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Amazon wireless electronic book reader
Pros
Small, portable, battery life, wireless
Cons
Book sharing, price
Recommended it?
Yes
The Bottom Line:
A well thought out device, good for reading with good wireless integration. A little pricey.
I'm overall impressed with the new version of Amazon's book reader the Kindle 2. It works well for reading book content and the interface stays out of your way, preventing interference with your reading experience. I'll admit, I bought the new Kindle because I was intrigued by the new E-Ink display technology. The original Kindle (Kindle 1?) was mildly popular, but reviews kept me away for a few reasons. The Kindle 2 improves on battery life and package size and weight, so I jumped in to try one out.
The basics of the Kindle are pretty simple. It's a device you can load multiple types of content on for reading and it supports a free wireless cellular data network provided by Amazon in the USA. For content like books, magazines, newspapers and websites that you order from Amazon and pay for, wireless ordering and delivery is free. You can mail documents to a provided email address for your Kindle, and Amazon will convert them to the Kindle format, sending them to your device for 10 cents each. Or you can download any content you like freely from the internet, or files you already own locally, and transfer them to the Kindle over a USB interface.
The Amazon store is the only place to purchase content for direct wireless transfer to your Kindle. The nice aspect of this is the built in store interface. You can purchase new content either from the Kindle, or on the Amazon store, and it will be sent to your device. Amazon says books will transfer in under 60 seconds. I've only purchased two large books so far. One took 2 to 3 minutes to be transfered, but appeared on the device promptly after that.
The wireless option can be turned on and off manually. You need to turn on wireless if you want purchases to transfer or for software updates to be installed. Other than that, you can turn off the wireless when you don't want it for longer battery life. Amazon says you'll get about 4 days of battery life with wireless on and 2 weeks with wireless off. I've only had my Kindle 2 for a single charge so far, so will have to come back and summarize battery life in an update.
The book reading feature is easy to use. Once you have purchased or loaded some material on your Kindle, it will appear on the main page (the Home page.) You can return to the Home page any time by pressing a Home key on the front side of the device. When you do, the Kindle remembers your location in any book you are reading, so that returning to it will take you to your current page.
There are some additional features of the Kindle. It comes loaded with a dictionary. You can use the dictionary directly for word lookup, or you can use it while reading a book. Just highlighting a word in your current book, using the mini-joystick on the front of the device, pops up the definition of the word immediately. In addition, there are some items marked experimental on the Kindle. They are a web browser (using the cellular data connection), an mp3 player, and text-to-speech feature.
For the moment, web browsing seems to be free. From the user agreement, this doesn't seem to be guaranteed, so maybe it will change in the future. The mp3 player requires you to load music on with the USB connection, which you can then play while reading. The text-to-speech allows the Kindle to read book content to you.
So far, I've liked reading on the Kindle. It's only a little heavier than I'd like in a reader, but not so heavy that it's hard to use for reading in bed. The display is almost like paper. I found that I could forget about the screen while reading and it looked like a printed page. I did, however, think it had lower contrast than normal paper, with the background having a darker gray color than your average book. The black print has a nice dark gray color.
You will notice a flash while turning pages. Every time the display updates, the entire screen seems to flash black for the screen redraw. It doesn't take very long, and I was used to it pretty quick.
I'm mixed about how I feel about the Amazon store and book purchases. The average new release or bestseller seems to be $9.99. That's not a bad price for a book you plan on purchasing. It doesn't appear you can give it away to someone else when you have read it, and I don't believe you are allowed to transfer books to someone else. (Although you can buy multiple Kindles on your own account, and then load books from your account on any or all of your Kindles.)
Overall, I like the device. I'll need to use it for a longer period to see how I feel about it for the long term.
The basics of the Kindle are pretty simple. It's a device you can load multiple types of content on for reading and it supports a free wireless cellular data network provided by Amazon in the USA. For content like books, magazines, newspapers and websites that you order from Amazon and pay for, wireless ordering and delivery is free. You can mail documents to a provided email address for your Kindle, and Amazon will convert them to the Kindle format, sending them to your device for 10 cents each. Or you can download any content you like freely from the internet, or files you already own locally, and transfer them to the Kindle over a USB interface.
The Amazon store is the only place to purchase content for direct wireless transfer to your Kindle. The nice aspect of this is the built in store interface. You can purchase new content either from the Kindle, or on the Amazon store, and it will be sent to your device. Amazon says books will transfer in under 60 seconds. I've only purchased two large books so far. One took 2 to 3 minutes to be transfered, but appeared on the device promptly after that.
The wireless option can be turned on and off manually. You need to turn on wireless if you want purchases to transfer or for software updates to be installed. Other than that, you can turn off the wireless when you don't want it for longer battery life. Amazon says you'll get about 4 days of battery life with wireless on and 2 weeks with wireless off. I've only had my Kindle 2 for a single charge so far, so will have to come back and summarize battery life in an update.
The book reading feature is easy to use. Once you have purchased or loaded some material on your Kindle, it will appear on the main page (the Home page.) You can return to the Home page any time by pressing a Home key on the front side of the device. When you do, the Kindle remembers your location in any book you are reading, so that returning to it will take you to your current page.
There are some additional features of the Kindle. It comes loaded with a dictionary. You can use the dictionary directly for word lookup, or you can use it while reading a book. Just highlighting a word in your current book, using the mini-joystick on the front of the device, pops up the definition of the word immediately. In addition, there are some items marked experimental on the Kindle. They are a web browser (using the cellular data connection), an mp3 player, and text-to-speech feature.
For the moment, web browsing seems to be free. From the user agreement, this doesn't seem to be guaranteed, so maybe it will change in the future. The mp3 player requires you to load music on with the USB connection, which you can then play while reading. The text-to-speech allows the Kindle to read book content to you.
So far, I've liked reading on the Kindle. It's only a little heavier than I'd like in a reader, but not so heavy that it's hard to use for reading in bed. The display is almost like paper. I found that I could forget about the screen while reading and it looked like a printed page. I did, however, think it had lower contrast than normal paper, with the background having a darker gray color than your average book. The black print has a nice dark gray color.
You will notice a flash while turning pages. Every time the display updates, the entire screen seems to flash black for the screen redraw. It doesn't take very long, and I was used to it pretty quick.
I'm mixed about how I feel about the Amazon store and book purchases. The average new release or bestseller seems to be $9.99. That's not a bad price for a book you plan on purchasing. It doesn't appear you can give it away to someone else when you have read it, and I don't believe you are allowed to transfer books to someone else. (Although you can buy multiple Kindles on your own account, and then load books from your account on any or all of your Kindles.)
Overall, I like the device. I'll need to use it for a longer period to see how I feel about it for the long term.
