What I like about the Kindle
- At 241 grams, the Kindle is lighter than most paperback books. This is really important when travelling with airline weight allowances. Amazon claim that it will store upto 3500 books.
- I get a lot of PDF documents at work – technical datasheets, overviews etc. I can send them to my @free.kindle.com address and then read them on the Kindle. This saves having to print them out to read them later.
Make sure you use the @free.kindle address and not the @kindle one – otherwise you get charged a 3G usage fee. You can always transfer documents direct via USB but they won’t be converted to the Kindle format.
- The built in dictionary is great. Position the cursor at the start of the word and the dictionary tells you the definition of the word. At the touch of a key a more detailed explanation is available.
- If the dictionary isn’t enough information for you, you can search Wikipedia. This is really helpful for research but remember you need an Internet connection for this.
- It has a basic web browser – but you may be charged for 3G traffic. It is slow and clunky but does the job.
- You can have an American female or male voice read text to you. It’s a bit robotic but quite listenable.
- At a cost you can subscribe to newspapers, magazines and blogs. You can read this BLOG on the Kindle – click here !
- You can download free ‘classic’ books from Amazon and other places – and some very low cost ones.
- You can download free sample chapters from Kindle books – some of these have had the info I needed in which saved me buying the book !
- Battery life is very good – Amazon claim a one month battery life if you turn off wireless. I am getting less than a week with wireless switched on.
- The E-Ink screen is very readable. It isn’t backlit, but then neither is a paper book. You will get used to the screen being ‘always on’ – even in screen saver mode. The E-Ink technology only uses power to change the screen image, not to keep it displayed.
- You can annotate books and documents and share the annotations with others.
- The PC/MAC/iPhone/Android versions all synchronise with you Kindle account, meaning you can read your Kindle books on other devices. I can’t read my newspaper subscription on the PC version – only on the Kindle itself.
- It looks smart !
What you need to know
There aren’t any show-stoppers for me. However ….
- The PDF and MS Word to Kindle conversion is a bit iffy – but good enough to read.
- You can download MP3s to it and play them as background music. However, the quality isn’t awesome and you can’t change the tone so it won’t replace an iPod type device.
- You can’t upgrade the memory so more music means less books.
- It doesn’t come with a case. To protect it, I got the Amazon black leather one (without a light). It looks great – and so it should at the cost. The case folds back for one hand holding.
- There’s a slight pause and flicker when turning pages. It doesn’t bother me but other people have moaned about it.
- You can create folders to file your books in, but you can’t have sub-folders. Sounds daft but when you get a lot of books and documents on it and want to create more 9 folders, you can’t see new additions and updates without going to the second page.
- Amazon have released a larger version (9.7″ instead of the 6″) in the USA – have a look at Amazon.com
Summary
If you want a colour device to browse the web, but a tablet device. If you want a small and very portable device to read books and documents then the Kindle is better.
I think the test is if I lost it, would I replace it? The answer is a definite yes!
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