I have been an Amazon customer for years having owned the first gen Kindle and currently the 6" Kindle. I have purchased the 1st gen Fires for my children for Christmas last year and I have purchased both the touch and 1st Fire for my father.
I already own an Ipad and did not feel the need to own a Fire, since I believe they duplicated the same purpose. I did however place an order for the Paperwhite, but after thinking about it, why not own a full functional device that is more than just an ereader.
I love the eInk displays and how light the regular Kindles are. One of my main gripes about tables are that they are heavier and you cant read the screen in bright daylight. I'm not really sure why the daylight is such a big deal for me, since I probably only read outside when I'm on vacation (2x a year).
Anyway, I cancelled the Paperwhite and ordered the Fire HD. I love it. It is portable, I never take my Ipad anywhere, just too big. I uploaded my entire music library from Itunes to Amazon Cloud, (so much for being locked down Apple!) and of course all of my books are on it. I regularly borrow books from my local library and was often frustrated that when I was away from home I could not search for books on my regular Kindle, becuase the experimental browser was just not functional enough.
Following are some other pons and cons to give you comprehensive view:
PROS:
1. Vibrant Screen
2. Much more responsive to the Touch than the original Kindle ever was.
3. Games that stuttered on the Original, play flawlessly on the HD.
4. The speakers are awesome, Loud, clear and crisp. No need for the Volume + app like on the original fire.
5. The device is slim, sleek and sexy. Really like the curves on the back and the styling.
6. Front facing camera works great for SKYPE. Quality was better than that on my SIII phone.
7. Wifi seems a bit faster, but not by much. Silk still isnt an optimal browser though. I have 65Mbps Download and 15Mbps Upload subscribed service.
8. Cloud sync worked like a charm, almost everything from my old fire is now on my new Fire HD.
9. The device feels sturdy and well built.
CONS:
1. The "Customers Also Bought" on the bottom of the home screen is terrible. I can care less about what others bought. The advertisements on the Lock Screen are fine and understandable, they really dont bother me at all or with the function of the device. The CAB on the home screen take away from having your favorites immediately accessible and are extremely intrusive with no option to remove it. I would gladly keep the ads on the lockscreen and pay 15 bucks to get rid of the CAB on the homescreen. Enough on that.
2. I work in a hospital and I know 11 people including my wife who now is a proud owner of a Fire HD. One thing we have all noticed is that sometimes when you unlock your device, the speakers will make a popping sound, sort of like a static or feedback. Hopefully this gets fixed.