I've been trying to enjoy my Kindle Fire from the day it was released. Really hard. I've read several books on it, watched a movie, browsed the web and checked in at the Newsstand. I'm sorry to say - the Fire is a major disappointment. Here's why.
1) Using the Fire's touchscreen interface leaves me cold. Taps, touches, the spreading of fingers to enlarge the image on a page don't work as they should. Trying to read a website on the Fire is an exercise in frustration. Tap on a link. Nothing happens. Did I misstap? Tap again. And again. Finally, the requested page appears. All very frustrating.
2) Scrolling has a sort of jerkiness to it; not smooth and natural. Sometimes it feels like the Fire's screen is trying to catch up to itself.
3) The Fire's Newsstand can't hold a candle to reading the NY Times on an iPad. The interface is dull and uninspired. And, like all other elements of the Fire, slow to respond. In contrast with the iPad's NY Times app. It's like night and day.
4) The Fire's home screen is a confusion of large and small icons - and basically a drag. I want some more control over the order of things on the Fire's scrolling shelf. I'm not really interested in seeing the latest website I've visited there. Someone, somewhere must have thought the interface was a step forward. I don't.
5) For it's size (which I like), it's too heavy and clunky for my taste. Give me the antiquated Kindle with the buttons to navigate my books and library. It's lighter, easier to use and better than the Fire.
The word is that Amazon is working on software updates that will address some of the problems I've outlined here. I'll take a wait and see approach to that. Although there are apparently a lot of Kindle Fire's being sold, it's got to be the price and access to Amazon's content that making that happen. It's certainly not the device itself.