I JUST TRIED Amazon's Kindle Fire!

I was supposed to buy 2 Apple iPod Touch, 1 for me and 1 for my wife (something to be left in the house for my kids as well while I'm at work). During my stay in the US, I never told her that I already bought an iPod because I wanted to surprise them that I got new gadgets. But everytime we chat, she would always mention how much a tablet cost in US? I would always tell her that it was very expensive and I can't afford it. So I already know what she really want, I just don't want to tell her that I could buy her a tablet because I still wanted to surprise her.

So, I get back to Amazon.com and look around and yeah, they have their own tablet, Kindle Fire, worth $199, pretty much close to the iPod Touch that I bought a week before I decided to check on this item. I was first hesitant to buy this item, I am not sure what this item is capable of and I even compared it with iPod Touch that I bought thinking that iPod have more features than Kindle Fire. It would be good to have 2 iPod and we can do some Face Time with, but thinking that we don't have WiFi at home so that won't work. But she insisted on having a tablet, so I'd gave her a tablet.

So what's good with Kindle Fire? It's basically an e-reader and added up some apps features in it to make it look cooler than the previous versions of Kindle. You can buy/download stuffs from Amazon.com to read ebooks, watch videos/movies, listen to music and get some free apps. So thinking that I can still have some free stuffs in it, I go ahead and bought one. It was delivered to me in the hotel after a week.
At first I was so excited for this item, I immediately opened it and get to see all of its features, good thing we had WiFi in the hotel so I get check and download some stuffs for it. Though Amazon don't really have much of free stuffs in it but I was able to download couple of free ebooks, magazines, apps and watch some old movies in it. But when I tried putting some movies that I have downloaded, it doesn't reflect in the Videos section, then I just discovered that those files can be seen in the Gallery section. It can only play certain video file type like Mp4.

Though at first I got contented with it, I brought back home and surprised my wife and my kids that I have bought them tablet and they were happy with it at first. Sooner or later, little by little we are seeing some uncool side of this product. This needs to be connected to WiFi to operate some of its stuffs, the free apps I've downloaded before are not working anymore, it always popup message "Internet connection is needed!" then close the apps. I was thinking that those free apps have some expirations or something, so I'm trying to connect my Kindle Fire to WiFi. Recently, I have tried setting up wireless internet sharing through my laptop with Window 7 OS, my iPod can detect it and connect with it while Kindle Fire can't see it. So more problem for me to think of. I've recently read that Kindle Fire can be converted to other android type OS like Google's as it offers lots of apps. I haven't tried it yet but I have been thinking of doing it, I'll post it here some day if I get to be successful in doing it and the steps that I will do to convert it. It has something to do with the Kindle Fire Utility(KFU) as they call it.

Overall, I am very much disappointed in having Kindle Fire and I should have stick to my initial plan of buying 2 iPod Touch. But hopefully I can successfully convert it to other Android OS so I can enjoy something out of it.

I JUST TRIED Apple iPod Touch 8GB!

I had an opportunity to stay in USA for the whole month of June 2012 when the company I am working for sent me and my fellow associate for a training or knowledge transfer of the application we are supporting back here in the Philippines. All expense are paid by the company with allowance worth of $51 per diem, we stayed for 28 days so we have $1428 each. That gave me the opportunity to buy stuffs back there, but we were not been able to go around too much to shop so an alternative is to go shop online and my first choice, Amazon.com.

The first thing that I bought, an Apple iPod Touch! I was thinking of buying Apple iPhone 4S instead but that was way expensive and I need save some dollars as well and by the way most mobile phones offered in Amazon are locked to either AT&T or Verizon, so it would be useless for me to have one when I got back to Manila. So, I need to be contented with iPod Touch and I also compared it against iPhone 4S. I guess iPod Touch has almost all the features of iPhone 4S except for calling and text messaging. I got the item for just $176 and free delivery to our hotel that we stayed in PA, USA. The first time I've checked the item, it cost $185 but after a week it decreased to $176. That's only 7,392 in Philippine peso while checking it now from various gadget store in Parksquare in Makati, this item cost 9,000 pesos or even higher. So I really got a good deal here from Amazon.

Like iPhone 4S, iPod Touch also have Face Time, camera for video recording and taking pictures, you can connect to internet through WiFi and download apps (I have downloaded bunch of them, mostly free apps), it also have messaging capability through WiFi but your recipients should also have WiFi for there iPhone or iPod to receive your message,you can watch movies and of course play bunch of music over and over again.
The first application I downloaded was Temple Run, a game which I got hooked when my officemate lend me her iPhone and let me tried to play that game and the list go on as I keep on downloading new apps especially for my kids, I download toddler games and puzzles which my 2 year old daughter really loves while my 6 year old son loves the games that I've downloaded so far.

What I don't like somehow is that you need iTunes installed to my laptop first to be able to put some mp3s & movies and sync them to my iPod Touch unlike other mp3 players that I've tried that you will just need to copy those files to its miniSD. Also, there are particular movie file type that this item accept like Mp4 and Mov. You can't also expand the storage size because it's limited to 8GB, you just need to buy iPod Touch with higher capacity.

Overall, I am still very much satisfied with this item. I can play some games while I travel going to office and going back home, I live outside the city and I work in the city and I usually on the road for one and half hour or even more. I can also just go to sleep and listen to my music while on the bus.

There are still some more stuffs from this item that I have not explored yet, I am still enjoying what I really love about this item but someday I may use them and see what those features can do for me.