Review: Not good as an all-purpose case
Rating: 2 out of 5
Date: 05 24, 2014
When I bought my Kindle Fire, I ordered one of the origami cases. While I like it, the Fire is a community device, used by everyone in the family, including a ten-year-old and a five-year-old. They're good with it, but I thought something sturdier would be nice, especially for the younger one, to help protect the device against falls and sticky fingers.Installing the Kindle into the device is no mean feat. First you have to peel back the outer bumper, which took some digging my nails into the edges to get enough of a hold to separate the two. Then the frame has to be pulled apart in half. A small tool that looks something like a guitar pick comes along with the device, and it does make separating it easier as it slips into the crack between the frame's two halves and makes it possible to pry them apart. This is still easier said than done, though. I had to pretty much go around the frame and separate each segment one at a time.Now, given that the case is waterproof, I'm not quibbling with the necessity of having to do this. I understand it requires some doing to get a good seal in order to protect the device. However, it does make the case harder to work with and not as user friendly as some other cases.Once I got the device in, I then had to go around the entire frame and snap each individual joint together. Some were easier than others, and it did take a few minutes to get this done. Then the outer bumper had to be stretched around the frame, which was okay.The real downside occurred when I started using the Fire. The slightest gap exists between the case's window and the Fire, which means the touch screen loses a lot of its sensitivity. Trying to navigate the carousel was something of a feat, and several times an app I didn't want opened because of the loss of touch-screen sensitivity. I tried playing games and writing a Goodreads review, and it was the Goodreads review that really did me in. The game was hard to maneuver too, but while trying to use Swype to write the review, I repeatedly lost contact with the Kindle screen and ended up with a bunch of gibberish. After having the device in the case for only a matter of hours, I'm ready to pry it apart and put my Kindle back in the origami case.If you're looking for a case to safeguard your Kindle while you read in the tub or for use at the beach, I think this one would probably do the job. You don't need a lot of sensitivity to flip pages, and a case like this offers far more protection from water and sand than does a standard case. Because of this, I plan to keep the case as a backup for such situation. However, for everyday use, this case is too cumbersome.