I've been looking into this too Gal.
Mick has a Kindle Fire and we really like it. The main thing he does on it is surf the internet, read the paper, play games and watch tv/listen to the radio. It is very geared towards Amazon books (obviously) which does annoy him sometimes as he doesn't really read but it doesn't bother me - I like the fact that they are there on the carousel. You can't get itv player on it for some reason.
He has the Fire rather than the Fire HD - this doesn't have a camera on it which isn't a problem for him but obviously you can't use it to take photos. The HD does have one.
I have been looking at one of these each for the girls.
http://www.tesco.com/direct/acer-iconia ... 9-5990.prdIt is cheaper than the Fire (at the moment it is £99 in Tesco plus an offer of £20 off - you have to apply for the discount for some reason rather than get it automatically). It does everything the Fire does for less money plus it has a camera and webcam so you could skype on it (I assume). I assume that you could download books from places other than Amazon and also download the Amazon app so that you can get books from Amazon on there too (I haven't looked into that though as it isn't something that the girls are likely to do).
The reviews on the Acer seemed quite good and I did find a site that compared the two together and the recommendation there was to go for the Acer.
I'm not at all techy though so maybe I have given you completely duff information!!!!