My brother had a kindle. Then he upgraded to a kindle fire. And so he gave me his kindle. Which I used to download and read Aesop's Fables. And then it went into my drawer. He decided he wanted his kindle back (he said it was lighter). And so we traded. I tried to root it, but there were some issues with the adb drivers (namely I thought I downloaded them, when I didn't). But after unbricking it, I now have a kindle fire. And I'm impressed.
This won't be an ipad killer by any shot, but I have kindle on it (obviously), and have the overdrive media console. So I can read all my books on it (even from the library). Ive also got netflix on it, so I can catch a flick if I can get wi-fi. It's not going to replace my phone but it'll come in handy when I don't want to pull the laptop out.