The Amazon Fire 7 (8GB) was easy to use for a wide variety of functions. It was easy to move from screen to screen using finger swipes, and to move app icons among screens. Amazon includes an enhanced user-interface. Home screens have useful custom widgets.
The rear-facing camera was only fair in performance. Photos can be displayed full height without interference from the navigation bar. Turning from portrait to landscape while reading a book worked well. You can sync and transfer files to and from a PC using USB. The memory card was more difficult than most to insert and remove.
The display quality was good overall. Colors were in the ballpark, though not completely accurate. The screen was somewhat dimmer than most tablets and readability in daylight was fair. Viewing angle was quite wide in landscape orientation, making it easy to view photos or video with another person. Viewing angle was quite wide in portrait orientation, making it easy to share the screen with another person.
Touch response was excellent. The capacitive touchscreen responds to a light finger touch, and allows multiple fingers to perform gesture actions. Moving objects and using finger gestures is easy and precise. Icons were easy to move and place precisely.
This tablet has some useful features - see the "About" section for more details. The Amazon app market is not as large as Apple's or Google's, so some popular apps may not be available. There is also access to a large media market through Amazon, for downloading movies, music and books.
There are a variety of sensors to provide positional and environmental info to apps and games. These include, and an accelerometer to give motion feedback to apps.
This tablet is middling in portability among tablets in the 7- to 8-inch category. Its battery life of 8.4 hours is meager for a tablet. It's compact for its screen size, and at 0.69 pounds, it's a very lightweight tablet for its size.
