Bought my son-in-law a Nook Tablet which is everything you want to do with a tablet. Read, surf the net, play games, etc. Looks like good value for the price. The two tipping factors vs the Fire:
1. The Nook allows additional storage via an external SD card.
2. There have been some issues with the Fire operating system (Amazon is addressing).
Me - I am holding out for an iPad. It has a bigger screen, kazillion more apps, the cool factor.