Fire...

We've had our Kindle Fires for about a week now, so I think I can give my early impressions of the device.

I really like the interface. I was a bit worried that the highly modified Android operating system would be a pain with me being more used to the standard Android atmosphere, but the Fire's OS is just so easy to use there's no way that anyone could call it a pain.

I like how smooth the device runs. It seems like it might not be quite as powerful as it could be, but those are probably issues that could be remedied with a firmware update. I'm guessing Amazon rushed this device just a tad to make sure they got it out when they wanted to, and I'm thinking that updates will come for it often to make sure that users are getting the most out of it.

I'm really impressed by the display. Videos look amazing, and so do the games that I have for it. I also think the sound is pretty good. The only downside for me about the sound is that the device has both of it's speakers on what would be the top of it if you were holding it like a book. That isn't a big deal when you're holding it like that, but when you are holding it in landscape mode the sound only comes out of the left of the device, so the stereo sound of the two speakers is a bit lost when watching videos. But that's okay, because with headphones the Fire sounds simply amazing.

The apps for it seem to be coming out pretty constantly, as well. I downloaded the Comics app for it and bought my first comic book ever. I've been reading it when I don't have anything else to do, and the Fire seems to be a perfect device for reading digital comics. It's easy to read them, and they look great.

I'm also pretty impressed with the games I've got for it. I've only got a few, but all of them run amazingly well. The graphics are impressive and I've found only one issue with one of the games, and even that's an easy work around.

It's also nice to have so many things stored in the cloud. I have several gigabytes of music that I can listen to, but they aren't stored on the device. They are just streamed to it through our Wi-Fi connection in the house. Awesome.

The other thing I like is how seamless it is to buy content. When you're listening to music, just a click and you're in the Amazon MP3 store to buy more. Same with when you're using apps.

The battery life has been pretty impressive so far, as well. Definitely getting some long life out of that. This is probably due to the device lacking some things like a microphone and cameras.

Speaking of the things it's lacking, none of those things bother me. The microphone and camera are two things that I never used on the Archos tablet, and I very rarely use them on my phone, so I don't think I'm really missing out by not having them.

The last thing I would like to comment on is the web browser. It actually does seem to get faster as you use it, which is what Amazon said it would do. It's basically like a cloud computing system for browsing. When you go to ESPN, the device is automatically loading the links that it THINKS you will click on, so that they will load faster. It's cool. The other great thing about the browser is that it runs Flash...so websites actually show up like they are supposed to!!!

So far, I'm really liking the device. I think there is a bit of room for a few small improvements, but overall I feel that the device is a home run!!