I’ve been reading on an Amazon Kindle the past four days and am growing fonder of the device with every passing day. (It’s a $350 “electronic book” with WIFI for wireless downloading of books, magazines, newspapers). Somehow one got ordered and charged to my account (I suspect some idiot in the house logged in and stuck it in my cart. But I am so enamored I think I will keep it.
Ergonomically it’s a bit of a mess — I’m sure everyone who has used one has bitched about the previous and next buttons and the lack of a great gripping experience — the leather cover barely hangs on, but the text is very crisp and the lighting is essentially nonexistent — meaning you need to seek an external light source just as you would with a book.
Battery life is long. Images are okay (grey-scale). So far I have subscribed to Forbes (no images or ads), one day of the New York Times (no images or ads), ordered the Ken Follett sequel to Pillars of the Earth and am nearly halfway through Dave Egger’s What is the What about the Lost Boys of the Sudan.
I can see the Kindle earning a place in my knapsack for travel and sparing me the usual three-title mess I usually jam in there. Only problem is lack of titles, not everything is in Kindle format and the books I want aren’t necessarily there. I will probably shove an SD card in for more memory space and have yet to connect it to my PC via USB to back stuff down. The browser is decent, the keyboard … at least it is QWERTY. All in all I like it on some levels, hate it on others (can’t loan a book to a buddy, can’t stick a book on a shelf, can’t have an author sign the flyleaf).
Verdict: for serious travelling readers, a good idea.
There’s one key way it fails — the airplane during taxi, takeoff, descent and landing. Not that big of deal when everything runs smoothly, but add a ground delay with the FAA zealots saying “no electronics” and you’re stuck sitting and waiting with nothing to pass the time.
I put my Chumby up against your flimsy Kindle any day of the week!
My Chumby Post>
Okay, theye are completely different devices. But I love my Chumby – watching Webcam from Bourbon street right now as the storm hits….
Welcome to the dark side 😉
Seriously, I think you’ll find that the Kindle grows on you the more you use it. The button placement issue quickly fades. The excitement of grabbing a brand new book for ten bucks when your flight gets delayed 4 hours never wears off.
-Aaron
It’s not so dark on the Kindle side. I had heard good things about the Sony device, but Tim Bajarin was pretty solid on the side of the Kindle last December when I saw him the Lenovo analyst conference in Dallas.
Matt Kohut’s point about the ass-hatted prohibition on electronics on airplanes during takeoff and landing is of some concern as I always move to my book during those periods. OTOH — if I hold the Kindle in the leather case, can I successfully spoof the strewards?
I dunno