Amazon Kindle Fire HD 8.9" 4G LTE Tablet

Wow, I don't quite know where to start! This is probably the most "mixed" review I'm going to write.First off, I had no preconceptions if I was going to like this or not. This is my first tablet, so I have no pre-conceived notions on that front. In fact, I was quite determined to like the Kindle Fire HD, but after 2 weeks of one problem after another, my resolve is wearing down.Please note that this review will also largely revolve around several Kindle Fire HD specific customer service/tech support experiences. I realize that they are not the actual device, but they have a HUGE influence on your experience with the device when something comes up, so I feel that needs to be taken into account too.So, let's start at the beginning. My kindle arrived, and earlier than expected. It was great out of the box, until I tried to register it and it just wouldn't.It seemed straightforward enough, and I'm reasonably tech-savy, but it wouldn't work. Off to tech support. Longish story short, they couldn't register it either, and an hour and two supervisor tech guys later, they managed to register my kindle to my account. In order to do it, they had to create another kindle listing, but oh well. They got it done - great!Next, once I got into the kindle, now that I could use it, I noticed that it was showing the "offers" even though I had ordered and paid for without offers. Back to CS to have them turn it off. Should have been quick enough, but oh no.Because there were now 2 Kindle Fire HDs showing, there was confusion. Then because for some reason my order status hadn't updated and my Kindle was still showing as not even having shipped, she kept on telling me that this kindle can't be it, because it hadn't shipped. Again, long story short, I eventually convinced her that I did indeed have the Amazon Kindle in my hand and that it was indeed that order - she set it to no offers and we were good.I then spent a fair bit of time moving my files and stuff to the kindle, uploading and downloading from the cloud, inputting passwords, setting up apps, etc.All that went well and I have to say, I'm loving the screen and the sound on this Kindle. The speed is great too and once I figured out some of the inner workings, I got it nicely customized!That evening, in the middle of a movie, the kindle did a spontanous factory reset and erased everything back to square one! I have NO idea why - it just did.So, I put everything back on. I lost a couple of hours, but at least it was at the very beginning of things - nothing I couldn't put right back in. Ok.A couple more minor malfunctions came up in the following days, one of which led to yet another factory reset as "the only solution."Since this is also a 4G device, I signed up for the AT&T offer. All went well, I got the confirmations etc.By all rights, the thing should have just been working now, but I kept on getting an error message, saying the SIM card could not be located and to remove it and reinsert it.Since there was no easy way to do this, I called AT&T customer service in the hopes that they would know what to do. They didn't. In fact, had very little documentation about the Kindle Fire HD 4G yet, and she couldn't even tell me how to remove the SIM card (it's not immediately obvious like it is on a phone btw)Anyway, at their recommendation back to Kindle tech support to find out where the SIM card was for sure and how to open the slot.I spent 20 minutes with somebody that kept on telling me that my device didn't have a SIM card! I kept on telling her that yes indeed it did, I even gave her the SIM card number that the kindle was displaying, and told her that all I needed to know where the card was located, so I could remove it and replace it as instructed, but all I got was repetitive copy and pastes from some manual she must have been consulting.After she finally got that I did have a SIM card, she kept on copying and pasting instructions on how I can purchase the data plan, which I had previously already given all the information of, as well as the information that I bought it, etc.It went on for a while, which led me to believe that she had NO idea what she was talking about, as everything was copy and paste and quite basic manual stuff and only vaguely related to my actual problem. And totally ignoring what I told her I had already tried.Then we did the reset dance again.Reset. Didn't help. Hard reset. Didn't help. And then she got to factory reset. Again.This time I had enough. She kept on saying it was the only way and I'm sorry but my trust in that wasn't that great. This is the person who insisted my Kindle didn't even have a SIM card and now she was insisting that I trust her in believing yet another reset was the only way.Again, long story short, I declined further help on yet another factory reset, as I just wanted to have some time for another solution.Anyway, hopefully this may help somebody else!Turns out that when the Kindle is connected to WIFI, it will say that the SIM card can't be found or may not be present. It gives the standard blurb about removing it, etc. That is a tad misleading. Basically, when it's connected to WIFI it feels no need to be "seeing" the SIM card. Once you get out of the WIFI range it sees the card and connects.That I didn't know that is maybe not surprising due to my inexperience, that the error message wording is misleading is unfortunate, but that Kindle Fire Tech Support didn't know that is just tragic. This could have been a one sentence tech support consult! There wasn't even a problem!I am so glad I didn't actually factory reset the kindle - again!So I'm sailing along quite nicely for a few days and I'm loving it! This tablet is really awesome by itself and when it works correctly, all I had hoped for and then some!I have now downloaded what I need for the most part, I have my work documents on it and ordered as I need them. I totally love Kindle Free Time!! There's no fighting about time limits, it says it's all done for today, the kids accept it and happily skip off to do other things! I don't have to worry about my son buying stuff because he can't get out of his area, nobody fights over who's turn it is - it's great!Until last night, when all of a sudden a grey square appeared in the carousel.It's a random grey square that is there instead of the icon for any given app or book. But it's not always the same app. It's truly random. So it's anybody's guess what it might be hiding.I went through the usual reset, hard reset and all that. I deleted the kindle library book that I had gotten last, thinking that maybe it messed things up. Did the resetting game again. The grey square remains. Since I haven't installed anything that wasn't from the kindle store and approved for my device, I'm not sure why it would do it.So back to Tech support I went.And yes, you guessed it. After repeating all I had done already, the only answer they said they had was: Factory reset! It seems indeed a favorite of the support people. But it's all in the cloud he says, you can download everything again.Yeah, in a few hours! And that's not even counting having to input everything again (passwords etc)I can't keep on doing this!So, for now I'm living with an annoying grey square and having to find my books/apps by guessing, but I've had it with the factory reset and wasting hours putting everything back! It seems something always goes wrong with this device.Never enough to really render the device useless but enough for stuff not to run smoothly. And yes, it is entirely possible/likely that this came from some book or app and has nothing to do with the device, but since the Kindle is so tied in with Amazon and their apps and books, as well as their customer support, this is relevant to the whole package!What's worse, I have no real trust in Amazon tech support right now and don't know if they just say factory reset because it's a catch all and they don't have to deal with anything else, or if it really does require a factory reset! I have no way of telling if it's a big or a small issue!I would hope that on these more sophisticated devices with a large storage capacity, a factory reset is more of a last resort than the first solution to jump to!So in summary:- This tablet, when it works, is awesome!- Seems to have a fair amount of little issues that keep on popping up.- Amazon Customer/Tech support really needs to have a LOT more training on this to be effective with these new devices!- My experience surrounding my ownership of the new Kindle Fire HD 4G has been very mixed due to all the above!