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Guardian Article on Kindle“Tech it to the max: great gift ideas”
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Kindle 2–many things to love.
As one of the original Kindle’s biggest fans and an owner for over a year, I can speak to the Kindle from two perspectives–the benefits of owning a Kindle, and Kindle 2 improvements (as I’ve now had it for half a day)
The benefits of owning a Kindle (these do not change)
- Absolutely, Jeff Bezos is right that the Kindle ‘disappears’ as you read it…as I read other reviews (and non-user critiques) about the Kindle, this point is often lost. Once you have the Kindle in your hands, you forget everything and become immersed in the content of what you’re reading. Isn’t that really the whole point?
- I read more now that I have my Kindle, 10 years out of college than I did when I was in school, and I really enjoy it. Books look a lot less intimidating when they aren’t sitting on your bookshelf and 3 inches thick. I recently finished Team of Rivals, and I am sure that if I had to read it in book form, I would never have gotten through it because it would have felt so intimidating.
- Heft and weight is a complete non-issue with the Kindle. I like to read in odd positions (in bed, on the couch, on a plane, poolside, shifting around in a lounge chair) and I’ve always had trouble with real books because unless you are in the absolute middle of the book, it always is weighted to one side or another and frankly, my arm and pinkie finger gets tired holding it up. The Kindle is balanced and portable, and entirely usable in any situation.
- I can be in the middle of a lot of different books at once…not much more to say here. You never run out of space on the Kindle, and though it may be a little bit hard to maneuver around a lot of books in your library, it’s still better to have access to all your books at any time.
- I now read newspapers. I always found physical newspapers to be clumsy and take up too much space to actually subscribe to. They are great for short content pieces, but terrible for reading in transit because the pages are so big. I also read some articles on my BlackBerry, but find myself scrolling a lot and waiting a long time for page loads. On the Kindle, you have wireless delivery, easy navigation, no ads, no need to flip to page D17 and find the place where you left off. You also have a searchable/annoted/bookmarked archive of all your newspaper articles if you ever need to find something again.
- All of these things can probably be accomplished with any eBook reader. The difference with the Kindle is that you have wireless delivery of content. This means, literally, that I can be sitting on the plane, start talking about what good books the guy sitting next to me has read recently, look it up on my Kindle, read the reviews and download it before the rest of the passengers have boarded and the plane doors close. This has happened.
- My biggest complaint, which I’m sure will be addressed in due course is that the entire wireless benefit does not exist outside of the US. I have taken my Kindle to Canada, Mexico and China, and I found that I had to (gasp), decide what I wanted to have on my Kindle before I left the US. Foreign language support would also be a plus, but again, I see why this might come later.
Now, onto improvements with the Kindle 2
You can also choose, male/female and speed. I think this could be a nice feature, though probably won’t be using it all the time.
- There are the obvious ones: sleeker look and feel (it feels solid in your hands), sharper screen, no longer accidentally depressing the next page button by accident and having to find your place in the book again…you can read about these from various sources)
- The 5-way button, though a bit small, allows you to select left and right, and not just up and down like the original version. This is very helpful when you want to select and highlight.
- There are now two layers of interaction…before when you were reading a paper, you could only go back to the previous screen to select the next article. Now, there is an option at the bottom of the screen to skip to the next article when you tire of the current one.
- Page loads are much faster. I can feel that the delay between pages is much less. Only issue is I need to recalibrate now–in general, I try to anticipate how much time it will take the next page to load, and when I’m two lines from the bottom, I would hit the next page button. Now I need to push the button later.
- Text to speech is cloogey, but fun. I’m not sure how useful this will end up being. I tried to have the voice read the user’s manual to me and it paused at commas and periods, but skipped right over hard returns. It also scrolled the page as it was reading, so if you are trying learn English and don’t mind developing a metallic accent, it could really help.
- Managing your books is much easier. It’s easy to see what is in your archive and re-download onto the Kindle. Also easy to delete and manage your books. That 5-way button is magical…though a bit unintuitive–you need to train yourself to think that there might be something useful if you scroll to the right.
- Dictionary is improved. Now you can highlight a word and it automatically gives you a definition at the bottom of the screen. It also lets you look up words (that are not in the text), which is an improvement since the last version.
I’m sure there are still a bunch of things that I haven’t yet discovered about the Kindle 2. I don’t really bookmark/annotate/highlight that much, but for those who do, I think this has also been improved upon.
Overall, the Kindle is an amazing product. It did the basics well in the original model, the Kindle 2 has improved on a lot of dimensions, and I look forward to seeing what new bells and whistles are still to come.
If you are considering buying one, and need to see before you order, find someone in your city who has one and can show you. There is now a special board for this on Amazon. Kindle owners (at least this one), are always happy to talk about it, and you will be delighted with the screen and the possibilities in such a compact package.
Soul of the e-reader; Kindle 2 gets closer to delivering the promise.
I’m a great believer in the e-book concept; having been reading e-books since the Apple Newton (and down through various Palms, Sony Reader PRS505, and Kindle 1). The dream has always been a portable electronic device that could hold a ton of reading material, automate subscriptions and facilitate quick easy downloads, and be as portable, as easy on the eyes, and as intuitive as a book.
The Kindle 1 was the first really practical device to get close to that dream. The combination of the reflective e-ink screen, effortless Whispernet wireless cellular connection to Amazon (and the Internet – without requiring hooking up to a computer, ever), and Amazon’s tremendous ability to rope in a critical mass of book and periodical content made the promise of the e-reader real for the first time. But the Kindle 1 had some rough edges that got in the way of effortlessly reading. Things like the buttons that made it easy to accidentally turn pages; the separate cursor on the side that could only select lines and was sometimes hard to see; the occasionally awkward menus; the case which practically forced you to remove it to use it and sometimes pulled the battery door off. With the Kindle 2, Amazon has addressed all these issues and more. Each of the differences looks superficially subtle, but they collectively combine to make the Kindle 2 feel polished and comparatively effortless to use. It comes closer than any other device yet made to getting out the way and leaving the reader alone with the text, like a book.
The first thing that grabs you about the Kindle 2 is how elegantly thin it is. The Kindle 2 is THIN. It positively disappears in your briefcase. The second thing is the buttons. They are smaller, but well placed and critically pivot from the edge inwards towards the screen. This means that when you handle the Kindle 2 by the edges, the pages don’t change even if you grab by the buttons. Yet changing pages is effortless when you do – the buttons are right between your thumbs and the slightest pressure on their faces is enough to activate them. The problem with the case was addressed by using a post-in-slot locking arrangement reminiscent of recent Palm organizers. The fact that you must buy the case now is disappointing but the silver lining is that you can opt to individualize your Kindle. The issue with the battery door opening is thus solved, but Amazon went further, eliminating the door altogether and wrapping the back with sleek stainless steel. It is tactile and elegant, but doing away with the door means doing away with the SD memory card slot that the Kindle 1 had, as well as the ability to change batteries. This is, undoubtedly, the most controversial aspect of Kindle 2. Frankly, I never used either the card slot or changed the battery on my Kindle 1 but I liked that they were there and I miss them on the Kindle 2, even though, I have to admit, I don’t actually need them. In practice it’s no hardship to live within a 2GB (1.4 GB available) limit, especially if you are willing to trust Amazon to archive items you are done reading. The screen is incrementally improved. 16 shades of gray is WAY better than 4. They say it’s faster, but only a tiny bit. I notice the snappiness of Kindle 2’s performance, but it’s certainly not a dramatic difference. The e-ink screen’s text quality is basically unchanged from Kindle 1. 40% white is pretty good, but the Kindle 2’s screen looks just like the one on Kindle 1. Where the improved e-ink screen really shines is dynamic update – which is fast enough to allow a live cursor within the text area. This does away with the scroll wheel and side cursor of Kindle 1. In Kindle 2 this has been replaced with a 5 way joystick (4 directions plus click down to select). The joystick does plenty more than just allow you to actually select a word to get a definition on. It lets you quickly navigate periodicals – moving to the next article with just a click right or left, or up to the section or article list with a flick up or down. Losing the side cursor gives Kindle 2 a cleaner look – but it’s the greatly improved navigation that’s the real benefit. This ease of navigation is one of the most compelling new features of Kindle 2 for me. As for the text to speech feature, it is probably invaluable to some – but not me. I like Stephen Hawking a lot but don’t want that voice to read me a book. Talk to me later and maybe I’ll have changed my mind.
All in all, Kindle 2 feels like Amazon is getting to the soul of the e-reader. Most of the annoying things about Kindle 1 are gone, but almost all the strengths remain, or are accentuated. The trouble is, the differences are subtle. At first glance, Kindle 2’s enhancements look very incremental; almost trivial. Clearly the future will hold color, and better contrast than 40% – but these enhancements are in E-ink’s court, not Amazon’s. I have other items on my wish list for the future – like being able to fold out a larger screen to better display bigger books. I’d like the content manager to allow me to create folders so I can organize my growing collection of titles. I really really want Kindle to be able to read PDF files natively (you still have to e-mail in your PDFs for conversion with Kindle 2). These thing will come, I’m sure, in time. Meanwhile, the Kindle 2 is currently the best e-reader on the planet. In terms of in-the-hand usability it blows Kindle 1 away.
Some of my colleagues and I at work have been talking lately about the implications of the Kindle on the future of the book. Kindle eradicates page numbers, loses the physical form, forces all books into a common size and shape, and homogenizes the typeface. Clearly something is lost compared with a printed book. Yet, what is gained is undeniable and as impending as the weather. The ability to carry whole libraries (like the iPod did for music), and the ability to get the daily paper, magazine, or a new book automatically – practically instantly – at a savings – is literally a dream come true. There’s little doubt that Kindle has utterly transformed the book distribution model. The big divide seems to be Amazon’s .azw, Kindle’s file format, and .pdf, Adobe’s Acrobat format which has become almost universal. PDF’s universality has the feeling of almost being open source (which it is not) because the there’s no copy protection or copyright features built into it. While .pdf-only format readers are around, and tons of .pdf titles are available, they tend to be composed disproportionately of public domain, technical libraries, and other arcana. That’s because mainstream publishers don’t want to sign on to a format that doesn’t protect them. Amazon’s .azw format does, and thus Kindle has that awesome selection of content. In the modern economics of increasing returns, early critical leads in technology tend to become dominant trends. Kindle’s .awz format seems to be on the verge of having an unsurmountable lock on the e-book market as a result. When it comes to the actual book titles (and periodicals) you’d like to read, Amazon’s Kindle has no competition. For me, the dream of a workable e-book is realized.
Great in so many ways!!!
There were many reasons I decided to purchase a Kindle – my hands ache when holding a book open, I get headaches from reading stuff on the computer, I wanted something I could throw in a bag and take anywhere, and it holds so many items that I don’t have to carry three or four novels with me in case I’m bored or finish one. Nothing could prepare me for the actuality that is Kindle. It integrated seamlessly into my life. If I’m at the desk, it’s beside me; if I’m in the bedroom, it’s on the nightstand; I even take the silly thing to the john. It’s so much easier than a book.
I expected it to be a little awkward at first, but it really *does* get lost in your hands. Suddenly, you look down after a couple of hours of reading, and realize you’ve been holding it all along and forgotten all about it. I expected to read novels and blogs on it. I never expected to be able to download all the .pdf technical manuals that I constantly have to weed through on the computer. I work effortlessly now, looking at the computer, working through a segment, picking up the Kindle, searching for what I need in the manual, even highlighting it, or putting a note in the manual about how well it works.
Note taking is my big thing. When I’m looking at a book, I always find note-taking to be an instinct I have to avoid. I see it as a destructive process. I don’t want to ruin my books. Further, who can really concentrate on what they’re reading with a pen in their hand? It’s two different mindsets. Yet, with Kindle, I do just that. I read a segment, I find a passage, I underline it. I have an opinion, I drop in a note. A question equals another note. When I don’t understand something, the dictionary is right at the bottom of the screen to define the word or teach me how to pronounce it; or I can surf to the web and find exactly what I need.
It’s so much better than surfing the web on my phone – and far more practical. For one thing, there’s no charge except battery power (no pun intended!). For another, all of my research is in one place. The book, notes, websites and highlights are all together – as they should be.
I know a lot of people complain that it should have a bright screen so that you can read it at night, or that it should have color. I say – nay! The main *strength* of Kindle is that it reads *exactly* like a book. No eye strain. No having to turn away every few minutes to relax your eyes; or ending a session of reading with a headache. No “hot lap” or mousing around to find the right page. It’s just like a book. You hold it, you turn the page, it’s effortless, you forget it’s there. Only what you’re reading matters, and that’s exactly how it should be.