enough to register a "click", but not so long that you instead start selecting text (which either brings up the dictionary, zooms a picture, follows a hyperlink, etc, depending on where the press occurs). To delete a book or notice - you press and hold on the title on the home page, wait for a menu to appear, pick Delete at the bottom, then click again to confirm.
