I have a Kindle Fire 7” that I use just for reading books with , and it is very lightweight and easy to hold. Then, a few weeks ago, Amazon had the Paperwhite on sale for about half price for people who have Kindle Unlimited (I do); so I got one. It is even much lighter than my Kindle Fire; but a little different and I am still getting used to it. If you had an older Kindle Fire, you might want to try a new one, they are a lot more advanced that the earlier one that I had before I got this one that I have now. I use my iPad for everything , so the Kindle is just used for reading.
What I didn't like is the fact that there's not enough storage and they kept downloading things onto it without permission. Every time I turned it on I had something new there and it was ticking me off. I haven't used it ever since I got my laptop.
If you just want to use it for reading, then you might like the Paperwhite. It is only shades of black/white, so nothing is in color; but for just reading a novel, it works fine. The only thing on it is the books that you download. As far as I know, Amazon didn’t download anything onto my Kindle Fire except my books, either. So that is curious that it happened with yours. One nice thing about the Kindle fire is that they can have one of those little memory chips installed, so you can really bump up your storage area if you need that. I pretty much keep everything online, so it is not an issue for me.
There is a slot for a micro-SD card, which I have used in all of mine. The only problem with the SD cards is not a large one, and that is that it takes a moment after the Kindle boots up before you can access it. So if I have a book on the SD card and I click into it as soon as the Kindle has booted, it won't open it right away. I haven't noticed that Amazon has placed anything on any of my Kindles beyond what was there when I bought it, or which I didn't download.
I'm not sure when this "update" happened, but recently my Fire 8 got a new screen that is for "managing my devices"; I think it's called the Device Dashboard. It comes up when I touch the little picture of a house at the bottom of the screen. Silly me, I thought was was the "home button" but noooooo. Also, the Amazon home screen is more annoying to personalize with a lot of preloaded crap that it won't let me delete, so I dumped them all into a new folder.
I've had several Fire tablets over the years and I like them OK. I prefer an iPad but the Fire does everything I need for a lot less $$$.
The Fire 10 is a nice tablet; it's really noticeably faster than my previous Fires. I'm not sure about the keyboard case thing. It's a nice little keyboard but it only opens to 90 degrees, and for a small display I'd like more of an angle--it's too "upright." It will probably go back.
Mine ended up with a bunch of new things on the page with all the programs on it. Stuff I never planned on using and never requested. It just got loaded in.
This week I bought the new release of the Fire 7 (smallest) tablet. I was shopping for a new Kindle reader but the basic Kindle is $89 and the new Fire is on sale for $44... so that decision was easy. The Fire is about the same size as my old Kindle, though slightly heavier. It has a lot of new features and I'm enjoying playing with it; I really like the convenient small size. It will fit easily into my smallest handbag. Plus it comes in pink!! It still comes with a bunch of pre-loaded junk that can't be deleted, so I made a "Misc" folder and dumped all those icons into there. I hate pointless "apps" cluttering up the screen. I also turned off "Alexa" because I'm tired of all my electronics listening in on my daily life. The camera is cheesy (same as older Fires) and makes horrible pictures compared to an Apple device, but I didn't buy it for the camera so no biggie. I bought the version with ads for the cheaper price, but now I'm considering paying the additional $15 to get rid of them. They don't bother me on the lock screen of my Kindle, but for some reason I find them aggravating on the bright color screen of the tablet. Anyway, if you have any use for a small, really portable tablet, this is a good time to grab a Kindle Fire 7.
Today I re-homed my Kindle Fire, and I am happy inside (my heart) about that ! My daughter, Robin, gave me a new iPad Mini, and I have been using that for reading the Kindle books instead of the actual Kindle Fire, and so I wanted to find a good home for the Kindle. It is a 2020 model, 7” size, so fairly new, and has a nice case with flowers. Everyone in my family uses iPads, and I didn’t know anyone here that would like one. There is a nice lady that walks down our street with her little granddaughter many days, on her way to the little corner store. She always says hello when she sees us and is a friendly person. I do not know if she does not have a car, or if she just likes to walk, but we always see her walking. Anyway , I thought the Kindle might be good for her and the granddaughter; so today I asked her if she had internet at home and if she would like a Kindle Fire. She asked me “how much ?”, and I said it was free, and I wanted to give it to her if she would like it. Oh, my goodness …….her eyes lit up and she was just sparkling; so I erased it and gave it to her. I still had the little box from Amazon with the charging cable and instructions; so she is all ready to take it home and set it up.
I actually wanted a new laptop, but the ones I wanted didn't ship to Alaska, so I bought a Kindle Fire 10 with a keyboard to take on our travels as a "kinda" substitute. Wife is happy with it and it allows her to do Facebook and stuff on a screen larger than her phone. My little Kindles I use mostly as readers, so this is a change.
I pretty much use my 10 as a tablet computer. It's too large to comfortably use as a book unless I have a table to set it on, keeping in mind that most of my reading is done in bed, but I do use it as a second screen while researching something for work. That may be something in a Kindle book or a website.
I agree that the Kindle Fire 10 is very heavy, and too large to use comfortably as a book. I had one for a while and gave it to my son for their grandchildren to use because I ended up not really using it for much, and my iPad is lighter and so much easier to use. For the price range, I think that you cannot go wrong with a Kindle for all around usefulness and durability.