Kindle Fire: The reviews are in

Reviews for Amazon’s Kindle Fire tablet are trickling in. The US$200 “iPad Killer”, unveiled on 28 September, is seven inches of Android-powered goodness combined with a responsive multi-touch display. Here’s what a selection of the web’s most trusted sites have to say about the device:

Engadget
Tim Stevens praised the price of the Kindle Fire, calling it “an achievement at US$200“. He notes that while it is a perfectly useable tablet, the so-called “power users” will become frustrated with the Kindle Fire. The tablet is slightly underpowered with 512MB of memory and an 8GB solid state drive. When the battery life is directly compared to the iPad 2, it suffers with only seven and a half hours of use on a full charge, compared to Apple’s ten-hour plus battery life.

MSNBC
“Yes, it’s that good“, says Wilson Rotham. “For Apple, this spells trouble,” Wilson says referring to the fact that the Kindle Fire can handle most of the same tasks as an iPad. What keeps Apple in the running are the nuances — the futuristic animations and fades,” which display the iPad’s ability to harness the power of a simple, yet powerful interface. Rotham praises the Kindle Fire’s Silk Browser which he says is “nice and quick”.

Gizmodo
According to Sam Biddle, “the iPad finally has some serious competition“. Biddle praises Amazon Prime, the “rich, easy way to suck down almost every conceivable form of media,” but calls the interface “a tangled butterface of Amazon.com.” He adores exploring content on the Kindle Fire, calling it “tremendous, easy fun,” with the weight of the device feeling like “a good paperback”. Biddle notes, however that there is a worrying amount of screen lag — a serious downside.

Cnet
Donald Bell loves the 1024×600 screen, saying that it is “exceptional for the price,” and “ultra-affordable.” The must-have apps also play a part in the successful reception of the Kindle Fire. Hulu, Pandora and Netflix turn the device into a mini-media powerhouse. Bell’s taste for the Kindle Fire sours when it comes to the lack of hardware features, such as a camera, microphone, GPS and 3G wireless. Overall though, “The Kindle Fire is an outstanding entertainment value that prizes simplicity over techno-wizardry.”

The full specifications for the Kindle Fire can be read here.