Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I had this delivered last week to an Amazon Locker so it wouldn't be sitting on my porch and so I could pick it up in the middle of a work day. The Amazon Locker experience was really cool and convenient. First impressions....fast, lightweight, thin, and super sharp picture. How the heck are there so many enhancements stuffed in the Fire HDX without weighing it down or slowing the processor speed? Navigating through the apps is quick and smooth, very responsive to touch. I had multiple apps (10-20) running at once and it didn't affect performance at all. The picture is amazing, the colors are vivid and the contrast and sharpness makes some content almost look 3D. It also handles glare pretty good. Best screen I've seen to date and I have an iPhone w/ retina. The speaker sound is really good, they actually put out some bass. The app selection in the AppStore is plentiful...once you have your top 50 apps you should be set and Amazon has all of the must-have apps (do you really need 500,000 apps?), every app I looked for/needed was found and downloaded quickly and painlessly (love the Yahoo fantasy football, Facebook, Pandora, TuneIn PRO, and Netflix apps). The video camera is crystal clear and the rear camera is a much welcomed addition. Great pics and video! The built in Skype app works very well for free video calls with friends and family. The good thing is, anyone with the Skype app can receive your video call on their device (unlike Facetime where both users must have an Apple device). This allows you to have free video calls with more of your contacts as long as they download Skype from their respective app store. The camera app is surprisingly useful considering it comes built in. It has a ton of photo editing capabilities including filters (way more than instagram), panorama shots, cropping, text, and funny stickers you can paste to pics. You would think this was a paid-for camera app. The email client was very easy to set up, I had my Gmail loaded in less than a minute. The overall build feels sturdy and just pure quality. Again, it is very thin and lightweight but feels like it was put together very well. The battery lasted for 10+ hours while I was hopping around fantasy football, Facebook, and email on Sunday during the games. This is very good for an HD tablet. People must remember a tablet is more like a smartphone and needs to be charged when not using since apps and wifi are constantly running in the background. For being so thin and lightweight the battery is very impressive. The Silk browser is nice, although it defaults with Bing, so I changed it to Google (personal choice). I really like the icon with reading glasses that appears in the top right of the browser that let's you change to reading mode. It converts the web page text into a book-like page, similar to the Kindle e-reader. It really makes reading articles on various websites easy on the eyes. X-ray feature: Watching TV shows and movies is enhanced by x-ray. Just tap on the screen and factoids about the actors in the scene (at that moment) pop up on the side of the screen without interrupting the play. Just tap the screen again and the info disappears. This also works when listening to music from the music tab; the lyrics of the song appear while the song is playing. I've always had to interrupt myself and check my phone for movie info or song lyrics when I watched or listened on other devices, now it's all in one place and available with a tap of the finger. No more asking "what's that actor's name", "what other movie was she in", or "how does that song go"! The keyboard is really accurate, no typos yet. I noticed there is an external keyboard by AmazonBasics, but I'm okay with the on-screen keyboard for now. The price was reasonable for what I got. It's good to know they're not making a profit on me before I even opened the box! Overall, I am very pleased with the appearance and performance after using it for 7 days. I was really looking forward to this purchase and I must admit that I am more than satisfied. Amazon over-delivered on this. Well done Amazon. If you don't care about "labels", then this is the best tablet you can buy right now. And if you ask me, Amazon is the best "label" when it comes to taking care of their customers. You won't be sorry. Enjoy! P.S. - You really should be an Amazon Prime member to get the most out of this tablet. The free Amazon Instant Videos for Prime Members are awesome! I also opted for the Special Offers, which knocked $15 off the price of the tablet and does not bother me at all. In fact, I am glad I got the special offers version! Since I've owned the tablet I have received offers that only Kindle Fire owners have access to. I got a new Kindle Paperwhite for $20 ($100 off) and a Cuisinart Juicer for $20 ($100 off) - these 2 deals alone practically paid for my tablet purchase! There was a deal for Madden 25 for $5 but I missed that one. They are really awesome deals to take advantage of or you can just ignore them since the special offers only appear for a split second on your screen as you swipe to unlock the tablet from sleep mode. Definitely recommend the special offers, you can always opt to pay $15 later to have it deactivated but you'll find they are totally worth having.