A Kindle Fire Review For Those Who Plan To Void the Warranty 103
The mixed reviews so far available for the new Amazon Fire tablet mostly address the Fire in its intended role as a locked-down portal through which to buy and consume ready-made content from Amazon. New submitter terracode writes with a different kind of review, which "goes into depth on the Kindle Fire's hardware, and provides details on how to root and tweak the tablet." The article also provides a friendly chart comparing the hardware in the Fire to that of the Nook Color and the iPad 2.
WTF: Why not compare the nook Tablet? (Score:5, Interesting)
This is fine, but it says that the nook Color is the Kindle Fire's closest competitor. The nook Tablet is now, and it has a helluva lot more horsepower than the Kindle Fire. (And a better looking body...) So it makes me wonder what kind of kool-aid this reviewer is drinking. Particularly since the nook is by far the most hack friendly device mass produced in years!
Re:Kindle Fire is one device I see no reason to ro (Score:4, Interesting)
The security mechanism is the same as the one Motorola has employed on all of their OMAP based devices. At most, kexec may be available to try something, however you're still stuck bending over backwards and twisting yourself to get around an extremely punitive security system that won't hesitate to brick your system.
Of course, I don't look at these devices for how effectively they can try and stick their fingers in my wallet, but how effectively I can make them do what I want them to, which is one reason I ruled out the Kindle Fire as soon as I learned it had no SD card slot.
The real question: (Score:5, Interesting)
Will the Nook tablet run the Kindle app?
What if you hack it?
Re:It's kinda scary (Score:5, Interesting)
> Not everyone, believe it or not, is able to produce useful English marketing text.
yeah, but it makes you question their overall commitment to quality, and the level of frustration you might face if you need to interact with them for support one day.
my old rule of thumb was: buy a no-name product from a known-good-name company, or buy a known-good-name product from a no-name company. No-name product from a no-name company is just asking for trouble, and a Good-name product from a Good-name company is fine if you don't mind paying more than you probably had to.
I rooted my Kindle Fire a few days ago (Score:4, Interesting)
The instructions were brand new and horribly incomplete at the time, but it was fun to hunt down all of the pieces to the puzzle on an environment I was completely unfamilar with. I was mostly interested in learning more about the Android platform, and also to enable Google's Android Marketplace and other Google apps.
I unrooted the Fire (so that Amazon Video on Demand would continue to work), and used the Marketplace to download a better video player app (MX Video Player) and a number of decent games. I didn't go with the Dolphin browser or the GO Launcher for my defaults. (Not that I'm excited about Amazon's launcher.) So basically, I have what acts like a stock Kindle Fire, except I've got Android Marketplace access. I think that combination makes this a winning device. I'll still purchase from Amazon when it makes sense, but I'll go to Google for selection.
The only significant snag I've seen so far is that the pop-up menu bar onto the Kindle Fire slightly confuses apps by a number of pixels about screen size or placement. Some apps will chop off the top of their app's display. Of course, others will use the bottom of the screen for their own menu bar, leaving you with scant pixels (in landscape mode) to hit their buttons. That, and a few apps like the VLC Direct player seems to get me into situations which lock my Kindle from time to time, so I mostly don't use it.
At least when I download Marketplace apps, I can delete applications now and now worry about them haunting my 'cloud applications' screen forever. If I download Angry Birds Free, and then pay for Angry Birds (and remove the free version), do I really need to see two different Angry Birds icons on my device forever, Amazon? Well, I asked, and you apologized that I couldn't delete it. You hinted that you may allow this in the future, and you gave me a $5 credit for my inconvenience. You're not so bad.
Anyhow, rooting and installing the Amazon Marketplace is a little bit of a bumpy road, but it seems to be totally worth it.