The Globe and Mail

CNET’s Donald Bell – “In the world of tablets, there are great products and there are cheap products, but very few great, cheap products. Fortunately, for those of you unwilling to shell out $500 for an Apple iPad 2, and wary of buying a piece of junk, Amazon's $199 Kindle Fire tablet should be at the top of your wish list.” (Full Review here: http://cnet.co/t4yqvV)

Wired’s Jon Phillips – “Is it tablet that people will grab again and again for web browsing, book and magazine reading, casual gaming, and more? No. It’s not that kind of tablet ... iPad killer? No, the Kindle Fire is not. And it doesn’t even match the iPad in web browsing, the one area in which its hardware should have sufficient performance to compete. But the press has definitely supercharged Amazon’s product launch with a level of hype and enthusiasm that would make Apple proud.” (Full review here: http://bit.ly/sp8NXo)

The Verge’s Joshua Topolsky – “Unlike the PlayBook, iPad, or pretty much any other tablet on the market, the Fire has no hardware volume controls, meaning that you have to go through a series of taps (especially if the device is sleeping) to just change the volume. The Fire also has no “home” button — simply a small, hard-to-find nub along the bottom used for sleeping and waking the device, and powering up and down. That means that Amazon had to create software navigation for getting around the tablet, which would be fine... if the home button wasn't always disappearing into a hidden menu. Also, I found myself accidentally pressing the power button when I was typing or holding the tablet in certain positions, causing the Fire to think I wanted to shut it down.” (Read the full review: http://bit.ly/u7kT4s)

New York Times’ David Pogue – “The Fire does not have anything like the polish or speed of an iPad. You feel that $200 price tag with every swipe of your finger. Animations are sluggish and jerky — even the page turns that you’d think would be the pride of the Kindle team. Taps sometimes don’t register. There are no progress or “wait” indicators, so you frequently don’t know if the machine has even registered your touch commands. The momentum of the animations hasn’t been calculated right, so the whole thing feels ornery.” (Full review: http://nyti.ms/sHT51R)

Engadget’s Tim Stevens – “Battery life: This is one area where the Fire can't hope to compete against its Kindle predecessors that got the market suitably warmed up. Those readers, with their power-sipping processors and incredibly efficient E Ink screens, have longevity measured in months. We sadly have to resort to measuring in hours and minutes here, but we still have reasonably good news to report. In our standard video rundown test the Fire managed seven hours and 42 minutes. That's 12 minutes more than the seven and a half hours Amazon promises it can deliver when playing video, reaffirming our belief that there is truth in advertising. Sometimes.” (Read the full review here: http://engt.co/tKxZi3)

More major differences between Amazon.com Inc.’s tablet computer, the Kindle Fire, and Apple Inc.’s popular iPad:
Screen size: The Kindle Fire's display measures 7 inches diagonally, while the iPad has a 9.7-inch display. That makes the Fire's screen a bit less than half the size of the iPad's.
Storage: The Kindle Fire includes 8 gigabytes of internal storage and free Web-based storage for any digital content you get from Amazon, such as Kindle e-books, movies or music. The iPad includes 16 GB to 64 GB of storage space, depending on price.
Camera: While the iPad has front and rear cameras for taking photos and video chatting, the Kindle Fire does not include a camera.