Top critical review
2.0 out of 5 starsAwful at What It's Most Meant to Do: Read Books
Reviewed in the United States on October 28, 2022
I purchased this model of Kindle Fire for much the same reason I buy all my Kindle Fires: to read ebooks. I thoroughly enjoy the portability and convenience that an ereader provides, and I've been loyal to Kindle since I got my first one several years ago. I have a previous Fire that was starting to show its age, as it's a pretty early model that got a lot of us.
This model does look pretty nice. It's a tablet, sure, but it's small enough to easily hold in your hands. My arms are both messed up due to strain injuries, so the heft does get to me after a bit, but it's not too bad. The device is also just small/big enough to fit easily in a slightly oversized pocket, which is great for me, as I take my Kindle everywhere.
Again though, the main reason I have these devices is to read books, and for some reason, this Kindle Fire struggles to do that. Books I purchase are constantly having issues downloading to the Kindle, regardless of the wifi used. When they do download, usually after restarting the download a few times, they'll show up in the library without a cover, having only a blue box with text. That makes it oh so wonderful to determine which book is which without delving further into menus.
On top of THAT, it routinely seems to dump my library. I like to download all the books I own and want to read, but haven't gotten to yet. These are saved in "Downloaded." Except sometimes that section is entirely empty, yet the books are still on the device (you can click on the library and find them). Othertimes the books will simply have vanished entirely. Attempting to download books sometimes results in the device stalling out or not working entirely.
I had thought it was an issue with the SD card, so I specifically looked for one that was designated as a Kindle compatible card and put it in. It supposedly formatted, but then, surprise surprise, it dumped my entire library (despite my attempts to copy and paste them elsewhere) and I had to reload the device several times in order to get it back together.
This is the single most frustrating piece of tech I have ever owned. It's entirely likely I have a dud, but it's too far past the return date (and was even when I first noticed, which was a few months after purchase; I had several hardback books at the time). I wanted an ereader, and I have a device that seems to want to make that as difficult to do as possible.
Skip this model. Buy an older one, as those seem more reliable. Or maybe a new one has the issues fixed. But this one's not worth the price they're asking.