Yesterday around 10 am, the friendly neighborhood UPS man delivered my new Amazon Fire tablet, on time, on release day as promised by my pre-order on Amazon. I am a Prime 2015-10-02_004123061_9A001_iOSmember, so of course it came with free shipping too. I’m a long time Apple fan, and I have pretty much exclusively used Apple devices-computers, iPads, iPhones. Over the past few years, however, Apple has been getting a little squirrely and a little full of themselves. Not to mention all the stealing of ideas from other manufacturers and platforms. I know I’m not the only one feeling this. So with my iPad aging, and having just reinvigorated my old MacBook (which was fine except Apple decided it could no longer update OSX-read about that here) with Linux Ubuntu, I started thinking. To replace my iPad with a new equivalent would cost anywhere between $400-$1,000! Which is really quite ridiculous. I have to admit that my iPad Retina is still going strong after all these years, but I’m not sure a Samsung wouldn’t be doing just as well. In addition to price consideration, Apple devices are notoriously limited in their capability, especially cross-platform. They work really really well doing what they were designed to do, but not much beyond that.

That being said, I have relatively recently become quite enamored with Amazon. They have always had a huge market share in the ebook realm, but lately, with all the music and video stuff, Amazon entertainment content is really kicking some serious butt these days. Subsequently, I’ve become quite interested with the Kindle Fire tablets. My major hang-up was the OS. All my stuff is Apple. Could I really handle using something Android based? Well, for $99 I was willing to give the Fire HD6 a try. It would at least be useful, if it didn’t become my main mobile device. Within a week of coming to this conclusion, the new $49 Fire was announced. Pre-ordered! Immediately! For $49 I was definitely giving it a try.

So far, first impressions, I really like it. The Fire OS Bellini is a lot more user friendly than I was afraid of. I like the way they’ve made it more content oriented with all the stuff you 2015-10-02_004239497_2CB12_iOSreally use your tablet for right there in front of you. It’s a little more warm and fuzzy than say a Samsung Android system, but it’s more flexible than an iPad. Included in that flexibility is the micro SD slot, which can accept up to 128GB of extra storage. I was able to quickly and flawlessly sync my email, contacts, and calendar, and I was already logged into all my Amazon services before it arrived. Which is very smart and very convenient. The music and video service with Prime is really awesome. When you have wifi, you can stock up on all your latest favorites and watch them offline later. Some of the downsides where the price tag really shows are the cameras and back case. The photo quality is about what you would expect from something inexpensive, but if it’s what you have in your hand when you need to snap a pic, you’ll still have a decent memento. The back case has a nice texture, but the plastic feels a little thin and cheap. That said, it doesn’t feel fragile. It does feel overall like a good quality device. Now for the biggie, the screen. I’m sure a lot of people will be upset about a tablet having a less-than-UHD screen in 2015, but if it makes it affordable, I’m ok with it. It really does look fine. Especially at arms’ length, where most people would be holding it. And again, the price more than excuses the minor shortcomings of the new Fire. Long term review to come at some point, but those are my first impressions. I plan to make good use of it working on this blog and for work as well as good ole fun. Check out the unboxing video below.