Kindle Fire: Is this the droid you’ve been looking for?

As much as I hate ending a sentence with a preposition, I make an exception here, and offer my answer to the question: Yes for me; maybe for you.

My pre-ordered Kindle Fire arrived last week on Wednesday, 16 Nov. After sideloading several apps, doing a temporary root to load more apps, then unrooting the device once the desired app were running (video streaming does not work if the device is rooted) …I now have what I have looked for in a tablet. Total cost was $200 for the tablet, and about $10 for a couple needed apps (described below). Oh, and I'm using a cover that my son gave me.

 

Kindle Fire without modifications: The Fire is about the same size as the Kindle 3, and slightly heavier (I measured the difference at 4.4 ounces). As a short gent (5’4”) with small hands, I like that I can hold either device quite comfortably in one hand. The display on the Fire is brilliantly crisp and clear. But although I keep the brightness turned down to less than half when inside, even with the brightness cranked all the way up, the Kindle Fire is not as easy to read outside as the Kindle 2.

This pic shows the 'regular' Kindle outside. Very easy to read!

 

 

 

Here's the Kindle Fire, brightness up all the way, reading the same book at the same outside location. As you can see, the screen is quite reflective. I can absolutely read this, but the standard Kindle is definitely easier to read outside.

 

 

The Fire includes a link to the Amazon Appstore. Here’s what’s disappointing:  the Android Market offers over 250,000 apps; the Amazon Appstore – if you access it from an Android phone or your PC – has 4,000 apps (maybe more, but significantly less vs the Android Market). From the Fire, the Amazon Appstore only makes some of those 4,000 apps available, and it seemed that several of the apps I wanted were not available. By the way, I was rather appalled to read multiple online articles and posts mentioning the "must have" apps for the Fire and offering reviews of the device …when it is now obvious to me that these authors did not have the actual device! The articles described apps that are not available for the Fire, and ignored some of what I consider to be very nice included apps. The authors had erroneously assumed that anything available from the Appstore from a phone or PC would be available from the Fire. Wrong!

I’ve tested reading books and magazines on the Fire and I like the experience. That is, for the content I could load. Books and magazines purchased from Amazon for my prior Kindles all downloaded fine and the experience is quite nice, especially for content that normally includes color photos or charts (which render in grayscale on the earlier Kindles). Gaining access to the digital versions of some other periodicals was more challenging and required sideloading the Zinio app.

Video streaming on the Fire via Amazon Prime is amazing. I’ve tested a few videos now (tried a couple of TV shows and a movie) and in all cases the video and sound played just as smoothly and clearly as if watching content via normal TV.

Apps included with the Fire allow you to access your email, read books / periodicals, listen to music, read/post to Facebook and Twitter and other sites, and browse the web.

I was not familiar with Pulse, and this has been a happy discovery among the pre-loaded apps on the Kindle Fire. I am slowly getting this content aggregator configured and tuned and find it more useful each day.

So why would I want to modify things?

Swype: I have a droid phone for work and a droid phone for personal use and I use Swype on both of those (allows me to very quickly drag my finger from letter to letter, ‘stringing’ words together. I refuse to be limited to pecking out text a character at a time. You can “sideload” Swype on the Fire, and it will happily install – but it is not available as a text input option, so you are still left with the sole input option of the Kindle Fire soft keyboard.

Google apps: Gmail is my personal mail provider, and I am quite accustomed to running the Gmail app on my phones; Gmail is not among the available apps from the appstore on the Fire. I also use Google Maps and Google+. I have no idea why Amazon and Google aren’t playing nice here. Android comes from Google, and the Fire runs a modified version of Android.

A better web browser: The Fire comes with a browser, but I don’t care for it. This definitely comes down to personal preference, but now that I’ve modified the Fire and am running the Dolphin Mini browser, I like the web experience much more.

I would not want the Kindle Fire if I were not willing to do some tweaking. And I am willing to do some tweaking (my personal phone is rooted; heck the night I brought my brand new car home a few years ago, I tore off the front bumper assembly and other parts to do various upgrades). This is much easier than tearing into a car!

Here’s the approximate process I followed (I researched and experimented a bit, so this is not necessarily the exact and complete description of my fumbling)...Post a comment or email me if more details are needed.

1. Grabbed my HTC Incredible (my personal Android phone), and used Astro File Manager to backup some apps (the associated .apk files were stored in the Apps folder on my phone's SD card). Among the apps I grabbed were Zinio reader, FiOS Remote (let's me manage my Verizon FiOS DVR), Swype, ...basically anything I had on the phone that I might want on the Fire.
2. Using the phone, bought SQLite Editor ($2.99 and only needed if you want Swype) and Root Explorer (File Manager) ($3.99 and worth every penny). Backed these apps up using Astro File Manager once the apps were installed on the phone.
3. Connected the phone to my PC via USB cable (most of my machines are linux, but I have one desktop with a Windows partition), and copied those saved .apk files to a folder on the PC.
4. From Amazon Appstore, installed Easy Installer on the Fire
5. Followed the instructions in these articles to root the Kindle, sideload the desired apps (including various Google apps and the Android Market):
   1. Root the Kindle
   2. Getting the Android Market (and other apps) working on the Fire
   3. Getting Swype to work
   4. MarketOpener app ...This simply puts an icon among the apps on your Fire - to let you easily get to the Android Market once you have the Market loaded.
   5. UN-root the Kindle Fire (instructions are in the "Root the Kindle" article linked above). This step is required in order to allow content to stream from Amazon.

Rooting requires that you have the Android developer kit loaded (instructions are in those linked articles) and that requires a Windows machine with Java. All the instructions are in the articles, and if you don't have Java yet, the Android dev kit installer will detect that and help you.

Do read all of the text of all of those posts / articles before you start messing with your Kindle. Bear in mind that you do risk bricking your device, so care is needed. BUT, if you prepare carefully, and give yourself the time to enjoy the process, you can - as I have - end up with a wonderful tablet and reading device for only $200!

I am happy.