I have a Kindle Fire HDX 8.9 that's now 2 years old. I absolutely love it.

I replaced my Kindle a few years back with an IPad Mini. Like raven states, it can do everything as well as loading all Kindle books and other books. You just use the Kindle app. I regularly load free books from my local library--far more than I purchase books for Kindle. I'd recommend looking wider than just Kindle for something that can do everything Kindle does but is far more multipurpose.

Also use the Kindle app on my ipad

It really depends on what you want to do with it. I love my plain ole Kindle just to read with. I bought a Kindle Fire and gave it to my son, I only wanted a reader. I have an iPad also and seldom use it. Think about what you want it to do and that should make up your mind as to what you purchase.

I like my old Paperwhite for reading the newspaper, even though it does color pictures on the iPad. We got a relative the large Fire HDX as a replacement for his old DX. He's liked using it a lot, mostly for reading. I haven't confirmed this, but from what I've been told, what the Fire has over other tablets is Whispersync. There's still some ability, on a wi-fi only model, to get books away from a hot spot. Do check that out to be sure.

I have several Kindles, including the Kindle Fire HDX 8.9. I also have an iPad Air. My Kindle Fire HDX 8.9 can do everything an iPad or iPad mini can do. And, as shown in several commercials, the Kindle Fire is sturdier than an iPad.

The Kindle Fire has a fully functional web browser, a camera, can store and play music, can take videos, etc. You can add apps to it, too. If you're an Amazon Prime member you can watch hundreds of tv shows and movies for free on the Fire. If you're not a Prime member, you pay to watch movies/tv, but you still have the ability to watch. I send e-mail from the Fire and receive e-mail on it.

You can add a micro sd card to the Fire to expand the memory by as much as 128 GB. (You cannot add a card to an iPad.)

The "Family Library" on the Fire allows you to share your account and content with other family members,

The Kindle Fire with special offers is on sale now for $59 - I can search the web, read books, play games on mine. The special offers are simply a changing ad when you open the device, nothing more and you never see it when using the machine. I have a Fire, a Paperwhite (which is great for travel because it has a superlong battery life but is simply a reader) and a tablet. I find I use them all.

I should have mentioned that I also have an iPad Air. It's very similar to my Kindle Fire HDX 8.9 in size and function but there is a huge difference in price.

I never would have paid the $$$ for an iPad Air but I won it in a drawing. As Lindsay has pointed out it is fairly sturdy. I have an Amazon Origami case for mine which is an interesting engineering feat- it's lightweight, thin, and folds into different positions allowing you to stand the Kindle both horizontally and vertically. Since winning the iPad Air I now have an iPhone and it is handy that they synch easily.

Tablets of the Android and Ipad varieties are Swiss Army knives. They do everything. Amazon realized they were missing out on a market opportunity and wrote Kindle apps for different devices so that owners of these could be Kindle content customers too.

Kindles, on the other hand, were designed mainly for one function - reading digital books. For that purpose, they offer vastly superior features like insane battery life and easy readability in direct sunlight. Tablets don't compare. Broader capabilities - browsers, etc - have been added to Kindles to make them a bit more competitive with tablets. But fundamentally, they're designed to be superior to tablets for reading and I think they are.

Ditto what rhizo said.

I don't see a comment from rhizo.

Ditto Snidely.

Hi Rob ... apart from claiming that you've been misquoted ... don't tell me that you're guilty of misquoting!?

Or ... is that "mis-attributing"? (the word censor doesn't like *that* one!)

o j

I'm sure I have been misquoted and misquoted myself. Sorry raven! Those Rs (me too!).