This is my first kindle since the 1st generation. That tablet went away after a couple years. Kindle Fire 7th gen is a great tablet for the money. Honestly, I don't use it for reading. I use it for browsing websites, social media, and listen to podcasts. I use my Bluetooth headphones to listen to the podcasts. The couple times I've used the speaker on the tablet, I haven't been disappointed, but I wasn't impressed. It works just fine for watching videos in bed. Had no problems hearing. Search Google for some tips and tricks to get apps from the google play store. Silk browser is terrible. I reccomend installing Opera. I reccomend this tablet for people like me, who want to just lay in bed or on the couch and doing simple tasks on the tablet. Don't need a 300 or 400 tablet to do what I'm doing.