I got a Kindle fire for Christmas.
It's quite nice to read from. I toned down the brightness and get it to display with a sepia backround rather than white. I find it nice to read and not too electronic in appearance. Adjusting the settings is quite easy.
We have an amazon prime account as a family. Buying books is quite easonable, it's easy, and the books are shared amongst all our devices. Two of the kids have I pads. Accessing which ever book is very easy and it does keep the current book your reading to hand straight at the page you were reading. Its easy to go forward and back between the pages. Although I don't find the book mark works very well, although I may be missing something in it's operation.
It's a very nice size, small enough to be portable and discrete to use. Yet large enough to be easily readable. I am still blessed with good eyesight so if thats an issue I'm the wrong person to comment.
A Handy feature is a definition of a word if you touch it within a text. Also addendums are easley accessed. I'm reading a Terry Pratchett who often has little notes. Theres appear as a blue character in the text. Just touch it and you get the note.
I'm also studying at the moment and a text book I'm using has online access. I can use all the online functions on any device except the Kindle. I don't know if its an issue with kindles or if I need to down load or set up something to get it to work.
The sound and images are good, surfing on the net is easy. It has a headphone jack for privacy. the keyboard is clear and the touchscreen is easy and positive.
I have a very nice leather case for it. It's looks smart, like a very nice hard bound book, not like an electronic device. But that suits my tastes. It does flip round to support the Kindle at a 30 degree angle for reading but it could be better. It's worth having a close look at whatever case you need and how well it supports the pad for reading hands free. It's worth spending some time in choosing a good case that suits which ever set up you go for. It's a big part of using any tablet and worth some consideration
On the down side, the battery lasts for a day after a full charge but, if your using it while plugged into a power supply the battery gets hardly any additional charge. So you need to have it charging without use in order to build up any reasonable battery life. It has a usb cable so you can charge it via a car ciggy lighter or from a usb output. I have a lead on the work pc.
If your out and about and not wishing or unable to connect wirelessly then you do need to go in and turn the wireless off when reading as it interupts every 2 min's asking to reconnect. then you have to remember to reconnect. It's a bit fiddly and annoying
Hope this helps. Overall I really like it. I use it mainly for reading books