Kindle Fire and Kindle Fire HD now in the UK

The Kindle Fire and Kindle Fire HD are now shipping in the UK.

The new Kindle Fire HD features an amazing HD display with high speed Wi-Fi and stereo sound Dolby audio. The 16GB version is available from £159.

The popular Kindle Fire is also now available in the UK with a 20% faster processor and twice the memory of the original Kindle Fire, for only £129.

Both devides allow instant access to over 22 million movies, TV shows, songs, apps, games, books, and magazines, as well as 1 month free trial of Amazon Prime and a 1-month free trial of LOVEFiLM instant.

Update 19 Nov. 2012:

The Kindle Fire comes with 8 GB internal memory but It does not have any memory card slots or support for USB drives (it's main drawback). However, it comes with free, unlimited Cloud storage.

Read "Three Ways to Expand the Kindle Fire’s Limited Storage Space".

Pebble portable battery pack

It's amazing how our smart phones have become a necessity. Just a couple of years ago I was perfectly happy with a mobile phone but now, not one but 2 smart phones, a Samsung Galaxy II and Nokia Lumia 900, are constantly with me all the time. I actually do not use them much for making calls but rather for reading and replying to emails. I mostly use Skype to keep in touch with my parents in Malaysia and sisters in Australia.

I won't call myself a social media addict but I am on Twitter and Facebook quite often, reading updates, making my own updates and replying to tweets/ comments. Of late, I have started to use Instagram quite a lot and I occasionally listen to music or play games. As ompared to some of my friends, I do not have that many apps downloaded as well. In fact I consider myself quite a moderate user of my mobile phone. Despite this, I find myself having to recharge my phones at least once a day and I really hate it when the battery  runs out when you need it the most and it has happened several times. I guess I am not the only one as my wife who's quite a heavy user of her Samsung Galaxy Note often complains about her phone's battery life as well. 

My sis-in law owns a Pebble battery pack and she was telling us what a life saver it was. My wife did a bit of research and found an amazing deal on Amazon for the Veho VCC-A007-PBP Pebble Portable Battery Pack Charger.





It normally retails for £49.99 but she was able to get it for £20.89 including VAT and free delivery. The Pebble is essentially a portable Polymer Lithium-ion rechargeable battery which can then be used to charge mobile devices. It has a total capacity of 5000mAh Cycle life of over 500 times. The dimensions are just 5.6 cm x 10 cm x 1.3 cm and weights 132g.

Our verdict after using it over 2 weeks: One of our best buys ever. 

Mini remote control helicopter

Check out my latest toy - a mini remote control helicopter. It's called the Gyro Zoomer




Unpacking the Gyro Zoomer.



It was much smaller than I had expected (just 11 cms long) and I did not really have high expectations. Batteries are not provided but I was fortunate that I had extra batteries lying around. The helicopter li-poly batteries had a bit of charge when I first unpacked it but the charge ran out after about 5 minutes. I could charge it directly from the controller but did not want to use up the batteries and instead used the USB cable (supplied) to charge up the helicopter by connecting it to my laptop for about 20 minutes.



We had some friends around as well and we all took turns to fly the helicopter. Normally we would all be sitting around the idiot box watching a game or a movie and it was nice to do something different for a change.

None of us have any experience flying Remote controlled helicopters and as expected had a few crashes. The pack came with spare main blade and back propellers but fortunately the crashes were not serious and we did not have to replace any.

We all ended up having so much fun. This is my first RC helicopter but it is amazingly easy to fly. I initially practised taking off, hovering and landing gently. After a few crashes (did not do any serious damage), I finally got the hang of it and about another 10 minutes later, I had learnt how to manoeuvre it around like a pro. By then the battery had run out and I plugged it back on my laptop.


It's so easy, even my 8 years old daughter could fly it on her first try.


She's getting better.




View from below

The Gyro Zoomer costs only £16.99 at Paramountzone.com with free delivery. They have got a range of other remote controlled helicopters. Check out their site for birthday present ideas and for Christmas as well.