Kindle Fire does not like to be poked

by philg

I’ve been playing around with a Kindle Fire. The touchscreen isn’t like any that I have used recently. It works very well when swiping or stroking sideways, e.g., to turn a page. But poking the screen to launch an app works so poorly and inconsistently that I haven’t yet figured out if one or two clicks is necessary (it takes me about 6 or 8 to get an app launched). Anyone reading this a touchscreen technology expert who can explain why this device is not like any other Android?

Separately, I am very impressed with the standby battery life on the Kindle Fire. I got one in the middle of last month, promptly lost it (one of the joys of moving to a five bedroom house from a two-bedroom apartment is that now I have six of everything and can never find even one), and finally found it a couple of days ago. Unlike any sleeping laptop that I have used, the device still had plenty of charge.

7 thoughts on “Kindle Fire does not like to be poked”

  1. Hmm, sounds very similar to the screen on my Nexus One, which I attributed to 24 months ago, an HTC MBA deciding that a cheap “2.5d” screen would save them $8 per unit and that was worth the lesser quality.

    It’s very, incredibly, annoying. Probably my biggest frustration with the entire phone.

  2. Has your Fire updated itself to the latest os version? 6.2 I believe. Mine got much easier to use after the update.

  3. A swipe doesn’t require precise location of the touch, just knowing that it moved approximately. A poke requires knowing the precise location of a touch to be handled properly. Sounds like you got a defective touch screen.

  4. I’m not a touchscreen expert, but I have a theory…

    How many Android tablets out there that even run Honeycomb? Clearly not many: http://developer.android.com/resources/dashboard/platform-versions.html

    Given that, how many of those are 7 inches?

    The market is littered with tablets that are mainly running an OS (2.3) made for a 3-4 inch screen, and of the tablets that are running an OS made for a large display, the majority are 10 inches.

    Now, Kindle Fire’s OS is a fork of Android 2.3 which predates large displays, but we know that the GUI has been “made” with a 7 inch size in mind, which means the targets are not only smaller, but exceedingly smaller when compared to the other 7 inch tablets you’re likely comparing to.

    So, in the end, I assume the combination of smaller targets, and interface lag (so I’ve read: http://www.marco.org/2011/11/17/kindle-fire-review) contribute to your poor experience comparatively.

Comments are closed.