Kindle Fire HDX - Kindle Pt 2

As I mentioned in my first Kindle post, my husband spoiled me on my last birthday. He gave me not only the Kindle Paperwhite as my e-reader, but the Kindle Fire HDX as my tablet AS WELL!

Fighting for attention in my new wallet

Spoiled? Definitely! Overkill? Not a chance. My Kindles are like dear children that I don't want to play favorites with; I love them equally but differently.

The Kindle Fire HDX replaced the iPad2 that I never really formed a habit of using. My new Kindle has a 32 GB harddrive with 4G LTE service. So why do I love it when I failed to use my very nice, very expensive iPad? I suppose I viewed my iPad as a giant bulky smart phone. Right or wrong, whenever I should have used it, I grabbed my iPhone instead.

Lighter, more compact and with better resolution than the iPad, this beautiful little Kindle fits in my leather wallet/clutch and goes with me everywhere. It even opens up a new, albeit less extensive, app store for perusing content. I like variety and enjoy having both stores at my disposal.

I'm an Amazon floozy and I love having access to all my existing content, including a ton of free videos through my Amazon Prime prime account. If I'm stuck somewhere without access to my Paperwhite, I can still pick up where I left off in my current book, confident that my other devices will update my place accordingly.

This tablet takes a standard USB to micro USB power accord for charging, which is a huge plus in my book. Battery time is good (Amazon claims 11 - 17 hrs), though not nearly as good as the Paperwhite for obvious reasons. The Kindle does have a front-facing camera which I haven't used much because I use my phone through force of habit.

You can read more detailed stats here, but suffice it to say that the screen on this thing is gorgeous! The very responsive HD touchscreen is definitely a step up from other tablets I've seen. The videos I've watched are truly beautiful, making this my new best friend for long travel days.

The Kindle Fire HDX operating system is a version of Android called Fire OS. The internet browser is Silk. The home screen display features a carousel of open apps and active media that one can quickly flip through using the responsive touchscreen. The remaining apps and content are displayed in rows of tiles.

Anndroid OS with Carousel and Tiles

I see a few areas for improvement: I'm still adjusting to the user interface, which isn't quite as intuitive as the iPad's. It seems like the carousel gets a bit bogged down and I need to figure out how to organize my tiles. When trying to adjust settings I eventually had to do a search for them. Additionally, the Kindle seems to drop my WiFi connection fairly often. It might be a network issue in my house, but I have to reconnect to WiFi and often lose unsaved progress on web pages. It drives me batty!

I suppose I should try out the touted "May Day" video chat help feature, which I have yet to do. It might resolve several of my issues. The hubs is eager to see if the customer service reps will be as attractive as the girl in the commercials. I haven't felt the need to burst his bubble just yet.

The Kindle Fire HDX starts at $229 and can be purchased through Amazon or retailers like Best Buy.

This is quickly becoming my favorite gadget EVER! What's the cherry on top for me? The ability to blog while nursing of course!