IGX

My wife recently got a Kindle on loan through her school library, along with several books. I'm halfway through Michael Pollan's "In Defense of Food," and here are my thoughts on the device..

What I like:

EXCELLENT screen. Flat, light-gray, with dark lettering. It's easy to read, easy on the eyes.
Menu wheel: click it, roll up to what you want on the menu that appears, click it again. Simple.
When you turn it on, it automatically resumes wherever you were.
I haven't charged the battery yet; it hasn't even gotten close to needing it.

What I don't like:
$360 HOLY GOD THAT'S EXPENSIVE
Hard/awkward to hold. In the most intuitive way to hold it, my thumbs keep hitting the "page forward" or "page back" levers. I have to hold it below those, which feels top-heavy, and then shift my grip to change pages. That takes me "out of the book." It needs dedicated safe places to put your thumbs.
Theoretically you CAN read .pdfs, .doc, etc, but it involves converting them and having Amazon email them to you for a fee. Then Amazon doesn't archive those, so if you wanted it again later, you'd have to do it again. Pain in the ass.
Full qwerty thumb keyboard. I don't need it, it's in the way.
Onboard mp3 player. I don't need it. I have a player for that, thanks.
Very limited memory (although you can stick an SD card in it).
Newspapers don't archive at Amazon, so you can't go read a paper from last year, even if you were subscribing to it that whole time. Bah.
You can DL music and audiobooks to the Kindle via its USB connection, but not books.
Books don't archive on your computer; Amazon just re-sends them if you want them again.
Honestly, I don't care about the wireless capability. Buying books at Amazon.com and then DLing them through a cable would be fine, if that meant I could easily read other formats and the price would come down. by the same token, why are they adding web-browsing capability? Isn't there a thing called a laptop for that?

What I want in a reader:

Ability to read common word-processing formats, pdfs, txt, and other formats, as found on Gutenberg and other sites, in addition to the paid "new" books.
Ability to easily backup anything I buy on my own computer, including newspapers, magazines, etc.
Small size, light weight (the Kindle's pretty much got this).
Ease of holding the device and changing pages (Kindle's not so good.)
Good-sized, easy-to-read screen (Kindle's best feature).
Decent price point. for the above stripped-down version, something like $100.

That's it. No mp3 player, no wireless, no web browser, NO DRM, no keypad.
And the scary part is, except for screen size, my ancient Palm III does it better.

Bottom line: NFW would I buy this. As an easy way to check out multiple books from the library and carry them home, it's fine and worth its limitations. As a stand-alone ebook reader that does what I want? FAIL.

Here's a link with some of the same gripes and responses to them, BTW:
http://gadgets.boingboing.net/2007/11/1 ... t-lea.html

How bright is the screen? My job may have me traveling a good bit in the near future and I was thinking of getting one so I didn't have to truck books and magazines arournd all the damned time.

Is there an option to switch the screen to dark with light lettering? Any time you're looking at a screen, it's easier on the eyes to have the screen black and the lettering white.

Alfred_E._Neuman wrote:How bright is the screen? My job may have me traveling a good bit in the near future and I was thinking of getting one so I didn't have to truck books and magazines arournd all the damned time.

Is there an option to switch the screen to dark with light lettering? Any time you're looking at a screen, it's easier on the eyes to have the screen black and the lettering white.

The screen is what they call "electronic paper." It's not bright (backlit) at all. Just a flat, light gray. If you are sitting in the dark, or inside a dog, it'll be um, invisible. Like everything else. The finish of the surface isn't like glass; it's more like a "satin" finish photograph, so it doesn't have a glare problem.

AFAIK, there is no way to adjust the darkness of the background, but you can adjust the size of the font.

The screen really is the best part. I'd like to see that screen technology on other things.
BTW, the XO (one laptop per child) also has this look if you turn the backlight off; it becomes B&W, and readable even in bright sunlight.

The screen is good. You can read it anywhere you can read a book. No backlighting, so you can't read in the dark.

Easy on the eyes. I finished a novel on it this weekend. No eyestrain.

GDG: you can download on the computer.

Go to Amazon - Kindle.

In kindle, go to "manage my kindle." When the screen comes up, it will have a list of your purchases. Click "download/send" to "computer," not to "kindle."

My downloads go to my desktop. About 15 seconds.

Now hook up the Kindle to your computer with the USB thingy. Then go to "my computer." Do the "folders" deal. Transfer your new purchase to the Kindle. Be sure to open the kindle folder and put books in "documents." takes About 10 seconds to download. Audiobooks go to, d'oh, "audiobooks."

The music thing does suck...no way to choose music. It just shuffles.

But the speaker is surprisingly good and perfect for audiobooks. Also, you can use headphones.

The memory is not limited. I got a 2 gig flash drive for mine, from Amazon, for $9. You can get about 800 books on that. Seriously. Also, the flashdrive slot will take a 16 gig drive. 64,000 books or so. I don't even read that many in a month.

Also, you can download any of your Word files to Kindle Send it, as an attachment, to (username)@freekindle.com. Amazon sends it back almost immediately, formatted for Kindle. Download as above. No fee. I put several of my speeches on it, and it is well formatted and looks just fine. I could give any of those speeches from the Kindle. But, of course, paper is better. I always change things for the audience and venue where I'm giving the talk.

I think the gadget won't replace books for those of us who love them. But it is handy. People who have to carry a shitpile of books around use them. Witness D.Sides here whose wife uses it in her job as an English prof. I met a librarian who uses it, and NYC editors, who sometimes take a week off and have to take a dozen or more mss with them are all using kindles these days. And I travel: it's handy to have the kindle and not be at a loss for reading material in West Papua when you're waiting days for some bureaucrat to stamp your travel letter.

As for the problem with the hitting the page turn key: try keeping the cover on the machine. It doesn't absolutely solve the problem, but it helps.

By the way, the book I read this week was a current best seller. The Girl with the Dragon Tatoo. Excellent book...drags a little after the opening and then just explodes. Kindle cost $9.99. Hardcover cost, about $28.00.

The page turn was my only negative. It takes less than a second for the new screen to come up, but it is annoying. After a while, I got so I hit the page turn about halfway through the last sentence. That helped.

My comments stand. Yeah, you can add an SD card. Yeah, you can send docs to Amazon and have them reformat them for you. Giant pain in the ass, I say.
Unneeded keyboard, unneeded audio, poor ergonomics, and "control freak" software.

Any competent mp3 player can play ogg, mp3, mp4, etc. right out of the box. Any competent image viewer can use a dozen or so image formats right out of the box. It's only Amazon's business model that kept them from doing this with all of the common document formats.

FAIL.

I like the thing. so far. I'll report again in 6 months.

seeahill wrote:I like the thing. so far. I'll report again in 6 months.

If you're back from your canyon adventure hike, please report on your review of the kindle after months of use. Myself and a friend are considering making a purchase.

If they could make these things better at handling PDFs I might by one. If I could also scribble on the PDFs and save the result, I would definitely buy one.

I still like the Kindle. I do almost all my recreational reading on it.

Took it with me to the desert and read for a time every night with a headlamp. Still had 3/4 battery life left and didn't have to haul around a lot of heavy books.

If you have any questions, ask away.

Pinky wrote:If they could make these things better at handling PDFs I might by one. If I could also scribble on the PDFs and save the result, I would definitely buy one.

If it could do that plus go browse databases like JSTOR and EBSCO and download the pdfs I would definitely buy one.

In a moment of weakness and encouraged by a Kindle zealot, I have a kindle 2 arriving today.

Some rudimentary googling for free ebooks has exposed me to the world of "let's malware this bitch looking to get something for nothing and if that don't work we will just bait and switch him until he gives up".

so...any good knowledges on where to find "content" would be righteous.

Seeing as I typically buy a new book at the airport before getting on a plane, and now I can just DL it whilst I "wait in the airport book store looking around" now for about 1/3 the price, the device has a payback, maybe in a few years.

If nothing else, it's gonna be a lot easier to lug around.

Serious question-- would it work with books from Gutenberg or a similar site?

The Unflushable DEATHTURD wrote:Serious question-- would it work with books from Gutenberg or a similar site?

Yes.

Sweet. Do you use the mobi files from gutenburgh?

seeahill wrote:

The Unflushable DEATHTURD wrote:Serious question-- would it work with books from Gutenberg or a similar site?

Yes.

Does it translate into a readable format like an Amazon e-book would?

I have not touched my Kindle yet, but I have read the KMZ file (amazon's ebook with their tags and DRM etc.) is really a MOBI file. So I hope a MOBI from Gutenburg that is OPEN, would run on a Kindle as well as a KMZ native file.

I read that MOBI with DRM does not operate on a Kindle w/o some hacking, including uploading some poorly formatted tag code to the ebook vendor which only works some of the time due to an invalid character.

Full disclosure I am an ebook nOOb.

The Unflushable DEATHTURD wrote:

seeahill wrote:

The Unflushable DEATHTURD wrote:Serious question-- would it work with books from Gutenberg or a similar site?

Yes.

Does it translate into a readable format like an Amazon e-book would?

Yes. Here's a site with almost 50 places where you can get free books.

http://ireaderreview.com/2008/01/19/fre ... on-kindle/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

1. Free Books from Project Gutenberg (20,000) - You can find nearly all (19,505) these books in Kindle Book Format, Free at ManyBooks.net. Also, http://www.mnybks.net" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; is an extension of Manybooks above, but if you access it through the basic WebBrowser in Kindle, you can download Kindle Books directly to your Kindle, the way you would an Amazon book. Choose the Mobipocket format as that is the only format that’ll work.

Thanks Timmah.

Righteous!

The new $139 Wifi kindle is out. Updates of users of older models, further impressions after having it for a while?

Might grab one for a friend.

Thanks.

Norman U. Senchbau wrote:The new $139 Wifi kindle is out. Updates of users of older models, further impressions after having it for a while?

Might grab one for a friend.

Thanks.

I've had mine for a few months. I love it. Paid the extra $50 for the wireless + 3G version (3G is forever free, no additional contract) I also bought the $59 accessory cover + LED light for reading in low light situations; works like a charm off the Kindle battery. Frankly, if there is a Kindle version of a book, I will buy it over the print version.

rkctl-rip wrote:

Norman U. Senchbau wrote:The new $139 Wifi kindle is out. Updates of users of older models, further impressions after having it for a while?

Might grab one for a friend.

Thanks.

I've had mine for a few months. I love it. Paid the extra $50 for the wireless + 3G version (3G is forever free, no additional contract) I also bought the $59 accessory cover + LED light for reading in low light situations; works like a charm off the Kindle battery. Frankly, if there is a Kindle version of a book, I will buy it over the print version.

I bought the new version as well. The screen is incredibly sharp (a big step above the second generation, which I thought was great). That cover with the light works well. Spent the extra 50 bucks for the 3G phone wireless as well. When I was in Egypt in December, a lot of people were talking about certain book that would help me understand some of the ancient history. I turned on the 3G wireless and downloaded the book in a minute. If you travel, the 3G wireless works in 100 countries.

It is not really good for browsing the web, color pictures, stuff like that. No touch screen. What is is is a dedicated book reader. It is great for reading and storing books. Period. Like a book, it disappears in your hands. Like a book, you can read in bright sun. You can read it anywhere you can read a book. No glare and, consequently, very easy on the eyes.

It has a dictionary that is very fast. Cool to just look up words immediately. I also bookmark pages, save selections and sometimes take rudimentary notes. It a breeze to review everything you've marked. I love this thing.

I received one as a birthday present from, of all people, my sister-in-law (still shocked).

It's a newer one w/ wireless but not 3G. I like it much better than I thought I would, great for reading kindle-formatted books. I've dumped a lot of pdf's on it, the print is significantly smaller than the "kindle" print, which is probably I just need to get around to tweaking the appropriate settings and haven't bothered to figure that out yet.

Very easy (maybe a little too easy) to get on the kindle store w/ it and have stuff downloaded. I subscribe to a blog w/ it and had a subscription to Investor's Business Daily but canceled it b/c it was taking an hour or so out of my day that could be better spent elsewhere.

So far, I've downloaded these books for free:
first 8 Tarzan novels
Meditations by Marcus Aurelius
Origin of the Species
Book on Zen
Essays on Political Economy by Bastiat
other stuff from Ben Franklin, Bacon, etc.

A total of 23 books for free before I made myself stop. Bought a couple too. And I haven't bothered w/ non-Amazon sites yet.One of the nicer things is you can get a free sample of books before buying them. I'm looking to supplement materials for grad school and have filtered out several books that would have been a waste of time for me.

So far I've only paid for 2 books and one of them was only $.99.

Like Timmah said, beats the hell out carrying around a ton of books. While you can surf the web on it, it's a hassle. For what it is, it rocks. Haven't read it outside yet b/c it's winter, so can't speak to the sun/screen issue.

One thing to consider, the public library system around here has an elibrary option. Kindle, for some odd reason, isn't one of the supported formats, but I can't imagine it won't be eventually.

Had mine for over a year now and like it a lot - especially for travel. Primary complaint is that some of the obscure stuff I want isn't in Amazon. Haven't doe the PDF thing though.

I've had one for a few months.

I got the Wifi / 3G one.

Pros:

The e-ink is really amazing. Just incredible. Oh, how the eyes do not strain compared to a computer, smartphone, iPad, etc.

Built in American Oxford Dictionary. Best Single volume dictionary for my money.

The webkit is great. Undersold due to the "free" data plan. Easy to check emails and set up google for your RSS feeds. For those familiar with Safari's article mode, it has that. It renders web pages beautifully. Navigating ain't so fun on more complicated sites.

Wikipedia shines.

With calibre you can use any electronic book format and translate it into a formate the Kindle can use, including ebub. The software is excellent, easy to use, and free if you want to be a cheap skate.

I read a lot more, now that I have it, especially foreign language stuff, thanks to Project Gutenberg. I was reading Pevear and Volokhonsky Brothers Karamazov version in English Translation over the holiday. More than a few German and French works of poetry and drama play in the background. Went to Gutenberg got the texts, read them and moved on with the book I was reading.

Foreign news papers and magazines are a pittance compared to what you might pay for them here. Some of the photos or tables might not be there, nor some of the supplements, but well worth the average $15 / month to have a foreign language paper sent to you 5-6 times per week while you sleep or you are at lunch as the case maybe.

"Cons" as an e-reader (I am not going to bitch about it being not being an iPad)

For poetry, be prepared to use it in horizontal mode with a relatively small font and flip pages more often than you would with a printed text.

Any text you want to quickly navigate through, forget it. There is an ingenious version of the KJV BIble with you can jump to any verse from any place you are in the Bible, but if the text you reading requires flipping back and forth alot, forget it.

Remembering what you read. I still find I remember things well due to their placement on pages and the general context around them. Any serious reading I do, I would still do it with a paper version and maybe have a kindle version as well. There are not too many texts I approach like this anymore.

The "preview". You get the first chapter, which is usually an introduction, thus shining no light on the what you might want to purchase. Better off looking inside the book at amazon from your computer or on google books.

Can never see myself using the annotation feature. If the text is that serious, that I am going to be annotating it, I will have a paper version.

The "bookmarks" are okay. Better if you could just name the bookmark for yourself rather than just seeing the text surrounding where you marked the text.

The amazon kindle store on the kindle: sucks. Better off navigating through it on your comp, if you are browsing or as mentioned above you really want to check out what is inside a text.

In very low light, a paper text is still better, but I don't try to read later in the evening anyhow.

IN SHORT:

Worth it for me, if just for the dictionary, access to wikipedia (especially once you start using the wikibooks feature (might write on this later, very nice overlooked feature of wikipedia) not just for the infos, but keeping up on your foreign languages, and having various references pretty much always with me, the Bible for instance.

And it is so damn easy on the eyes.

Doesn't replace the paper book, but my bookshelves have emptied even more since getting it. And I am just reading more without buying a single text.

The ergonomics are great as well.

3G is worth it for the wikipedia access alone. It ain't that much more expensive and if you are traveling, you don't need to hunt down a wifi spot. Over the course of the life of the thing (seems very durable), the difference in price is a pittance.

FWIW.