The last couple of months have seen sales of the Kindle Fire and the Kindle Fire HD sky rocket and I just had to jump on the band wagon (as an early Christmas present to myself) back in December and get a Kindle Fire. As with most gadgets we like to buy accessories to mainly protect but also to personalise and add a bit of style. When asked what I would like to review I couldn’t decide at first and due to the average price of a Kindle Fire case thought I would go for the Gift Pack kindly provided from Mobile Fun.

Overview

The Kindle Fire Gift Pack comes with all the essential accessories for protecting the device and making it more practical to use in certain situations such as a desk stand. The pack only costs £24.95 which I personally think is a very good price when the cheapest you can roughly get a case on it’s own for (from amazon and other similar sites) is around about £15-£20. Not bad even if you don’t like every thing in the set.

In the Box

• 1 x Kindle Fire Leather Style Stand and Type Case
• 1 x Kindle Fire FlexiShield Case
• 1 x Kindle Fire Tablet Stand
• 1 x Micro USB Charging Cable
• 1 x Capacitive Stylus Pen
• 3 x MFX Screen Protectors

Analysis

• FlexiShield Case

I personally quite like the FlexiShield Case provided. It comes in a basic but stylish black, and is quite a tight fit to the device. Saying this, it is still very easy to get the device in and out of the case and I would rather have a secure fit over a loose one. What I also like about this case is it is quite slim-line so unlike some cases which I find can make phones,tablets etc. feel a lot bulkier and bigger than they actually are, this one being a perfect fit as well doesn’t feel like there is any dimensional difference to the device.

• Tablet Stand

The tablet stand provided is a very crude looking collapsable stand made of black plastic. I really didn’t expect much from this part of the kit as the plastic didn’t fell particularly strong but I was very wrong. The notches in the back of the stand are just the right spacings to get pretty much the perfect height no matter what desk/table the device is being placed on. I found this very handy whilst using my tablet backstage during my drama groups recent show so I didn’t have to keep picking it up every time I needed to adjust something. The stand was also a fair bit stronger than I previously thought and supported the weight of the device perfectly wether landscape or portrait.

• Capacitive Stylus Pen

The stylus also doubles as a very nice black ballpoint pen! Nice pens always make me happy… Plus if I read the website properly I would have noticed this, oops! The stylus works very well with the Kindle Fire even with a screen protector on. The capacitive touch tip to the stylus was a little bit disappointing as it was made from some sort of rubbery material that is hollow. This isn’t too much of a problem apart from the fact I found it took a while to work out the correct pressure to use - especially for swiping - and if you push down to hard the actually end of the pen/stylus makes contact with the screen. Obviously very easy to work out but still not great.

• MFX Screen Protectors

The screen protectors provided are of  very good quality and I have yet two weeks on managed to scratch the current one that is on my Kindle. The obvious problem with this is that putting screen protectors on is generally a pain in the backside and I find it no easier on larger devices. The kit disappointingly doesn’t come with a cleaning cloth or anything to push the air bubbles out, but you can obviously use a normal cleaning cloth for glasses and a credit card to remedy this - only disappointing as most do come with this now.

• Leather Style Stand and Type Case

The Leather case in this kit is very nice, but I’m not impressed. The case itself comes in a very nice leather effect black with a soft felty interior to protect the screen. The bit that holds the kindle in is another rectangle of leather - there is a right and a wrong way as the gaps in the leather at the top and bottom of the case are in different places so watch out for this as you can’t reach the power button if it’s wrong - yes, I got caught by this :P. The device gets secured by a bit of leather that tucks in behind the device and fastens on to a bit of velcro which I didn’t find terribly convenient to use. The case has folds in which tuck into a small rectangle which flaps out.  I didn’t find this to be a great fit and unless I’m missing something only worked on one height. This height I considered to be too low if watching led out on the sofa or in bed for example. I may be wrong on this but it wasn’t clear how else to get it too work with no instructions provided.

I am not going to write anything on the Micro USB charging cable - it is a normal Micro USB lead that does everything it is supposed to - nothing above or beyond.

Conclusion

So we have good points and a few bad to this pack. The stylus is pretty much just a ballpoint pen - a very nice one - but it says something when I like an accessory for the wrong reason! My winners from this kit are definitely the FlexiShield Case, Screen protector and Tablet Stand which at the price of £24.95 even if you only like part of the gift pack that’s still cheaper/not far off what you would pay for the three parts I did like separately.

My final rating for this kit is as below.

[rating rating=”3.5″]

If anyone would like more details on the gift pack or even to purchase it please check out Mobile Fun!