WHY IS THE KINDLE Fire such a big deal? After all, Samsung, Motorola, HP—the list goes on—have built iPad wannabes…that most shoppers ignored. Amazon’s stroke of genius was deciding not to go head-to-head against Apple. Instead, they built a tablet that was vastly more affordable, much smaller, and still does what most folks want: email, ebooks, the Web, videos, and apps.

Less than two months after the Fire’s release, Amazon shared the early results. Of the many, many items it sells, the Fire had become the bestselling, most gifted, and most wished-for product. Congratulations, then, on having picked a leader in the Great Tablet Derby of the 2010s.

The Fire is deceptively powerful. Though it’s got only a few physical buttons, underneath its sleek, simple exterior lies a machine that can do as much as a “real” computer. It’s a Kindle so, of course, you can buy and read ebooks. But because it’s a multi-purpose tablet, that’s just one of its many talents. With it, you also get: