I'm pretty happy with my Kindle Fire. Though it uses the Amazon App Store instead of the Google Play Store so it doesn't run certain apps. It can do everything with its own apps it just is bad if you want to have the same app as a friend to use together you may not be able to.
My dad has a kindle fire and loved it. He had no idea of its full capabilities and mostly used it for reading. He broke it quickly, my mother bought him the bog standard kindle for Christmas and I’ll have to set this one up too. I have an iPad and love it. It’s expensive but worth it.