Kindle Fire in the UK
Buying books (from an Amazon.co.uk account), reading them and sync'ing with other Kindle readers, work really well – I do welcome being able to see the covers in colour and see the book titles at the top of each page.
Browsing the web works well for me. Photos likewise – it’s worth making sure they are suitably sized and with the appropriate resolution rather than straight out of a high resolution camera.
I don’t need to use it for email so haven’t bothered to set it up
OK, the Fire is not fully operational in the UK –
Prime does not work outside of the US (as is well known).
Apps - I have not yet found a way to order apps from the Amazon Appstore, though others seem to have done so. I've tried setting up an Amazon.com account and loading it with a gift certificate but it still wants a credit card to enable 1-click (even though I'm only trying for free apps), but even when I add one, the app store knows I’m not in the US - if anyone has found how to do this, I'm sure I wouldn't be the only one grateful to hear how! If you do decide to set up an Amazon.com account and re-register the Fire to that account, you’ll lose all your settings, bookmarks, apps in the process – and any books you’ve downloaded!
For the benefit of anyone else having a Fire in the UK, you may want to note the following:
iPlayer - in order to use BBC iPlayer, turn OFF the Web acceleration - otherwise iPlayer thinks you're in the US and won't show you UK content. (on a Web page, press the menu icon on the bottom and choose settings, go down to Advanced and untick Accelerate page loading. While there, look at the Desktop or mobile view settings - I prefer desktop view - also allows full screen in iPlayer). Turning off the acceleration also lets you see UK focused content - but it's probably slower.
If you're a Dropbox user, you can download and install the Dropbox app from the Dropbox site (google for details) - works well for photos, Office files and PDF’s but you need to open them first while in WiFi range and they then get stored locally.
Home videos need to be in MP4 format and need to be copied to the Pictures folder via the USB link - and then opened with the Gallery photo app (which is fortunately pre-installed). Also works via Dropbox, but quicker via USB. Haven’t tried converting any commercial videos.
Quick Office (pre-installed) allows you to view Office docs, worksheets and Powerpoint files - but not to edit or save them or create new ones. I've tried to upgrade to Pro directly from their website, but currently without success as Kindle is not listed. Might try other Android devices on their list to see if any work.
I briefly owned a Blackberry Playbook, which, superficially, looks very similar and also has some very good features. It’s not restricted by geography like the Fire, but it is restricted by the lack of a Kindle app – and other apps. Although Kindle Cloud Reader does work, I never really got the hang of making sure the books I wanted were available when I wanted them (in or out of WiFi range). The books were more important to me, so the Playbook was replaced with the Fire. Both great devices but neither currently perfect for me.
Hopefully some folk will have found ways to improve the Fire's usability.
