camper buttons unobtrusive
How is laptop?
Let me begin this by saying that I used to be an "early adopter".  I had to have it when it first came out.  I've stopped doing that, but in this case I wish I had bought the first Fire.  From using a friend's I was excited when they finally announced the second gen devices.  The original was simple to use and did most things I wanted it to.  This one is incredibly hard to figure out, even with years of techy experience and is more limited in its use.PROS -Feels solid and well built.Anti-glare screen is nice, and the screen is vibrant.  It's not Retina, but then it didn't cost like one so I'm OK with that.Some have reported it being slow and unresponsive, but I haven't had much of a problem except when in apps I know have problems from them doing the same to my phone.  Videos streamed from Amazon look really good.Book reading is surprisingly good for a backlit screen.  Page turns are quick and although they lack the book like "charm" of the Kindle reader page turns it is an acceptable substitute.Screen brightness is good and you can see the screen pretty well outdoors.  I have turned off automatic screen brightness though.  I find the values it chooses too bright in most cases and have mine set slightly less than 50%.CONS -No AC adapter included.  Would that have really been that much of a stretch to include?No flash support.  UPDATE: Well...no official flash support.  Thanks to the comment from TomT below I was able to install both flash and my preferred browser (Dolphin) in a few minutes.  Google Flash 11.1 apk and follow the xda developer links...will walk you right through it.  Now if I can get Google Voice working so I can use sonar I'll be a happy camper.  Have added a star since it was this easy.  That still doesn't negate the fact that it should have been included in the first place with so many sites still using Flash.The charge and HDMI ports are on the long edge rather than the short as is on my other Kindles (and the original Fire I believe).  When you want to do HDMI out to a TV you can only turn it one way if you want to tilt it up which may, depending on the case you buy,  totally defeat the stand in the case.  In the case of the Marware leather rotating case you can't close the case when charging because the ports are to the inside.Volume and On-Off buttons are flush with the case and almost impossible to find by feel.  Since the only visual cue for which way you are holding it is the camera lens this makes it difficult in a darkened room.No GPS.  This isn't a deal breaker, but would have been nice.  I suppose they thought since it needs wireless people wouldn't use it like that, but I could always turn on my phone's Mobile Hotspot to use Google maps IF I had a GPS.The ads.  I own other Kindles and have never felt the need to turn them off.  They were unobtrusive and didn't really affect my use of the device.  I even went for them occasionally.  The ones on the new Kindle are ridiculous.  Everywhere you turn they are in your face just waiting for an errant touch to purchase something you don't mean to and taking up screen space. People who care for children or the elderly should be extra vigilant for unintended purchases.Lack of many apps in the app store that I use daily on my Android phone and would use on the Kindle if they were there.  It's clear Amazon doesn't want to take any chances that you might stream something online that doesn't belong to them.  No TNT app, no USA app, no CW app.  I assume the others that I don't use like HBO and Showtime aren't there either?  No support for PowerDVD Remote and PowerDVD Mobile which would allow me to stream my own personal videos from my network rather than having to either upload them to the cloud or onto the device.  Can't access my Dropbox either.  I use my phone as a remote constantly when streaming from my HTPC to my TV and I was hoping I could use the Kindle that way too.Apps that work perfectly well on my phone throw error after error on the Kindle's "special" version. Examples: Words with Friends, no paid version and ads lock up the device.  Tweetcaster constantly throws the 350 connections per hour message and I am not a heavy user.  It throws this one when all I do is check it once in a while and have it set on manual refresh.  I ended up in Twitter Jail the first night I had the Kindle and I didn't tweet a single thing!  Never had this happen on my phone.Every app you download results in a "purchase" email from Amazon...even the free ones.  I have an avalanche of them in my inbox just from setting it up.  (Yes, I know this happens for phones as well.  I make the comment to point it out to those that don't know.  Amazon should have a better way worked out to handle this by now and since Kindle is part of their proprietary environment and since Kindle is a part of that this is part of owning one.)The Carousel? I hate it.  Everything goes on it as soon as you load or use it even if you don't want it to.  There may be a way to fine tune this, but if there is I haven't found it yet. I put a few favorite songs on the device for when I'm not near wireless and it showed each individual song on the Carousel. The UI is cluttered and as far as I can see there is no way to alter it to better serve your personal needs.  No way to clear the Carousel either.  You have to remove items one by one.  (If anyone knows how to change this please do let me know.)The main screen is obviously front loaded to get you to buy stuff..with the few things things that get around the spoon feeding of ads and buying stuff all the way to the right like photos and web.UPDATE:  I had not attempted to use the camera.  There is no software included to make use of the camera.  The User guide says you can download Skype and that it MAY work with other apps in the store, but there is no way to use it without downloading something and experimentation to see what apps might work with it.  Why include the camera if they aren't going to give you something to help use it?No alarm clock app included.  Now I know there are apps that will do this, but it's pretty much a basic inclusion on most mobile devices these days.Haven't decided if I will return or wait and hope Amazon offers some software updates that make it more acceptable.  It's a brilliant hardware upgrade hogtied by Amazon's watered-down version of Android and the lack of basic apps like camera/alarm that we have all come to expect.  I haven't tested the HDMI out yet, since my micro-HDMI cable hasn't arrived yet.  Will update this review next week when I get that. 