As the operating system is a customized version of Android, you might expect the Kindle Fire to have access to the Android Market, but in fact Amazon has its own app store which it uses as a library of additional software, apps and games for the Kindle Fire.

The problem with this is that the Amazon App Store doesn’t work outside the USA, resulting in travellers, those with non-US credit cards and anyone overseas who received one of these tablets as a gift being unable to install new apps via either of these methods. Fortunately there are alternatives…

Using The Amazon App Store (If You’re In The US)

Amazon has made its app store extremely easy to use and doubles the pressure on the official Android Market by giving away a free app every day.

A shortcut on the Kindle Fire will display the goodies on offer in the Amazon App Store and all you need to do to download an app is open its description page and use the Buy now with 1-Click button (or Get now with 1-Click for free apps) and the software will be installed – although of course you shouldn’t do this without reading the reviews and recommendations and checking screenshots first! Note that you must have 1-Click purchasing available on your Amazon account for this to work.

A few moments later you should be able to use the app in question. Of course, if you’re not in the United States then you won’t be able to access the Amazon App Store.

Why You Shouldn’t Install The Android Market On The Kindle Fire

The most obvious solution to overcoming app installations by international users of the Kindle Fire is to find some way of installing the Android Market. In fact, you can do this but the results at present aren’t entirely stable. For instance, after spending money on movies to download and watch on your Kindle Fire you might be pretty angry to find that they can no longer be enjoyed in the same way.

Installing the Android Market requires rooting your Kindle Fire, a process that allows access to system files for particular apps. Sadly doing this and installing the Android Market results in some conflicts that cause choppy movie playback among other odd quirks that wouldn’t have occurred previously. Additionally, the Market doesn’t offer all of the apps that you might expect to find as the device doesn’t meet all of the hardware specifications required by Android.

The best option here is to steer clear of the Android Market until a version that supports the Kindle Fire becomes available.

Third Party Solutions: Opera, SlideMe & GetJar

Fortunately there are other solutions that are not region-specific.

Probably the first place you should head to is the Opera App Store, which you can open by visiting apps.opera.com in your Kindle Fire browser. You will then be able to browse for and install useful and popular apps such as Skype and Angry Birds.

Other places you might try include andappstore.com, slideme.org and m.getjar.com. Note however that for safety and anti-virus reasons you shouldn’t attempt to download any app that isn’t already available in the Amazon App Store or the official Android Market (market.android.com).

Once the download has completed, expand the Status Bar, tap the downloaded .apk file and wait for the software to install.

Conclusion

Clearly using a Kindle Fire internationally isn’t easy, but as this is such a popular and easy to use tablet in all other respects it isn’t hard to see why people are happy to persist.

While the procedures described here are intended to help anyone desperate to use a particular app on their Kindle Fire, going forward, you should keep your eye on the Amazon App Store. Although it is ostensibly for North American users, reports recently have indicated that international or European access is about to be granted following a short period whereby users in the UK were able to download apps.

I scoured the Kindle Store in search of worthy books to recommend, and came up with a list of nine titles that all seem worthy. It’s an eclectic mix, so be sure to scroll all the way through even if the first one or two don’t catch your eye. These books are all offered for free at the time of this writing. Pricing on the Kindle store can change at any time.

Wild Mustang Man

To start things off, let’s look at Wild Mustang Man. This isn’t a long book (about 181 pages), but it’s one for the girls. Wild Mustang Man is a Western romance story about a single dad, Josh Gentry, who also happens to be a farmer. One day, a lovely lady by the name of Bridget McCloud comes into his farm, takes a look at him, and decides he’s going to be perfect for her ad campaign… and for other things, too.

The books comes from Carol Grace, who authored over 35 novels and has a definite following. Again, this one may not be for everyone, but some of the ladies in the audience might find it to be an enjoyable read.

The Jackpot

The Jackpot is a legal thriller by David Kazzie, who also created the (NSFW) video So You Want to Write a Novel. The video isn’t directly related to the book (thankfully), and is a blatant parody of people who just randomly decide to write a book one day, without realizing what it entails. The book itself received 17 reviews with an average of 4.5 stars, which is fairly impressive for a work in the long tail.

The book’s hero (a lady, by the way) goes through all sorts of trouble trying to return a winning lottery ticket which her boss stole from a client. The whole thing is more complicated, of course, but that’s the main premise.

The Nemesis Worm

Gory cover aside, The Nemesis Worm is our first sci-fi entry. It’s a 60-page novella, not a full-length book, featuring the heroes from author Guy Haley’s book Reality 36. It revolves around a high stakes investigation undertaken by those same heroes (Richards and Klein) to clear Richards’s name from murder.

The Ghosts Of Varner Creek

With 36 reviews and a 4.5-star average, The Ghosts of Varner Creek is aimed at readers 18 and above. It is a Nook sci-fi/fantasy Bestseller, and tells of Solomon Mayfield, whose mother and sister disappear one day in 1909. He goes through life not knowing what happened to them, haunted by lies, speculations, and secrets. He finds out the truth only after he dies. Once again, be warned – this one contains adult content.

Seven Exes Are Eight Too Many

Seven Exes Are Eight Too Many is another foray into romance. Madeleine-Cora Spencer is single, and after being shunned by a friend’s new wife because “you can’t trust desperate single women”, she is finally driven to participate in a “Find Your Prince” reality TV show – only to find herself dumped on an island with seven ex-boyfriends. With 40 reviews and a 4.5-star average, this looks like one entertaining read.

Bright Of The Sky (Book 1 Of The Entire & The Rose)

Bright Of The Sky is one of the few books on this list that have also seen light in dead-tree format. It’s the first part of a four-book sci-fi cycle, and the other three parts do cost money. This reflects a growing trend in the Kindle store, where authors offer the first book of several for free, in the hopes that readers will be hooked and buy the rest of the series. With 109 reviews and a 4-star average, Bright Of The Sky is an epic tale of the far future.

To wrap things up, I would like to share three interesting classics. These are not Kindle exclusives, but are worth a read all the same.

Pride & Prejudice

Pride & Prejudice, Jane Austen’s timeless classic, needs little introduction. It is one of only two books on this list who have their own Wikipedia page. In a nutshell (and in Wikipedia’s words), “The story follows the main character Elizabeth Bennet as she deals with issues of manners, upbringing, morality, education and marriage in the society of the landed gentry of early 19th-century England.” 

This is exactly the type of timeless classic we all have access to in this digital day and age.

Fairy Tales Every Child Should Know

This one’s for the kids – Fairy Tales Every Child Should Know. It is an anthology containing such classics as Sleeping Beauty, The Ugly Duckling, Beauty and the Beast, and more. It’s entirely devoid of illustrations, though – just the text. Still, if you are looking for some classic bedtime reading for your little ones, this is a free book that could go a long way towards educating them in the classics.

A Tale Of Two Cities

A Tale Of Two Cities is one of Charles Dickens’s greatest classics, set in the late 18th century against the backdrop of the French revolution. It may not be light reading, but it’s supposed to be exceptional. If you do read it, tell me how it was.

Final Thoughts

Free books for the Kindle are a mixed blessing. Sure, there are some lovely finds, but there is also an incredible amount of drivel, trash, and empty words. I wish Amazon would make it easier to filter books by price and minimum reviews. They let you sort by price and filter by “four stars or more”, but not by how many reviewers there are… and many, many books have a single five-star review.

Did I miss important free Kindle novels at Amazon? Let me know in the comments.

Send to Kindle adds new ways for you to send any personal document from your PC to your Kindle device or Kindle app. From Windows Explorer, you can right-click a document and choose “Send to Kindle” from the context menu. This can be done on several documents at once, without opening them. From any Windows application that can print, choose Print and then choose “Send to Kindle” from the print dialogue.

When you first install Send to Kindle, it will prompt you for your Amazon credentials. After logging in, you can start sending documents to your devices. When you choose to send some documents, you will get to choose which device you want to send the documents to. This can be your Kindle device or any other device on which you have installed the free Kindle app. You can also choose to archive documents in your Kindle library, and re-download them again whenever you wish.

Surprisingly, it seems that you can send almost any text file to your Kindle. Every file you send gets automatically converted to PDF, and is then able to display correctly on your Kindle. This enables you to send all sorts of documents to your Kindle, or back them up in your Kindle library as a form of cloud backup.

What do you think of the new app? Are you going to be using this new functionality?

Source: Kindle Daily Post

But now Amazon’s iPad-optimized Kindle Store app, officially called Kindle Cloud Reader (see below), provides a better browsing experience than if you link to the regular version of the Kindle website.

This iPad-optimized version is not an app you download it from the iTunes App Store. Instead you get it by going here on your iPad and then adding it as a bookmark on your device’s home screen.

The iPad web version also links you to your downloaded Kindle books – the same ones that appear in your Kindle Reader app. To access your Kindle books, tap the Cloud Reader button in the top-right side of the page. Likewise, your Cloud Reader can be accessed from any computer-based web browser as well.

Interestingly, however, while you cannot make annotations to books in the Cloud Reader, you do get a better view of listed links to highlighted passages and bookmarks you make in the Kindle Reader.

It’s unfortunate that Amazon can’t provide all of these features in one mobile app, but for dedicated Kindle and iPad users, the Web-based version is a useful resource.

Source: Macworld

While the Kindle app still falls short in many areas, the recent updates do provide better functionality for e-book reading.

Personal Documents

Perhaps the best update for Kindle 2.9 app is a feature that allows Amazon members to e-mail personal documents to their Kindle app-supported device using a new Send-to-Kindle email address ([assigned name]@kindle.com.)

You can attach documents and other files, including PDFs, Word files, JPEGs and PNGs, on your computer or in your mobile device to the address associated with your Amazon account. Amazon says that “A subject is not necessary in the e-mail, unless you’d prefer to have the document converted to the Kindle format. To have a document converted to Kindle format (.azw), the subject line should be ‘convert’ when e-mailing the personal document to a Send-to-Kindle address.”

In order to use the Kindle annotation features, text documents must be converted to the Kindle format. However, in my tests some parts of say a PDF document—the table of contents for example—may not format correctly in the .azw conversion.

Other people can also send documents to your device after you approve their e-mail address. You will need to log into your Manage Your Kindle account, and select Personal Document Settings to add and improve e-mail addresses. This authorization, of course, keeps your account from being spammed.

There are some restrictions to this personal documents feature, such as submitted e-mails to your Amazon account cannot contain more than 25 attached personal documents, and it must target less than 15 distinct Send-to-Kindle addresses.

This personal documents feature enables users to do less printing, and it is also convenient for keeping your documents archived in the cloud.

Magazines and Newspapers

This Kindle update version for the iPad now also allows Amazon customers to select from over 400 magazines and newspapers in the Kindle Store. You can buy single issues or subscribe to magazines like, Martha Stewart Living, Cosmopolitan, The New York Times, and Popular Science.

Some Kindle customers however have commented that the digital versions of publications may not be as good production wise as the printed versions, so be sure to check the customer feedback section before making a purchase.

The User Interface

The Kindle app also includes an updated user interface, so that now downloaded content is categorized by All Items, Books, Newsstand, Docs. Kindle books and personal documents can also be archived to your account in order to reduce the amount of space taken up on your mobile device.

It would be great, however, if there were a section for purchased Kindle books separate from sample copies of Kindle e-books.

Social Network Sharing

The prior update to the Kindle app includes a feature for sharing selected texts to your Twitter or Facebook timeline, via a link to the highlighted passage which appears on your Kindle profile page.

I’m not sure how useful this feature is for sharing with online contacts, but I find it handy for my own reading and review purposes. You can actually access and read your highlights and notes in your Kindle account. You can also follow and network with other Kindle readers .

As an avid Kindle book reader, I welcome the new app updates, but I still long for improvements with the annotation tools. Accessing and reviewing notes, highlights, and bookmarks is not a productive experience, especially for students and scholars, in the Kindle e-reader.

Let us know what you think of the new updates. Have you started reading more ebooks on your Kindle? And what additional features would you like to see.

For other articles about the Kindle app, start with these:

• How To Use The Amazon Kindle Reader For The iPhone & iPod Touch
• iBooks Vs. Kindle – Which Is Better? [iPad]
• Reading Ebooks on The iPad with iBooks & Amazon Kindle

Oh, and the Kindle Fire is originally a US-only device – so if you’re outside of the States, this may be your best chance to get one. Let’s get started, shall we?

Introduction

The Kindle Fire is a 7-inch multi-touch tablet. It has a dual-core processor, a resolution of 1024×600 pixels, and 8GB of internal memory. It runs a custom build of the Android operating system – so heavily customized, you won’t feel it’s Android most of the time (more on that later). At $200, the Kindle Fire costs less than half of an iPad 2.

As noted above, Amazon has opted to make the Kindle Fire available only within the US. This means that if you’re outside of the US, many parts of the Kindle experience will not be accessible for you (for example, the App Store and movies). I tested the device in Israel, and this review reflects that user experience. There are ways to circumvent Amazon’s regional protections, but they tend to be convoluted, and since I wanted to keep the device in a pristine state for a lucky reader, I did not try them. So, this review is mainly about the hardware, and what you could expect from the Kindle as a hardware platform.

Initial Impressions

The Kindle Fire arrives in a sturdy no-frills box. In the spirit of the times, Amazon clearly made an effort to use as little packaging material as possible. If you’ve ever bought a “regular” Kindle, the Fire’s packaging should be familiar. Within the cardboard box you’ll find a molded “holder” for the Kindle. Under the Kindle you’ll find a power adaptor, and that’s about it:

Design

Above you can see the Kindle Fire sitting on a Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1. While the Fire has a smaller screen, it is significantly thicker than the Galaxy Tab:

This is a side-by-side view of the Kindle Fire and Galaxy Tab. The Tab is tapered so it feels even thinner along the edges, but even when you compare the base thickness, the Kindle is noticeably thicker.

For another size comparison, here’s the Kindle Fire next to a Kindle 3:

This is much more similar – in fact, the Kindle Fire is almost exactly the same size as the Kindle 3, only much thicker. Unlike the Kindle 3, the top of the Kindle Fire is completely unadorned – not even an Amazon logo in sight. No buttons, either. It’s just a bezel with a screen. You can find the Kindle logo embossed on the heavily rubberized back of the device:

The rubberized back, combined with the device’s compact width, make it easy to hold. But at 413 grams (14.6 ounces), the Kindle Fire is not a lightweight device, especially not when held with just one hand. So while size isn’t an issue when trying to grip it with just one hand, for prolonged use you will probably find yourself using both hands to hold the device, or propping it up against something.

Controls are bunched up at the bottom of the device, much like on “regular” Kindles:

There’s a headphone jack on the left, a Micro USB port, and a power button. Let’s compare that with the control layout on a Kindle 3:

Above is the Kindle 3, and below is the Kindle Fire. As you can see, Amazon has done away with the volume button on the Kindle Fire: It’s not located anywhere else – it’s just gone. Another significant change: The power button isn’t activated by sliding, but by a simple push. Both of these are actually big steps backwards for the Kindle. Changing the volume requires fiddling with the touch screen, and I’ve turned the screen off by accident many times just by holding the device. I hope Amazon improves the control layout on future revisions of the Fire, and makes it more similar to the Kindle’s proven layout.

The Kindle Fire also includes two speakers:

As you can see above, the speakers are lined up on the device’s “top” side – i.e, opposite of the controls. This is a very strange place for the speakers, given the fact that videos must be watched in landscape mode. When you turn the device over to watch a video, both speakers are on the same side. It’s also very easy to muffle the sound accidentally when holding the device. A much better position for the speakers would have been on the wide side of the device, for actual stereo when watching videos.

Using The Kindle Fire

This is what the Kindle’s main interface looks like in landscape orientation. At the very top is a heavily modified Android status bar. Directly underneath is the list of content types the device can display, and under that is a display of your recently viewed items. You can swipe between them in a CoverFlow-like display:

Under the recently used items you will find wooden “shelves” containing your favorite apps, books, and other content:

To place something on the shelf, simply grab it from the “recently viewed” display and drag it onto the shelf. Couldn’t be simpler, really. Now let’s look at the video store:

The Kindle Fire comes with a 1-month free Amazon Prime membership, which entitles you to view lots of content for free (if you’re in the US). If you’re outside of the States, you’ll have to make do with trailers:

My screenshot tool won’t show the video, but you can see the control interface. When you don’t touch the screen, the interface disappears, leaving nothing but the video you’re watching. The top-left button lets you rewind ten seconds back; on the top-right you can see the volume slider, and at the bottom is a scrubber. Very simple, really.

Now let’s look at reading a book with the Kindle Fire:

Amazon WhisperSync works pretty well, and the Kindle Fire usually syncs to the last page I’ve read in the book. The reading app interface looks like this:

This is in landscape mode. The app is virtually identical to the Kindle Android app, except that controls are laid across the bottom bar because the Kindle Fire doesn’t have a Menu hardware button. Tapping the screen’s right side flips to the next page, tapping its left side flips to the previous page. This is nice in theory, but it’s very easy to tap the screen edges by mistake when holding the device. Tapping the middle of the screen pops up the control interface you can see in the screenshot above. When you’re just reading, the app looks like this:

You can pick one of three different background colors and several fonts, and also change the font size. Pretty much what you would expect from a Kindle Android app, really.

Next, let’s look at reading a magazine on the Kindle Fire:

This is the January 2012 issue of Popular Science (you can buy magazines internationally in the Kindle Store). There’s a strip along the bottom for quickly scrubbing through the magazine. A spread looks like this:

This particular magazine is a perfect copy of its paper counterpart. If you were expecting crazy interactivity, embedded videos and other cool stuff, you won’t find it here. To be able to read anything, you’ll need to pinch to zoom and then pan around with your finger. The maximum zoom level isn’t very high, either. So while magazines can display well on the Kindle Fire, the small screen size makes them difficult to read.

Some magazines are offered in a “Kindle native” format, which looks more like an eBook than a magazine. Take Fantasy & Science Fiction for example:

As you can see, this is much like reading a Kindle book. This format works very well for text-heavy magazines, and is perfectly readable.

The Silk Browser

One of the Kindle’s main selling points is Amazon Silk, a “revolutionary cloud-accelerated” browser (Amazon’s words, not mine). The Silk browser uses Amazon’s cloud to make browsing faster. Amazon says: With each page request, Silk dynamically determines a division of labor between the mobile hardware and Amazon EC2 (i.e. which browser sub-components run where) that takes into consideration factors like network conditions, page complexity and the location of any cached content.

That sounds slick, and should translate to blazing-fast browsing times. Unfortunately, in regular use, I would be hard pressed to say that Silk made any noticeable difference. Gizmodo took around 15 seconds to fully render, and MakeUseOf took around 20-25 seconds. The page was usable before it completed rendering, but it didn’t feel blazing fast.

On a positive note, page rendering was spot-on perfect:

Flash content works silky-smooth, and the whole thing feels very solid. Pinch-to-zoom is highly responsive, too. All in all, browsing with the Kindle Fire is a lovely experience.

Living With the Kindle Fire

In my day-to-day life, I usually spend quality time with my Kindle in bed, right before I go to sleep. With a regular Kindle, this means I have my reading lamp on, and I read it like a book. When using the Fire, I didn’t need a reading lamp, which was nice. The downside was that after a couple of hours reading in the dark, my eyes hurt. This happened even when I used a black background.

Another annoyance was software-related. As I mentioned, there are no hardware buttons for controlling the sound volume. You can turn the volume down using the top control bar, which looks like this:

However, even with the volume muted, the Kindle sounded an audible alert when battery dropped below 15%. This was late at night, with my significant other lying in bed next to me, trying to sleep. Pretty irritating.

Due to the Kindle’s heft, I had to adapt a new reading posture. I couldn’t really lie on my back and hold the Kindle over my head; I also couldn’t hold it vertically because I kept turning it off by mistake. Eventually I was able to read by moving to landscape mode and gripping the Kindle with both hands.

Should You Buy It?

If you’re in the US, my answer would be an unequivocal YES. For $200, the Kindle Fire is a lot of tablet. The UI is very responsive, and with Amazon’s tempting content options (Kindle lending library, videos, etc.), the Kindle Fire would probably be a joy to use. I would not, however, buy it instead of an e-ink Kindle. For just reading books, the regular Kindle still wins.

If you’re outside of the US, the answer becomes more complicated. On its own, with its default Amazon firmware, the Kindle Fire is not such a great choice. The Amazon App Market doesn’t work outside the US, which means you won’t be able to install any apps (that’s why I didn’t review that part). You also won’t be able to watch videos. However, if you are interested in the Kindle strictly as a hardware platform, it is a lovely device. Alternative Android distribution CyanogenMod is available for the Kindle Fire, which means you can reflash your Kindle Fire, utterly void any sort of warranty, and have fun with a slick 7” tablet. Whether or not you choose to go down that path is up to you, of course.

We’re giving this Kindle Fire review unit away to one very lucky MakeUseOf reader. Here’s how to join the giveaway.

How do I win the Kindle Fire?

It’s simple, just follow the instructions.

Step 1: Fill in the giveaway form

Please fill in the form with your real name and email address so that we can get in touch if you are chosen as a winner. Click here if you can’t view the form.

The giveaway code required to activate the form is available from our Facebook page.

Step 2: Share!

You’re almost done. Now, all that’s left to do is to share the post. There are 2 options to choose from or you can do both!

This giveaway begins now and ends January 31st. The winner will be selected at random and informed via email.

Spread the word to your friends and have fun!

Interested in sponsoring a giveaway? We’d love to hear from you. Get in touch with us via the form at the of this page.

One of these missing apps is Kindle. While you will easily find Amazon’s eBook reading app on the HP TouchPad in the USA, outside of the country (in places such as Europe and Australia) Kindle isn’t listed in the HP App Catalog. As tablets are popularly used for reading, this is clearly disappointing. Thankfully, however, there is a way of installing the webOS Kindle app on HP TouchPads in territories where the app is unavailable.

So Why Is the HP TouchPad Kindle App US-only?

Well, to begin with it depends on your definition of “US-only”. For many TouchPad users in North America, the Kindle app is an easy to use and enjoyable eBook reading experience. But these are the lucky ones. Thanks to some initial confusion or a problem with the app (the reason has never been made clear) the Amazon Kindle app was shipped with some first wave TouchPads but then removed from later devices, replaced with a placeholder “coming soon” app.

Fortunately, if your US-based TouchPad doesn’t have a working Kindle app, you can now find it via the HP App Catalog.

Preparing Your HP TouchPad

Before proceeding to install the Kindle app on your HP TouchPad, you will need to download a few tools (this method can be used on Windows and Mac OS X). The first thing you should do is head to this link and download the Kindle .ipk file. An .ipk is the installer file format used on webOS.

After doing this, download the webOS Quick Install software from here. This is a tool that allows the testing of unapproved applications on webOS devices such as the HP TouchPad, and requires you to have Java installed on your computer (available from here).

Next, connect your HP TouchPad to your computer using the supplied USB cable. The Connected dialogue box will appear, but you can select Close to continue – the USB Drive mode cannot be used for this process. You will then need to find Developer Mode, revealed by typing the following string into the search box: webos20090606

Tap the Developer Mode icon to proceed and then slide the switch in the top-right corner to activate; you may be prompted for a password, but click Submit to bypass this.

The next stage is to run the downloaded webOSQuickInstall-4.3.1.jar (you might have a different version) file and follow any prompts to download additional software (such as the Novacom driver for creating a stable connection between your computer and the tablet).

Installing The Kindle App

With all of the above installed and running, adding the Kindle app – which is in beta so might be slightly unreliable at times – is a simple task.

The webOS Quick Install application on your desktop computer will display a largely empty screen with a handful of buttons, including + and – on the right-hand side. Click the + button to browse for the previously downloaded Kindle .ipk, which will have a filename in the form of com.palm.app.kindle_0.11.499820_all.ipk (although the version number at the end may differ). Select this file and then click the Install button and wait a few moments.

When the process is complete the .ipk file will no longer be listed in the Files to Install section of the webOS Quick Install application, so you will be free to close the software (it can be relaunched by running webOSQuickInstall-4.3.1.jar).

Next, double-tap the menu button on your HP TouchPad and go to the Downloads tab where you will find the Amazon Kindle app listed. Tap to launch and enter your credentials (or register) to continue.

A few moments later, the main screen of the app will appear. If you have used Kindle in the past,  your books will be listed; otherwise you will be prompted to visit the Amazon Kindle store, where you will find free and paid-for titles to download direct to your TouchPad.

Reading Books On Your TouchPad

Amazon’s Kindle app provides similar functionality to tablets and mobile phones as can be found on the popular dedicated eBook reader. Utilizing an Amazon account and providing access to the Kindle store, the app allows the user to download free out-of-copyright titles (such as the works of Shakespeare and Charles Dickens) as well as find the latest titles to download and read on their device.

With versions available for Mac, iOS, Android, Windows and Windows Phone, Kindle apps extend the functionality of the dedicated device to users of other hardware, often those for whom an Amazon Kindle app would be desirable if it didn’t mean carrying multiple devices. The HP TouchPad version of Kindle is just as good as the others and will allow you to download and enjoy books on your tablet wherever you are.

If you are a HP Touchpad owner, and you tried to download the Kindle app using this method, let us know if you were successful.  Or maybe you know of another way to install the Kindle app on the Touchpad?

Both of these tablets are from retailers, both will have built-in stores, both have seven-inch touch screens and both run modified versions of Android. They’re very similar products for consumers with similar needs – so which should you buy?

Hardware Showdown

Barnes and Noble has been quick to trump the RAM and memory specifications of the Nook Tablet. It will have 16 gigabytes of storage and 1 gigabyte of RAM, and both specifications are double what the Kindle Fire offers. Better still, the Nook Tablet’s maximum memory capacity – counting the microSD card slot – adds up to a whopping 48GB. That’s almost as much as the SSD in my desktop!

That’s great. But when it comes to performance, the two tablets will likely be similar because they use the same SoC architecture, which is known as OMAP 4. This is a very quick part – the same used in the iPad 2, in fact – so it’s not as if these two tablets have lowered prices by offering sub-par processors.

Claimed battery life for the Fire is eight hours of reading with Wi-Fi off, while the Nook supposedly offers 11 hours. However, manufacturer battery life claims mean little. I encourage readers to look at reviews of both devices for real-world numbers.

Neither product offers a camera or GPS.

Ultimately, the winner in the hardware arena is obviously the Nook. Though it is $50 more, the massive increase in memory and storage capacity more than compensates for the difference.

Design Desires

Though it’s a new product, the Nook Tablet has old bones. It uses the same chassis as the Nook Color, which has been around for some time.

I’ve handled the Nook Color before. While it’s not a bad product by any means, I felt the design matched the price point. The masses of dull silver are not attractive, and the little loop in the bottom left hand corner still strikes me as odd. B&N is offering the Tablet with aluminum trim, however, which will class it up a bit.

Kindle’s Fire, on the other hand, is all new. And it looks all-new. Like the Nook Tablet, the design is more utilitarian than luxurious, but I think cladding the device in black does a better job of obscuring any material cheapness – from afar, at least.

There are other advantages, too. While the Fire and the Nook Color both have 7-inch displays with a resolution of 1024×600, the Fire is not as wide, not as tall, and just a bit thinner. On the other hand, the Nook Tablet is a tad lighter.

Personally, I think the Fire wins, but it’s close enough to be considered a toss-up.

Storefront Warfare

Comparisons here require some long-term speculation. The value of a tablet’s marketplace depends on the support for it, both by the original manufacturer and by developers. Just ask BlackBerry PlayBook users, who still lack an email app for their device, despite it being promised as “coming soon” when the device was launched.

On this front, Amazon has given us much more to go on. The company already provides a wider selection of services. It has a gigantic library of digital books, streaming video, cloud music and file storage, and its own Android app store. Many of the new services that Amazon has improved or debuted over the last year are applicable to this new tablet. On top of that, Amazon is offering a custom web browser that is promised to be smoother than anything seen before.

That’s not to say the Nook offers nothing. It will come with Netflix and Hulu Plus installed and has an app store of its own. What’s not clear is how many apps will be available on that store, and how strictly separated the device will be from the rest of the Android eco-system.

Given how much we already know about Amazon’s offerings, the Fire is the clear winner. If Barnes and Noble has any tricks up its sleeve, it had better announce them soon. Amazon already has a head start.

The Verdict

Now you know about both devices. But which should you buy?

That depends on how you plan to use your device. The Nook, with its larger storage capacity, seems to be a better choice for users who aren’t excited about cloud storage or streaming video. Barnes and Noble will be offering sales and service at its stores as well, an advantage Amazon can’t match.

If you’ve had your head in the clouds already, and like the view, the Fire is probably the better choice. It has a wider range of services available, a more mature app store, and an interesting custom browser. Sure, the storage is less – but that’s only an issue if you are going to fill up the Fire’s eight gigabytes. If you aren’t, the Nook’s only advantage is RAM, which may not be worth the additional $50.

If it were my money, I’d choose the Fire.  I think that the software and service advantages do outweigh the Nook’s hardware specs. I can see the Nook’s appeal, however. It may be the better choice for users who don’t care for cloud services and need the extra storage capacity.

Image Credit: LEDFrog

Amazon’s App Store 2.0 features a nice dark grey and orange layout, to match the general Kindle Fire theme, and it’s now much easier to read, browse and find what you’re looking for. Aside from looks, Amazon also added parental control, in-app purchases, and more permission control. Download times should also be improved.

The new appstore make it much easier to see prices, and the names and ratings are much more readable than in the old, white layout. The “Free App of the Day” also got a facelift and is now much more appealing and stands out on the screen.

The “Recommended For You” section learns from your previous purchases and suggests app you might like, similar to the recommendations you get on the Amazon store interface. The new app store is part of Amazon’s ongoing attempt to overtake the Android Market. While the day is probably not much closer, the app is definitely better and easier to use, and Kindle Fire users should feel better about not having access to the regular Market.

What do you think of the new market? Will you consider using it now in place of the regular market? Or will the change really only apply to Kindle Fire users?  Will you be buying a Kindle Fire when it launches?

Source: Extremetech

Now, only two months after the first launch of the service, Firefox is officially supported. This is great news for Kindle users who are loyal to Firefox, because sometimes a computer with a web browser is the only way to get access to your book library. I can’t imagine what caused the delay, but none the less, the wait is over, so all Kindle users who support Firefox can join the rest of us in reading our favorite books.

At this point, Internet Explorer still isn’t supported, and neither are many other mobile devices such as the BlackBerry PlayBook. However, because of the adaptability of HTML 5, it shouldn’t be long before Amazon adds support for these as well.

Source: The Next Web