I also like to read at lunch, and to me there is no bigger reading buzz kill than trying to manage silverware and 750-page novel at the same time (especially when the novel is towards the beginning.) Keeping those pages weighted down with salt-shakers, ice-water tumblers, and other at-hand implements is neither easy nor relaxing. With the Kindle, I simply turn it on and prop it up. Pages are turned by pressing very large buttons located both on the left and right of the Kindle. Making it a wonderful lunchtime companion. It’s also great to read in bed, for much the same reason. No more unwieldy and hefty tomes to balance while I’m propped up bed. (So sue me, I like really long novels!)
Adjustable Type Size—This is a great feature for the middle-aged and elderly amongst us. You can bump up the font size incrementally—all the way up to “I-really-ought-to-get-reading-glasses” size.
Keeps your place—Ever fall asleep and lose your place in a book? Forget to bookmark or dog-ear a page? The Kindle always saves your place. If you want to mark a page for reference, there’s a cute little dog ear graphic in the top corner of each page. Place an electronic bookmark and the little “corner” turns down just like a real dog-eared page.
Battery Life—Like most electronic readers using "e-Ink," the Kindle’s real-time battery life is about two weeks or more. If, that is, you use the wireless feature only when needed. Flip it on to download your books or browse in the store and turn off when you’re done. The device itself uses very, very little energy.
Needs improvement:
The Back Cover—Maybe it’s just my personal device, but the back of my Kindle keeps coming loose. It’s a nuisance, and it should snap in place more securely than it does. Without the included book-cover (which is great), I believe I may have lost the back of the device long ago.
Buttons—Don’t get me wrong; I love the big, accessible page-turning bars. But accessible location also makes them too easy to flip accidentally.
Color—The Kindle would be extra cool if it had color ability. Maybe in its next life; I understand that Kindle 2.0 may not be too far off in the future!
Page Numbers—I like to know what page I’m on. I just do. The Kindle tracks your reading progress by paragraph rather than by page. I do understand why, especially if you’ve bumped up the type size, you can flip page after page without seeming to have made progress. Although I’ve grown accustomed to this “new” way of judging my progress in the book, I really miss those page numbers.
Article comments
1 - abhi
hi barbara -
we run a kindle blog and i've just started a books and kindle based social network (the alpha release is july 21st however we've been letting people sign up since saturday night) and would appreciate it if you'd join and help build the community. it's at amazonkindle.ning.com.
also there are 3 free kindles to be won during the alpha and beta stages (basically one free kindle every month).
thanks
abhi
2 - Barbara Barnett
cool Thanks for the invite!
3 - Dana Vinicoff
Hi, Barbara,
Your experience with the Kindle is very much like mine - down to the piles of books and, perhaps, the purchase of the book by Rabbi Donin. May you continue to enjoy and learn from it.
Dana
4 - Barbara Barnett
Indeed, Dana. It is Rabbi Donin's book! The possibilities for the Kindle are endless as the techonlogy allows: textbooks without destroying trees (and ruining our children's backs!). Thanks for stopping by and enjoy.
5 - Ruvy
Barbara,
The way I figure it, a Kindle Reader would cost at least 1,200 shekels if we had someone bring it in the country for us. That's a lot of scratch. But, a similar reader put out by Google that would give us access to the university libraries that are being digitized would be worth the money.
Excellent review!
6 - Barbara Barnett
Thanks for popping in, Ruvy. It would be amazing to have a device--this one or any--allow us access to University library collections.
The Kindle is expensive, but no more so than the other readers. And so much better than reading downloaded books on a phone, PDA or computer. Much easier on the eyes!
7 - Ple
I have been one of the beta testers for this product. At first I thought "Who needs this when you can read a book?" Wrong! I will never forget the Sunday evening when my wife and I (also a beta tester) were sitting in the living room when our brains shifted. This device represents a new way to access information. If it was only a "book reader" I doubt Amazon would have been interested. It downloads new material, books, newspapers, magazines, blogs,etc. nearly instantly. The search function reviews all the books on the device plus the web. I love it. I can read a book easily look up a word I don't know in the dictionary and then find other related material in my library or on the web. It is easy to use and light weight.
If you want a book reader it does this well, as does the Sony Reader and other devices. If you want to experience a new way of obtaining, reading, and accessing information, this is the new wave.
8 - Barbara Barnett
You are right, PLE about the difference between the Kindle and all other e-book readers. It's all stocked up and ready to go with me to Alaska! I would normally bring 5 books with me for a cruise (more given the 6 hour flight duration to even get to the cruise). that's a lot of extra weight I'm NOT carrying. And if I feel I want something else--or a peek at the New York Times when I'm in port, I can buy it right then and there.
9 - bliffle
I've been told that the screen is very readable, the best, according to some. It's readable in sunlight, too.
I'd like to have a Kindle as long as I could load it with my own content, a lot of which may come from Project Gutenburg, etc. If it had an ability to play some sounds through an earbud, that would be nice.
10 - Barbara Barnett
Hi Bliffle,
reading in sunlight is not an issue at all (it's not backlit). It has a built in mp3 player and a headphone jack. And an SD slot as well. You can read word files and some others as well.
11 - Marco
Kindle is definitely a good device with nice features and design, but I think Sony PRS approach is more user friendly in terms of content distribution. They have quite big ebooks library (and +500'000 more after alliance with Google) and aren't bounded to a local WiFi like WhisperNet.