Is it worth waiting for a Kindle Fire?

[Corriewatcher]

My mum has very kindly offered to buy me a kindle for my birthday and wants to know which one to get. I was going to suggest a Kindle Touch after reading lots about it on MN and elsewhere, but I've seen that the Kindle Fire is out at the end of October which looks like a combination of Kindle and Ipad. I don't have an ipad and thought the Fire could be great for taking on holiday (where we normally have wifi access) for internet access and well as for my holiday reading.

But is the Kindle Fire any good? Does anyone have any experience of it? Ta in advance.

A friend of mine has one, she's American and bought it in the States. She loves hers but says an iPad is better.

My big concern about them is reading in sunlight, which she said she'd never tried, we took the Kindle and iPad on holiday this year, I read my Kindle outside all day, DH couldn't read a thing on his iPad and kept stealing my Kindle every time I went in the pool. The whole thing about a Kindle is that it's convenient to take on holiday.

Saying that I am thinking of buying the DCs Kindle Fires for Christmas, cheaper than an iPad, they can play their silly games, download music and read books.

Blimey - thanks for the quick replies!

Have googled the Nexus 7 but think it is out of my mum's budget. Ultimately, the ability to read books on the go is what I'm after, with the internet access being a nice extra. So it would be important that I can read in sunlight whilst on holiday. Does anyone know if you can do this with the Kindle Fire? If you can't, it's sadly not going to be much good to me.

Kindle fire, like an iPad has a backlit screen so reading in bright sunshine is awkward. A Kindle touch uses eInk instead and is not back lit so you can read in bright light and your eyes don't get dry and you won't get a headache like some people do with a backlit screen.
However you can read an iPad or Kindle fire in the dark which you can't do with a standard Kindle.
HTH

Aliciaflorrick I have the Kindle app on my iPad and there is a slider that changes the backlight of the screen. I can turn the backlight right down and read on the iPad in the sun.

Thanks everyone, great info. Think I will go for the Kindle Touch as I really want to be able to use it around the pool on holiday. Plus I suffer from dry eyes quite a bit so don't want to exacerbate them. Not only that, but can imagine battles with my children wanting to use the apps when I just want to read my book in peace!!

Corriewatcher, I think that is a great argument for the Kindle. DP really can't use his ipad when 3 year old ds2 is about, there are virtues in a device being boring and limited for anything but reading.

Saying that, I am wondering about a Kindle Fire but I will probably have to replace my existing Kindle in addition when it gives up the ghost altogether.