[7" Kindle Fire HD General] Ravynmagi:
I just made the switch from the Nexus 7 to a Kindle Fire HD. I'm not totally sure it's the best decision, but so far I don't feel bad for making the switch.

I love the Nexus 7, it's speedy, feels great in my hand, and I just love having a stock Android tablet with Jelly Bean. But I'm disappointed with the hardware quality, after several RMAs I still have loose glass on the left side, washed out colors, the speaker is almost unusable in some situations, and the wifi isn't that good. ASUS says they had to rush to redesign this for Google and I feel like it shows. I'm pretty disappointed because I so wanted to love the tablet and there are not any other good true Android tablets in this price range (Galaxy Tab 2 7.0 is not an option because of it's 1024x600 resolution).

Google was kind enough to give me a refund. And I really appreciate that, because I bought the Nexus 7 two months ago. So I picked up a Kindle Fire HD today.

The main reason why I decided to give the Kindle Fire HD a chance is because I'm an Amazon Prime subscriber, I have bought quite a few ebooks from them, I use their Instant Video service, and I do a lot of other shopping with them. So I figure even if I don't really love it as a tablet, at least it'll hopefully be a nice device from finding new content on Amazon.

My first impressions of the Kindle Fire HD after a few hours of use...

The build quality just feels excellent. The glass is where it should be and isn't moving and that's always a good start. The back side feels slightly more premium. It's wider than my Nexus 7 so not as comfortable to hold like a giant cell phone like I do with the Nexus 7, but it has a wider bezel so easier to hold on one edge. Nexus 7 does win in comfort to hold though because of it's lighter weight as well. But the Fire HD is comfortable enough as well, so no complaints.

My next concern area was the display quality. The colors on the Fire HD are warmer and look much better. The screen also seems to be brighter, so that should help outdoors.

Wifi was not really a concern on my Nexus 7, but my signal strength was a bit weak when I was in the back yard, the wifi connection would drop to 2 bars and 13Mbps strength. The Fire HD remains at excellent strength 4 bars and 130Mbps. I love the dual band and MIMO on this.

Speakers are a vast improvement too. They are louder and clearer on the Fire HD. With my Nexus 7 when I watched YouTube podcasts I'd have to wear headphones because it was difficult to hear dialog clearly sometimes, but everything comes out loud and clear on the Fire HD. Heck I have to turn the volume down a bit even.

I miss having a real home screen, being able able to arrange icons and customize the look. But Kindle OS doesn't seem too bad. And since I'm an Amazon Prime customer, I do like the suggestions they present me with. The OS is where the Nexus 7 shines very brightly and the Fire HD doesn't as I expected. But the OS performance on the Fire HD actually seems pretty good so far.

I had no trouble side loading my favorite Android apps and YouTube. I'm not rooting and loading Google Play at this time. Just in case I decide to return it, I want to be able to return it to stock easily. YouTube runs fine and all my side loaded apps seem to be working. So it seems everything I'd been using my Nexus 7 for I should be able to do on the Fire HD.

In summary I'm happy with the Kindle Fire HD so far. The only nagging concern is should I stick with this 7.0 model or wait for the 8.9 inch model. I like the smaller size, but am missing out on higher DPI and a faster processor, it's pretty tempting.