Unboxing the Amazon Kindle Fire

Amazon joked that the Kindle Fire is the first Amazon product to come in a colorful box. It's Amazon's first color tablet, of course; that's part of it.

The Kindle Fire's box shows some of the tablet's primary features, including the 7,000-plus apps available.

The Kindle Fire box is an entertaining riff on a traditional brown-cardboard Amazon box, complete with zipper.

Take the colorful sleeve off the Amazon Kindle Fire box, and it's a traditional Amazon box.

All the components in the box, except for the tablet and the power adapter, are made from rough cardboard. There's no manual, only a little cardboard instruction card.

Remove the tablet from the box and you see the power adapter nestled under it.

Here I took the box apart completely. It's ingeniously built so it doesn't require padding.

The soft-touch back of the Kindle Fire says "kindle" on it.

Here's the lock screen for the Kindle Fire, Amazon's new 7-inch color tablet.

When you start up the Kindle Fire, it gives you a few tips on how to navigate the interface.

The Kindle Fire is based on Android, but Amazon has designed its own UI.

The Kindle Fire's UI is based on a bookshelf; you can put your favorite items at the bottom.

Here's the Amazon Kindle Fire (upper left) versus, in clockwise order, the BlackBerry PlayBook, Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.0, and Samsung Galaxy Player 5.

The Kindle Fire (at top) is of average thickness compared to its direct competitors.