As I have promised, here is my review of my Kindle 2.
Introduction
Last Christmas I got my wife a Kindle 1 for Christmas. It is probably the best gift I ever got her in terms of her happiness. I personally thought the thing was overpriced. However, after her positive experiences with the device I started thinking I might enjoy one. A few months later the Kindle 2 came out. The thought crossed my mind that I might buy a Kindle for our trip to the UK last spring, but couldn’t bring myself to do it. But my wife did think it was a good idea last month and graciously bought me one as a present for our trip to Maui. I got to enjoy it for a couple of weeks before we left, and got a really good idea of how nice the little critter is on our trip.
Description and Photos
First, the Kindle 2 as it looks asleep (with screen saver up). On the left and right side are various control surfaces. The display is electronic ink which means that it looks a lot like paper. It isn’t back-lit, and it has a resolution like a book. You have to look through a magnifying glass to see the pixels – much higher fidelity that your average computer monitor. This means that spending hours with your Kindle won’t strain your eyes like hours with a computer. At the bottom there is a small keyboard which can be used with the built in dictionary, for taking notes, and shopping the Kindle store. You can also email and web browse, but I have not done so as it costs $$$$$, so I will not be reviewing those features.
First things first: sliding the spring loaded power button will take the Kindle in and out of sleep, and holding it in the tensioned position for about 10 seconds will turn the Kindle completely off.
The primary navigation starts with the right side of the kindle. The Home button will take you to a listing of all of the books on the device. You can navigate to consecutive pages of your home screen with the Next Page button (or consecutive pages of any document).
The home page displays the books and periodicals that have been downloaded to the Kindle. Below each listing is an approximation of the size of the book in dots, with darker dots indicating how much has been read.
A 5 point device is used to navigate up, down, left, right and to select. The Menu button will display a context sensitive menu and the Back button will return one to the previous context. I’ll get to an example of this shortly.
On the left side of the Kindle is a second Next Page button that does the same function as the right Next Page button. The Prev Button navigates to the previous page of a book, or listing.
Remember that context sensitive menu from before? Here it is popped-up on the home screen. Here I will click on the 5 way pointing device to select the Kindle store.
In the Kindle store you can select items to purchase. If you are in Sprint coverage, the ebook or magazine will be downloaded for free. You can also plug into a computer with the USB cable. You may also email items to your kindle (it has an email address @kindle.com) such as an HTML, PDF, Word, or RTF document and Amazon will charge you 10 whole US cents to convert it to the Kindle format and send it to your device.
Back to what Kindle is best for: reading.
While reading I occasionally come across a word I don’t know. I use the built-in dictionary to look it up. Using the 5 point device, I simply navigate the cursor to the start of the word:
At the bottom of the screen the Kindle displays a quick definition:
When that isn’t enough, clicking enter will navigate to the main dictionary:
Clicking the Back button takes one back to the book where you left it.
Summary and Conclusions
The Kindle 2 costs $299 new from Amazon.com. For that price one can pick up a decent netbook, or even a low end laptop. So why buy a Kindle? I can think of a few good reasons:
- You are passionate about reading.
- The Kindle has a far superior display to a computer, and is also superior to a book.
- Kindle books are often cheaper than the paper versions, especially new books that are only available in hard cover. I read that at about book 80 the Kindle breaks even because of the discount.
- There are a lot of public domain books available for free around the internet. Google books is a good source. Getting these books on the Kindle is easy and dirt cheap.
- Many authors trying to make a name offer their books for cheap or free on the Kindle store. There are some well-reviewed books in this category.
- You want to go on vacation and take a few books but don’t have the space? The Kindle is tiny, weighs very little, and can pack literally hundreds of books.
My conclusion is this: I love my Kindle. It ranks up there with the classic iPod as a terrific device and game changer in the market.
Edit:
A couple of other quick notes. First, you can buy the Kindle here. Also a couple of stats: this has a 6″ diagonal screen, compared to the Kindle DX with has a 9.7″ screen for $489. I will also be posting a smaller second review to cover the optional case, and how the Kindle docks into it.
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