"I need to read something before I go to sleep. I don't care if it's the newspaper the fish came wrapped in; I have to read a little." - Robert Heinlein, Glory Road (paraphrased as remembered)
I finally broke down a couple of weeks ago and purchased a Kindle, Amazon's electronic book reader. i'd been thinking about it for a while, then decided that despite the price and potential drawbacks I'd give it a try.
Why a Kindle, rather than simply reading books from my phone or computer like I've done many times in the past? The first reason is that I'm using an AT&T Tilt running Windows Mobile 6. Though the Tilt (aka HTC Kaiser) is arguably the most powerful and flexible phone platform out there, ebook reading requires the Microsoft Reader for pocket PC. This product is terrible, and what's worse has really awful support. I purchased several ebooks, and whenever it tries to open them, the reader on my phone gets a memory leak and eats up all available memory until it hangs or crashes. My attempts at getting this fixed have largely fallen on deaf ears. Plus there's the battery life consideration; phone power on a WM6 is always a concern and this is just another drain.
What drew me to the Kindle is the idea of doing book reading - just book reading - better than anything else electronic on the market. Replicating the book reading experience as closely as possible. Carrying ALL my books, not just the one that fits comfortably in my travel gear, with me. I loved reading Bill Bryson's A Brief History Of Nearly Everything, but I never want to have to schlep it around with me again.
What do I love about it?
- Its electronic ink display is unlike any electronic reading surface you've ever seen. It's monochrome, which at first feels like a step backward. But compare it to the physical book reading experience: 99% of the books we read are monochrome anyway. The brighter the environment, the easier it is to read.
- It has a long battery life, longer still if you only turn the wireless on when you need it. Under normal circumstances I don't even turn it off, I just put it on standby. And it has a great screensaver with very nice monochrome graphics of famous writers or book illuminations, or tips.
- Its wireless communication with the world's biggest bookstore is an inseparable part of what it is. You don't need a computer. You can order a kindle-ized book (generally $10 or less) from either your device or the Amazon kindle store, and it'll download in the background. Voila! You have a new book! It's increased my book purchases (which Amazon of course loves) because it's so easy. Just like the itunes model, which I'm sure Amazon used to enlist publishers.
- I now carry a selection of books with me, and I can read whatever suits my mood. For example I have, David Sedaris' When You Are Engulfed In Flames, David McCullough's John Adams (a massive book to tote around), American Vertigo by Bernard-Henri Levy, Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA, and a Wall Street Journal subscription I'm trying out. (I started with print, moved to print+web, and am now just web edition. I think I still favor the web edition, especially with the wireless problems at my location.)
- It has a dedicated font button which allows me to easily adjust the font size. This is great, because I can easily switch the size depending on whether I have my reading glasses on or not, or how good the light is. Thank you Amazon for the design decision!
- It has essentially unlimited storage. It will hold 200 books, but you can add an SD card to increase local storage. Further, Amazon keeps the record of your purchase, and you can erase and re-download a book any time.
- The actual hand holding experience is okay. it's nice and thin, but had several relatively sharp images. I learned last week that Mark Russinovich has one too (that Bill Bryson experience might have turned him too, as I know he was reading it at the same time), and he complains about how the lower-right corner pokes your hand when you hold it in your right hand. I was using it in its paperback-like cover, but turns out it's most comfortable and natural to hold it in your left hand. Nonetheless, the ergonomics need some work; the Next Page button on the right is huge, and in general it's almost impossible to pick it up while on without accidentally turning the page. If you want to show it to someone, switch to a book you've already read or risk losing your place :-|
- There's the geek experience. This thing turns heads because it's not just a new device, it's a new type of device that's still extremely rare. I just got my luggage inspected and 20 (friendly) questions from the TSA guy searching my luggage! They thought I might have had a notebook computer in there.
What I don't love so much about the Kindle:
- The display flashes completely black briefly when you "turn the page". The manual says this is because the page is refreshing itself with each turn, and it sounds reasonable. But it's disconcerting to be reading a sentence and having a big black flash in the middle of it.
- There's very little in the way of graphics at all beyond the screen saver. It's certainly capable of it, so the lack makes me wonder if it's just because it's new enough that no one has gotten the hang of it yet...or because the screen saver graphics were painstakingly rendered by hand.
- I have almost zero connectivity at my house with the Verizon network it uses. My workaround is to purchase a book on the computer, then carry the Kindle out for an errand or something and the book downloads.
- The ergonomics are still 1.0.
- Though the selection is enormous, I can't find all the books I'd like in Kindle format.
And finally - I still have to bring a magazine along for when I'm not allowed to have electronics running at takeoff and landing!
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