I was going to write one. But then I read these two and decided I agree 100%.

A human review of the Kindle Fire - by Marco Arment, creator of Instapaper

Kindle Fire: my first impressions and a practical review - by Tim Heuer, a fellow Microsoft employee

Both are highly recommended.

For me, the Fire represents a real reason to interact with Android and learn about it, including how Amazon basically took some off the shelf operating system and completely tailored it. I LOVE Amazon as a customer, and so I have a lot of preference for them. They deliver my groceries every week and most of our personal shopping. I'm confused about how Google must be thinking about this whole thing as it relates to Android.

For $199 what they did is pretty phenomenal as well. I love the size. It feels like an expensive product, more expensive than $199.

But Steve Jobs would think the Fire was a joke. It's not elegant, nor seamless, nor polished. The Apps are worse than iPhone apps on an iPad. Far worse. But the cloud is integrated in a way that no one else has.

I love to see and experience how things evolve. The Kindle has been an awesome ride from v1. And it's still an awesome experience, even if the Fire has a lot of growing to do.