????The Kindle Fire isn't a revolutionary device, but it is Amazon's most important product ever.
????The culmination of 17 years of work, the Kindle Fire is the missing piece of the company's vast corporate puzzle, bringing into harmony nearly every discordant service the company has built since CEO Jeff Bezos first set up shop in his garage in 1994. The Fire reads e-books, shops online, downloads movies and music. It surfs the Web with a cloud-based web browser. And, true to its maker's sharp-nosed retail roots, it undercuts its biggest competitor, the Apple (AAPL) iPad, by at least $300.
????The big question is, is it any good?
????The Fire's case resembles the BlackBerry (RIM) PlayBook tablet, only more refined. It's less wide, has fewer buttons and a thinner bezel. That isn't a coincidence: they're made by the same company. Amazon's (AMZN) Fire won't turn as many heads as the iPad 2, but you won't be ashamed to bandy it about either. The Fire is like a tuxedo, finely tailored even if it doesn't announce itself as something flamboyant.
????Like Kindles past, the Fire is roughly the size of a thin, medium-sized paperback. Lighter than Barnes & Noble's (BN) Nook Color, it's easy to hold the Fire for long periods of time without getting tired. A scratch-resistant 7-inch color display takes up the front, while the back is covered in a soft-touch paint that feels almost like rubber. Up top, two small speakers produce solid volume for watching movies (at close range).
????Inside, a dual-core 1GHz processor and 512 MB of RAM keep performance snappy. The Fire also comes with 8 GB of built-in storage for books, movies, documents and apps. The company says you'll get 8 hours of battery life in between charges with WiFi off and 7.5 hours of battery life of straight movie-viewing, which sounds about right. With WiFi on, expect to plug the Fire in more frequently: in my experience, a mix of daily activities like web browsing, movie watching and reading meant recharging every 6.5 hours. That's acceptable, but not exceptional when compared to the iPad 2's 10 hours with WiFi on or the Nook Tablet's touted 11.5 hours with WiFi off.