Overall, I was not overly impressed with this tablet, especially since I am a devoted Bookshare user, and the service did not work very well with the Kindle. I have not tested out this system, but it seems to be a much better layout for people with low vision. It also comes with a $20 Amazon credit to defray the cost of the additional adapter, as Amazon believes it shouldn’t cost extra to have accessible materials, something I really appreciate.
It also includes a special audio adapter so the user can control the system using their voice, something that would have been an amazing feature on this Fire tablet. It comes with a Kindle PaperWhite, which does not display color. If Amazon improves navigation with the screen reader or gives users larger text options, this will change.Īfter doing some research, I discovered that there is a Kindle system specifically configured for users with low vision or blindness. I continue to recommend the Nook GlowLight for books and for using Bookshare, and iPad for textbooks and magazines. I am going to keep using it to see if it improves over time, but for right now my recommendation for eReaders has not changed. It’s not the most accessible tablet for people with low vision or blindness, though. I found the Kindle Fire to be a good tablet with a bit of a learning curve.
OverDrive, a book service my library subscribes to, worked very well on the Kindle though ( more about that here). I did not see any accessible reading apps from Bookshare available on the Amazon app store either. I consider myself extremely tech savvy, so this was a strange experience. I had problems trying to load these books onto the tablet, even though they were in the universally accessible EPUB format. I use Bookshare, a special service for people who are blind or have low vision to receive accessible books. Here are my typical preferences for print materials. I’m sure there’s some trick to page turning that I don’t understand yet, but the large print was generously sized enough for me. I ended up turning it off and using the Audible narration built in. I kept the screen reader turned on when reading, but found it extremely difficult to turn pages. However, a majority of the titles can also be found on Prime Reading, so it doesn’t make much sense for me to have it, especially since I don’t use the Audible feature a lot. This is especially helpful for users that are blind that prefer natural speaking voices, as opposed to the screen reader. A lot more of these titles have Audible narration available, which is fantastic for users who prefer audiobooks. There’s another feature available called Kindle Unlimited, which gives users unlimited access to about a third of the catalog for $10 a month. There’s also magazines available, but I prefer to read those using the Zinio app (more on that here). A handful of books are synced with Audible narration, so I can alternate between reading and listening- not many are, though. I can also check out one book a month with the Kindle lending library. As a Prime member, I have access to several titles for free, a lot of which I recognized from popular series, and can check out an unlimited amount of books with this service.
I normally do not use screen readers, and prefer large print or magnifier tools when possible.īecause of the small screen, I decided to view what was available for the Kindle on my computer. I have to triple click to get to anything, so I decided to disable the magnifier. It is enabled by touch, instead of needlessly reading through settings. I was surprised how much I liked the screen reader built into the system. So this tablet was definitely going to be for reading only, not using any other applications.
ZINIO READER FOR KINDLE FIRE ANDROID
I went to use my tricks to make Android accessible…and found a lot of them didn’t work on the tablet, because of Amazon’s custom operating system, and I couldn’t use any Android third party applications, which I rely on a lot. Having been an Android user since Eclair (2010), I naturally thought that the interface would be very familiar to me, especially since Android has been accessible to low vision in the past. I was not compensated in any way for this review. So I decided to try out the tablet, and here’s what I discovered. Now, I’m a huge fan of the Nook e-reader, and have been since it first came out, but I had been curious about Prime Reading and Kindle Unlimited, especially with the audio features. A few months ago, Amazon did a special where you could purchase a refurbished Kindle Fire 7″ tablet for about $30.
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