New Amazon's Kindle

Amazon Kindle is a revolutionary portable reader that wirelessly downloads books, newspapers, magazines and blogs to a crisp, high-resolution electronic paper display that looks and reads like real paper, even in bright sunlight.

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Kindle customers, no matter where they are in the U.S., can wirelessly shop the Kindle Store and download new content — all without a PC or a WiFi hot spot. Amazon pays for Kindle’s wireless connectivity so there are no monthly wireless bills and no service commitments for customers. The Kindle Store contains over 90,000 books that can be purchased and delivered wirelessly to Kindle, each in less than a minute. Customers can choose from hundreds of top newspapers, magazines and blogs and have their subscriptions auto-delivered wirelessly. All New York Times Best Sellers and New Releases are $9.99, unless marked otherwise.

At 10.3 ounces, Kindle is lighter and thinner than a paperback book, carries two hundred books, and includes built-in access to The New Oxford American Dictionary and wireless access to the Earth’s biggest encyclopedia, Wikipedia.org.

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Kindle Review:

By	Kurt G. Schumacher "Grey" (Broomfield, CO USA) -

Now that I've had several months to use the Kindle, this is my "real review". And my rating is still a solid five stars.

Kindle has changed the way I read. In the past, I have always had a book at hand. Books in progress were in the bedroom, the living room, the family room, the bathroom, and in the car (for waiting rooms). Now, I just have my Kindle with me all the time, and I have *all* my books with me.

I got a 4 GB memory card so I have room for tons of books. As soon as I download a book, I move it to the storage card. I can decide what I want to read at any time. It's great!

I keep the text size at 5, which is great for my old eyes. I find that I actually read faster with the Kindle, and with less eyestrain, because I am looking at a flat page at the same angle all the time. I don't have to deal with curved pages when the print is too close to the spine.

The Kindle is light enough to read in bed comfortably. I can even read Stephen King novels without spraining my wrist! I got a clip-on light with works well for reading in the dark. Once I found a place to clip it, that is. There are buttons all over the Kindle, so finding a place for the lamp that doesn't cover a button was a trick. Best place I found is the upper right corner, over the "cursor window". It covers the power button, but I put the light on after I turn it on so it's not an inconvenience. It also covers the top of the window, so if you need to scroll to the top you can't see the cursor. But that's a minor problem that doesn't occur very often.

I've transferred text, HTML, PDF. MP3 and other files to the Kindle without any problem. An unexpected bonus is that the Kindle can play audio books from Audible.com. The Audible software recognizes the Kindle as a compatible device and moves files to it (even directly to the storage card) with no problem.

The ability to preview a book is awesome. It's helped a lot in my buying decisions.

There are a few things that are less convenient than a "real book".

- Illustrations, figures, tables, etc are usually so small that they're unreadable. This is the major problem I've found so far.

- Paging back and forth to find something is clunky. I sometimes find myself thinking "what was that I read a few minutes ago". Finding the right place in the book, and then getting back to where I was, is slow and cumbersome. I need to read the users guide to see if there are some navigation tricks that will help.

- There is a definite flicker when you go to a new page. But I find that I don't even notice it any more. It was only distracting for the first couple of days.

I love my Kindle. The benefits are great, the drawbacks are few. I know a lot of people don't like the proprietary format and DRM, but neither of those are an issue for me. I buy most of my books from Amazon anyway. I very seldom give books away. I sometimes sell books to used bookstores, but the inability to do that with electronic books isn't going to break my bank.

Generally the only person I share books with is my wife. And since the latched onto my Kindle the first day I got it and I almost didn't get it back, I bought her one of her own. We can download the books we buy to each of the Kindles. And there's another benefit. She is *much* harder on books than I am. So now we each have our own copy, and I don't get irritated by broken spines and bent paged. :-)

I also know that Amazon will come out with Kindle II or Kindle Pro or Kindle Plus or something better at some point. I'm not worried about that either. When that happens, I'll move my memory card over and find a new home for my old Kindle.

I love my Kindle. Five stars.


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By	B. Williams (Colorado)

I have been beta testing the Kindle for the past few weeks, and I can say without equivocation that this device will soon become a MUST HAVE in many professional fields (but it also is great for the avid reader of books for entertainment). If you travel a lot, or require rapid and accurate access to references (as I do), the Kindle is definitely soon to be a necessity. I am a medical student, and I loaded a medical library onto the one I've been beta testing (including everything I need to study for the board exams I'll be taking in a few months). I've been an avid reader my entire life- rarely without reading material close at hand from the time I learned. If anyone is a book connoisseur, it's me.

The Kindle is fantastic. If I need to look up a term, or a treatment, I just type it in, and seconds later, the Kindle returns with all references to it within the entire library. Now, I know how valuable this is... it's a reference library I can carry with me. More than that, though, the ability to find the information I need quickly could save lives. Also, the readability is superior to any PDA. The "Electronic Ink" format reduces strain on the eyes, and those of you with vision problems can adjust the font size to VERY LARGE fonts. Sure, the PDA has plenty of useful medical tools you can download, but I find more often than not, I want to be able to see the full text involving the condition, diagnosis, and treatment of the term I'm looking up.

I know that I can't feasibly carry a medical library with me for some of my future endeavors (volunteering with Doctor's Without Borders), but with the Kindle, that's possible now... I just put the library on the Kindle, and pack it with me.

It's more than that, though. The Now Now service allows the user to ask any question in the world, and real people will research it for you, and within 24 hours, you will have answers on your kindle, waiting to be read. You can also upload music to your device, so that you may listen to a background melody as you read. In addition, the web browsing features are also useful, and while at the moment are still limited, are bound to get better with time. The most useful sites, namely reference sites, though, are easily accessed and browsed.

Also, there is the 24/7 access to the Kindle store directly on your unit, so you can access new books any time you want. The connection also lets you access any books that are stored on your Amazon account. It doesn't matter if you can't fit every book on your Kindle (although I've fit over $1000 of books on it, with room to spare)... the ones that don't fit are stored remotely with 24/7 access.

Oh, and don't worry about PDF's. I believe they're working on adding that to the accepted formats, and in the meantime you can just use a MOBI tool to convert your PDFs to MOBI format, and they'll read fine on your Kindle. I also see in the Kindle forums that Amazon has a conversion service that Kindle users may use to have PDF's converted to Kindle formats.

Flying on planes? No problem. Just a flip of a switch turns the wireless off, and your Kindle is safe to use on your flight. Plus, if you have the wireless off, your battery can last up to a MONTH!!!

Other stuff? I can check my webmail, sub to my favorite news sources (Various Reuters blogs), sub to magazines, etc. Annotations, bookmarks, and highlighted text are saved to your "Clippings" files, which are text files you can load to your computer for editing and printing.

Is this worth the $399? DEFINITELY. And it's only going to get better. I've already made suggestions for useful upgrades, accessories, and services, and it's been clear that they've been heard. One accessory I've suggested is a solar cover that can charge it, so that it is completely autonomous (good for in the field with Doctors Without Borders). As it is, the battery is extremely long lived, particularly when the cellular connection is turned off... far longer than any PDA I've used. With the wireless turned off, the battery can last up to a MONTH.

One service I've requested for Kindle is an edition upgrade service. A lot of textbooks come out with new editions every couple of years. I've already had to replace most of my medical textbooks because of this, selling the old ones. I have suggested an edition upgrade service, where the user is notified of the new edition, and Amazon could buy back the old one at market value, letting the user get the new one at a price that is the difference between the market value of the old edition and the price of the new one, with a small commission.

Finally, I've also suggested parental controls. Some parents may not want their kids to have access to all of the content they've loaded to their Kindle, or direct access to the Kindle store.

When the beta program is over and I have to return it, I will only do so very reluctantly... It's worth the $399, but that's money I just don't have.

**** The bad: Well, there is no security on purchases at the Kindle store, which means that if it's stolen, or if the kids get a hold of it, you can have your bank account drained pretty quickly. However, I have addressed this issue with the development team and tech support, and my understanding is that they are working on correcting it as we speak. I have asked that they put a password requirement for purchases. The nice thing is, for software bugs, if you have your wireless activated, the updates will automatically download and install to your unit.

Also, yes, the content available is somewhat limited, but not by much, and it expands every day (I just subscribed to a magazine that I like, and it wasn't available a couple of weeks ago).

Recommended for: Any avid reader, college students, professionals, military (after all, they can't take a lot of books to many of the places they're sent), people who travel a lot, etc.

IN RESPONSE TO SOME OF THE NEGATIVE POINTS I'VE READ:
1. You can use Mobi creator (free) to convert PDF's to MOBI format, then upload to the Kindle via USB.

2. The AC supply is rated 100-240, which means it is compatible with European power sources, and the adaptors that fit the wall sockets are cheap and easy to find. I expect that when the Kindle hits the European/UK markets, it will include a supply that fits those wall outlets. No, the wireless is not yet established with overseas providers, but that's no reason why you can't use it... you just hook your USB connector to your computer and get your content that way.

3. No one has e-ink technology in color yet. That's still a few years away, and one interview I saw stated that it is something Amazon is working on for this. The e-ink is an important feature, since it is far easier on the eyes that the LCD displays you see in computers, PDA's and other readers. Interview where this was said: http://www.charlierose.com/guests/jeff-bezos

4. Amazon has instilled ways of bypassing the $0.10 fee when sending yourself documents. It's just not direct, since it uses email and you have to hook up to your PC and load the files yourself once Amazon emails the converted format.

5. As a beta tester, I've had the privilege of downloading more than 100 books, and I can honestly say that the pricing is quite good, and in all instances was less than retail, not to mention no shipping costs.

6. 3G wireless service is generally expensive, and you have to pay a monthly premium. With the Kindle, there are no monthly fees. You pay for your device and books, and that's all. It doesn't take much time for it to pay for itself.

7. You're not going to find a broader selection of books for any other ebook reader. Not only can you purchase ebooks from Amazon, but ebooks you may have for Mobi applications, or even txt/html format books from the Gutenberg project convert and can be viewed on the Kindle just fine. This also includes Google ebooks, which you would access via the web browser the Kindle has.

8. You CAN access your email with the Kindle. Just use webmail!


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Posted by Blogger at 10:42 AM