A Present To Myself

~ beetleypete

Sometimes, the best presents are things you buy for yourself. You don’t have to wrap them, or wait until the 25th to open them. After resisting Tablet ownership for some years now, I saw that there was a cheap offer on the Amazon Fire Tablet, with a 10.1 inch screen. As I already have a PC, a laptop, and a smartphone, I obviously didn’t need to have it. But who only buys things they actually need anymore? Not me, obviously.

But wait. I do actually need it, as I want to be able to read my Kindle books. All those lovely books written by fellow bloggers that I bought for 99p, and have stored in my Kindle library. I could read them on the PC. I tried that, and it wasn’t a comfortable experience. I also tried reading them on my smartphone, but that was too small. The laptop is unwieldy, especially for reading in bed, so I was able to justify the moderate expense of this Amazon-dedicated tablet. Especially as it is far cheaper than the actual Kindle Paperwhite book reader I was originally browsing for, and has more features.

It was delivered today, in the box shown above. Like most things these days, it had no instruction book, just a charger unit and the Tablet. So I charged it up and switched it on. After connecting to the home wi-fi, it immediately knew it was me. I am still enough of a technophobe to find that very spooky. Seconds later, it had downloaded all my music and Kindle books, and was fast making suggestions about more things Amazon thought I should buy, or apps I should download. It also delighted in telling me that I now had ‘Alexa’, and I could ask the robot anything I wanted. Maybe not, so I chose not to activate that weird voice, thank you.

After some frustrations with getting out of screens, and going back to home screens, I was using it reasonably well. It’s like a huge mobile phone really, and nothing at all like my trusty PC.

Of course, it is far from perfect. But what is? The cameras, front and back, are dull and grainy. But I don’t care, as I have lots of digital cameras, so didn’t intend to use this device to take photos. The search engine is Bing, by default. But that doesn’t bother me either, as I can search a lot faster using my PC, with a keyboard. Leave it alone for a while, and adverts pop up, mostly for pay-to-play games. But that didn’t worry me, as to buy the Tablet without those adverts is much more expensive. And I can just swipe them away. Eventually.

Screen resolution is average, at best. Compared to my wife’s Samsung Galaxy Tab, or an Apple i-pad, it looks gloomy. But that is of no consequence, as the Samsung costs three times as much, and the Apple even more than that. For two-thirds of the price of a Kindle e-book reader, I reckon it’s a bargain.

Let’s just hope it carries on working.

58 thoughts on “A Present To Myself”

  4. Pete – Alexa will become your best friend! She will play any music you ask for, or mixes like Christmas music, soft jazz, James Taylor…anything you ask for – and she will give you time, weather, news headlines or even tell you jokes! And i agree that sometimes the best gifts are “self-gifted” – happy holidays!

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  10. I downloaded a Kindle app to my clunker of a PC, but have yet to use it. I bought a used laptop from a fellow teacher years ago, and it didn’t work. I found out immediately afterwards that the teacher had left town. I may assign my private investigators to track her down… Anyway, enjoy your new toy!

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  12. If you had waited ten years or so, you could have one that once you activated Alexa she would bring you a glass of your favorite red wine upon request. 🙂 Seriously, congraduations and Happy Christmas.
    Warmest regards, Theo

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  16. My daily newspaper had an offer for a tablet and the electronic newspaper.
    Now not so much paper accumulates on me and I can read the newspaper even when I’m away. Very practical – both!

    Oh, and in Germany we get the gifts today! Hooray 🙂 🙂 🙂

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  17. Good for you Pete. I managed to blag my sisters old kindle fire 7 off her and as you say they dont excel in anything, but as a book reader they are fine and I have enjoyed quite a few 99p specials over the last 6 months or so.

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  21. I hope you enjoy it, Pete. I have one of the first Fire tablets that came out in the market in the UK. It is now over 6 years old, and although it does not have many of the features of standard tablets, like you, I didn’t want it for that, as I spend a lot of time at the computer already and when I’m off it, I want to be off it. I use it for books, and it works OK for Amazon content. (Mine doesn’t have access to many Apps as it’s so old, so other than making suggestions, it doesn’t bother me too much). My mother has one from the same period and less memory and it’s still working as well, so… fingers crossed. I use it as a book and it is handy to carry around. And I use the text-to-speech feature often, and it is handy to be able to mark pages, make notes, and make the script bigger (at my age, indeed!).
    Enjoy the books! And Merry Christmas!

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