Amazon Kindle - Review / Win One! [Update2]
This post has generated a lot of comments (yay!) with some great questions. I’m answering questions in a follow-up post.
If you’d like a chance to win a free Amazon Kindle from Concentrated Technology, just keep reading, or scroll to the bottom.
I purchased an Amazon Kindle a few weeks ago. More importantly, I’ve read about six novels on the thing, including Sabriel, Orphan’s Journey, and others. I’ve even been re-reading the original Shannara series by Terry Brooks.
I have to say, I like the Kindle. Yes, it has the industrial design aesthetic of a doorstop, but it grows on you. Learning to hold it isn’t difficult, and once you do you realize that you hold it much like you would a paperback novel, putting your thumbs in easy reach of the “Next Page” buttons on either side of the unit. The eInk display is crisp and clear, and easier on the eyes (mine, at least) than ink on paper. If you’ve never seen an eInk display, you’re tempted to think of it as some kind of advanced LCD - not so. It’s actually tiny little bubbles filled with black or white (well, off-white) ink. They’re electrically charged and can be turned to display either side on command, creating a flat, crisp display that reflects light - it does not use a backlight. Once turned to the desired position, the little bubbles stay put - meaning the display uses no power unless you’re turning pages. With its wireless feature turned off, I’ve run the Kindle for about a week without charging it.
You control the font size, and most books use a very crisp, easy-to-read built-in serifed font with true italics and boldfacing. Changing the font size re-flows the text, making page numbers meaningless; the Kindle instead provides “location numbers,” so you and a friend can have conversations like, “did you read that great line at location 2642? I couldn’t believe he wrote that!” All books are full-text searchable (it’s fast, too), and the Kindle has a built-in dictionary for looking up any words you don’t know (although “antidisestablishmentarianism” isn’t in there). You can leave bookmarks to go back to specific places (it always remembers your last place when you exit a book), and you can use the keyboard to highlight and annotate books. If Amazon can get some college textbook inventory on this thing, college students are going to eat them up. Some “green” college will buy a Kindle for every student and stop selling paper books outright - this is going to be a serious market for Amazon if they can get everything lined up. Annotations - including excerpts from the book’s text - are saved to a separate file, which is non-protected and which can be copied off the device for review.
The wireless feature, though, is what really sells the Kindle. It uses Sprint’s EVDO network, so coverage is pretty much national. You don’t pay for the cell usage - it’s built into the price of the books you buy. When you buy a book on Amazon, it simply sends it to your Kindle - it takes about a minute once the Kindle’s wireless feature is turned on, using a slide switch on the back of the unit. BTW, there’s a second slide switch for power - don’t bother with it. Instead, just put the unit down when you’re done with it. It’ll sleep after a bit, which locks the keyboard until you press a hotkey (the same hotkey can force it to sleep, if you want). It won’t be using any power and there’s no need to reach around to the back of the unit.
The use of Sprint means you can also shop for books right on the device, using a fairly primitive built-in Web browser and a specialized version of the Amazon Web site which is accessible to the Kindle (the browser can also be used for regular sites, although it works best with ones that are primarily text, such as Wikipedia). The wireless feature was a major selling point for me over the competing Sony device: Sony lacks wireless, meaning I can’t buy a book ad-hoc from the airport. Using Sprint rather than Wi-Fi was smart, too, since Sprint’s coverage is much greater than any combination of Wi-Fi networks.
Magazines and newspapers are also available, and are wirelessly delivered to the device automatically. I love this for the Wall Street Journal - I get it at about 3am every morning, so it’s ready to read. It costs just a couple of bucks a month. Books run normal paperback pricing, at $5-$7, while NY Times bestsellers are $10. The Kindle can hold about 200 books, and Amazon will store any that you’ve bought which won’t fit on the device. A built-in Content Manager lets you move books from Amazon into the Kindle, or remove them from the Kindle to make room. This is another nice feature: You don’t need to connect the Kindle to a computer to use it. Sony’s device isn’t compatible with Macs, which is what I use, and it requires a computer to get content on and off the device.
Another downside of the Sony, to me, is the company itself. Sony has a long reputation for creating orphan technologies - Betamax, MiniDisc, MemoryStick (to a point), and so on. I’m afrais that one day they’ll decide the book business isn’t for them, and all those devices will suddenly be useless. Amazon could do that, too, but since they’re primarily a book company I feel a lot better about my chances for them sticking with it over the long haul.
You can also use the Kindle to subscribe to blogs, at $1/month. You’re not paying for the blog content, there, you’re paying for the wireless delivery. If you have Word docs or other content, you can e-mail those to a special Kindle e-mail address and have them converted to a Kindle-comaptible format. The conversion is free if you want to use your computer to transfer the document to the device; wireless delivery is $.10 per document. It’s a neat way to, for example, quickly transfer a set of driving directions or some other information into an easy-to-carry format.
The Kindle also has the (experimental) ability to play background music from MP3 files, which you’ll typically load on an SD card that inserts into the device. I don’t care about this - I have an iPhone and I imagine MP3 playback probably takes a heavy toll on Kindle’s battery. Audio books from Audible.com are also supported on the Kindle - again, don’t much care. I have an iPhone for this sort of thing, and I’m not a fan of audio books anyway. I read faster than I listen.
Here’s the great Kindle feature: Samples. When browsing on Amazon.com, you can send a sample - typically the first two chapters, 30 pages, or something pretty substantial - of nearly any book to your Kindle. For free. If you like what you read, there’s a “BUY NOW” link at the end of the sample. So I send TONS of samples to my device, delete the ones I don’t like, and save the rest as a kind of shopping list. When I finish up a book, I just open up a sample chapter and buy that book. It’s quick and easy, and thanks to the wireless feature I can do it moments before boarding an airplane and have something to read.
So, final verdict: Big fan of the Kindle. In fact, I’ve been reading more books, and a broader variety, thanks to the sampling feature. I’ll send samples to the device with very little provocation, and it’s comfortable to actually read through the samples at my liesure, and then pick the ones I want to keep for later purchasing. The device is a fantastic reader, and doesn’t try too hard to be anything else - there’s no address book, Mail application, or anything like that. I suppose you could use something like Google for those PDA functions, via the built-in Web browser, but as I said - I have an iPhone for that stuff. I just want the Kindle to be a great reader, and it delivers. MOST publishers are on board with this, and I imagine Amazon (of all companies) can strong-arm the rest into participating. Technical books are a bit out of scope for the device; the heavy and detailed formatting of most IT books simply doesn’t translate well to the Kindle.
UPDATE: There have been some comments wondering at the Kindle’s durability. It’s good. I’ve dropped mine a few times. Amazon also has a drop-test video. It’s not as sturdy as a plain old book, of course, and probably not ideal for small children, but it’s pretty solid.
Okay - here’s how to win an Amazon Kindle from us:
First, subscribe to this blog’s RSS feed. We’ll be giving you chances to win for the next few weeks. Some will be very time-sensitive - that’s why you want to subscribe and keep an eye on the RSS feed. To begin with, just find a blog article here that interests you, and then leave a comment. Your comment does need to pertain to the article, and you do need to include a valid e-mail address. Our comment spam filter (and our own eyes) will likely catch anything that’s not a “real” comment - so find something to really comment on! Each valid comment you leave - meaning each comment which is on-topic, pertains to the post, and helps continue the discussion - counts as a raffle entry. Keep reading future “Win a Kindle” posts for more tips and chances to win.
Remember: Gratuitous, off-topic, pointless comments intended solely to get you in the game will be deleted and won’t count. We review (and respond to, where appropriate) every comment on this blog, and will continue to do so.
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