Amazon launched its new generation of Kindles this week. I built up a nice head of new gadget enthusiasm looking at these latest greatest Kindles. They have even higher resolution, more memory options and a faster processor. Then, I turned on my Kindle Fire HD and realized I don’t need a new one. This one is fine. No hiccups. Handles everything I throw at it. For a little tablet, it’s a workhorse that never quits.

There is no question in my mind that the Kindles are the biggest bargain in tablets on the market. Even the most expensive top of the line new versions are remarkably low-priced. I have two Kindles and use both, though I use the Fire most.

The Kindle with the keyboard is still a great book reader with an astoundingly long battery life — weeks of reading on one charge. It doesn’t do everything, but it does what it does perfectly. The Kindle Fire HD is much more versatile. It is a portable entertainment center. It travels everywhere. I use the other one primarily when I just want to read and I don’t know when I’ll be able to charge the battery.

The Amazon Kindle Fire 7″ HD is fun, a complete mini entertainment center in a convenient, purse-sized package. It’s almost too much fun. I intend to read, but end up watching a movie. I get distracted by the plethora of choices.

It’s a fine reader. You may need to adjust the brightness to suit your comfort level, but that’s easily done. Adjusting the size of the text is a mere finger pinch. In bright sunlight, it isn’t as good as my 2nd gen Kindle, but I rarely read outside. I do, however, read in bed and the built in backlighting is very convenient.

The sound is remarkable. It’s hard to believe you can get that much good quality sound from such tiny speakers. The quality of the video is also amazing. I watch movies and TV shows on my  7″ Fire HD — something I was sure I would never do.

As an Amazon Prime member, there are a great many movies and television shows available for free; it will be a long time (if ever) before I need to buy anything. I have a huge library of books for the Kindle and all the books in my Audible account are automatically available on my Kindle too. I’ve gotten great “box sets” of Beethoven, Mozart, Debussy at amazingly reasonable prices. Any music CDs I’ve bought since I got the Kindle appear automatically under the music menu.

The Kindle HD links to the older of my 2 Audible accounts. You cannot link an Audible account that isn’t under the same email address as your Amazon account nor can you link multiple Audible accounts. If you have multiple Audible accounts under one email address and it is the same address you use for your Amazon account, you can consolidate libraries into a single account. If — as I did — you have more than one Audible account under separate email addresses, you can only link one. I gave up and closed my second account. If you are having problems with your Audible library, you will need to call Audible. They have excellent, friendly tech support and are a pleasure to work with.

The Kindle is great for listening to audiobooks, in my opinion better than an MP3 player because I hate earphones. The audio quality is good and the sound is plenty loud enough. The Kindle is small and light and fits easily in my purse. The HD is heavier than my older Kindle reader, but it’s still a very acceptable size and weight. You can use it with earphones if you need to. It sounds great. Really, I’m not kidding.

The available memory is only 16GB, plenty unless you want to download movies. Streaming uses no memory, so no problem. Regular “print” books are small; you can carry a whole library with you (I do). Music and audiobooks take up a lot more memory, but you can stream music. You can’t stream audiobooks yet, but maybe eventually. They’re working on it. There is no way to expand the memory. The Kindle has no slot for an SD chip nor port for a flash drive. Why not? If they would add one, I’d probably trade up! But, at the price — which has now dropped to a new low — it’s hard to complain. So I won’t.

Still, it wouldn’t have been that difficult to include slots for one or both. Just saying. Buying a 32 GB version doubles the amount of resident memory, but there’s still no option to expand beyond whatever is your preset limit.

You can work around the limits, but you need to accept the limits of the device or you will become very frustrated. It is what it is. It’s a lot. It’s just not everything.

Audiobooks can be large. You can keep a few on the Kindle, but probably not all 57 hours of  “Lord of the Rings.” Listen to a book, delete it then download the next. Unlike when you download from Audible to your computer, you cannot download a multi part book in sections. It’s the whole book or nothing. A book that is in your Audible library in multiple parts will download in a single section to the Kindle. If the book you want to load is LOTR or Winds of War, make sure you have enough room. I have not successfully downloaded anything that long. Actually, I haven’t even tried. It would be silly. Those books I listen to on one of my three other computers. I can live with that.

You can store everything you aren’t actively listening to, watching, or reading on Amazon’s cloud servers. Thus when you delete a book you never lose it, something that’s true of the entire Kindle line (not just the HD). You just move it off the device.

You can retrieve it when you like. All is well if you have WiFi. It’s an issue if you lack a WiFi connection. Serious road warriors should probably spend the money and get a Kindle with 3G that automatically switch when you don’t have WiFi. That’s pretty much covers the world, with the exception of Jackman, Maine, where neither WiFi NOR 3G are available. I suppose there are other dead zones but I don’t know of any.

You can do most things you would want to do on any tablet on the Kindle. You won’t be editing pictures or writing your novel, but I don’t think you’d be doing that on any tablet. Or at least, I wouldn’t. For those things, I want a lot more RAM, a real hard drive, the right application and most important, a full-sized keyboard.

The manual — such as it is — is useless. Amazon has good customer service, real people who know the device and will stay on the phone with you until your battery runs out … but who wants to have to call customer service to figure out how to delete a book or movie? Or for that matter, turn the unit on? It’s simple, but even if you actually find the manual (I had to call customer service for that, too), you won’t find a listing for “delete,” “remove”, “turn on,” etc. Amazon, hire a technical writer. We work cheap. Give a job to someone who needs one!

I bought the $199 version (much less now!) with advertising. I’m don’t find it intrusive. You can get rid of adverts for $15 if they annoy you, but they show up only as offers on the splash screen before you actually turn it on, which is why I find all the comments about how annoying it is puzzling. Have the people who are complaining seen how it’s done or are they assuming the ads show up on your reading screen? Once the unit is on, the ads are gone; you can only access them via the Offers menu. They aren’t in your books, movies, music, games, email or anything else. Just the splash screen you see before you turn it on.

Thumbs up for overall quality, sound, video, and speed. It’s a good-looking compact device. Accessories are affordable. Definitely get the Quick Charger ($9.99); you will be very glad you did. I also bought some inexpensive styli and use them occasionally. They’ve turned out to be useful for my iPhone. The touch screen is sometimes too sensitive. Usually it’s easier to use your fingers than a stylus, but the stylus does come in handy. A cheap stylus will work just as well as an expensive one. I have both and I can’t see any difference between them.

Fingerprints are not a problem. I buy lens wipes at the drug store. They clean the Kindle, my camera lens, my computer and my eyeglasses. Don’t bother with a protective screen; it’s a waste of money.

Get a cover. It provides protection and keeps dust and dirt out. Most of them let you prop your Kindle like an easel to watch a movie or listen hands free. Many covers also turn the Kindle on and off when you open or close it. Since the on/off button is a bit hard to find by feel, a case that turns the unit on and off is a plus.

The Kindle Fire HD does a lot more stuff than you expect and does it well. I’ve had it for more than 15 months. I’m still a very happy camper.  I’ve discovered I can listen to music while reading or playing Scrabble. I can listen to an audiobook while checking email or doing something else online. I’m finally starting to coördinate audiobooks and Kindle books, so I can listen and read the same book. Kind of cool. As the narrator reads, the books come alive and the text highlights with the narration. Neat.

The Kindle wakes up instantly. Zero boot time.

It’s the best deal in town — even less expensive now that the next generation has been released. I will probably get a new one eventually but not soon. I have yet to experience a single problem with either of my Kindles. They both work as well today as the day I got them. That’s saying a lot. I only wish everything in my world of widgets and gadgets worked this well.

Related articles

• New Kindle Fire HD $139.00 (forthemommas.com)
• New Kindle Fires get faster, add personal support (cnn.com)
• Kindle Fire on sale for $129 today (reviews.cnet.com)
• On The Cheap: Kindle Fire HD Now Best Deal In Tablet Town (techcitement.com)
• Amazon updates its Kindle Fire HD (techeron.wordpress.com)
• Amazon reduces Kindle Fire HD price in India (androidos.in)
• Amazon, Barnes & Noble go tit for tat in tablet wars (reviews.cnet.com)
• Next-Gen Amazon Kindle Fire HD Leaked Photos Hit The Internet (ubergizmo.com)

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