OK. First impression: "Wow, this thing is heavy for its size." The K2 and K3 have spoiled me in terms of device weight. The Fire is much, much heavier, but also feels much more solid. The Marware case is really nice, and the Fire fits into it firmly and snugly.
Turn device on: Screen is BEAUTIFUL! Setup wifi (found home network quickly) and connect by putting in password. A firmware update downloads immediately. I plug it in "just in case." I then notice it says "You might want to plug in your device..." lol
Update download complete, Fire turns off. I press power to turn it back on. Now it's updating much like the older Kindles do. I wait.
It says update complete and it reboots. I slide the slider and it looks like it's about to ask me for credentials when it pops to a new screen and welcomes me! It is already on my account! There is a very short 4 or 5 page tutorial to show you where things are on the screen. I do it and it seems as soon as I started the tutorial is over. Now I'm in the Fire's UI!
I flip through my books and decide which ones to download. I then go to music and download some music from my cloud. I go to test a movie: Super Troopers. It's really sharp and response very quick. Screen is great with amazing viewing angles.
I go into the Apps to download apps I've been getting for the past few weeks in preparation for my Fire. All of them install in the background.
I go to read my first book: it started at the beginning and not where I left off on my K3. I will have to sync the K3 to see if the Fire will pick up its location.
I still need to side-load a bunch of PDF's and other books I've acquired from places like BAEN.
All in all, I'm super-impressed with it. It feels high-quality; a lot better than Pogue gave it credit for.
The size is nice. I have a 10" Android tablet, and I feel the Fire is a much better size for media. I thought that the 10" size would be perfect since the iPad is 9.7", but it turns out the 7" really is better. At least so far.
Anyway, I have a lot more to discover and experience. I'll update more later.
To get Netflix (which I couldn't find in the Amazon App Store by searching) I typed this into the browser and got it installed: market.android.com/details?id=com.netflix.mediaclient