-
What I'm Doing
-
My GTD Tool of Choice - Try it!
-
Vote for Topics
-
Recently Written
- My Son Teaches Me about Professional Communication
- How I Use Evernote
- Thing to Remember When Your Kids Are Driving You Frickin’ Insane
- I Have a Ton of Beta Invitations - Want One?
- The Secret to Mastering the iPhone Keyboard
- Parents: You are Their Best Friend
- Web Warrior Tools - Get Your Smart On
- Productivity vs. Social Media
- Friday Fun: Flip Video
- Brand New Site by Cranking Widgets
-
Categories
-
Archives
The tech community has been all riled up of late with regard to Amazon’s new electronic reading device, the Kindle. Chances are, you’ve heard of it and probably developed an opinion about it.
From everything I’ve read on blogs and news sites and heard on podcasts, people seem to fall into one of two very distinct camps:
“The Kindle is an ugly, steaming pile that will fall flat on it’s face and I look forward to being there when it happens.”
or
“The Kindle is going to revolutionize the way people read and if it were a girl, I’d want to slow-dance with it.”
As you’ve probably gathered from the title of this post, I’m siding with the second band (though, I’m not really in the market for a waltz partner). Here’s why:
- It’s not just a book reader - Yes, it’s primary function is to buy and read books from Amazon. But imagine that you can - for free - email amazon copies of your employee handbook, software manuals or work-related reports. Amazon will convert them to a format readable on the Kindle and send them right back to you. Connect the Kindle to your computer and copy the ready-made documents, and you’re done. It only costs money to have things sent directly to your Kindle (at a whopping $0.10 per document).
- It comes with a web browser - Granted, it’s not Firefox or Opera, but it’s a bonafide browser. Several sources report that the mobile versions of Bloglines and Google Reader work flawlessly. If most mobile-enabled sites work with the Kindle, you’ll ostensibly be able to update Twitter, Facebook, Jaiku and a myriad of other social networking sites. Did I mention that this always-on connection is freaking *free*?
- It plays audio - I don’t know what the capabilities are here, but audiobooks are definitely a viable option on the Kindle.
- I regularly have multiple books going at once (a habit I’m trying to break, but I digress). Rather than having to lug around several books in my bag (and, if you’ve ever read a programming book, you know that 2 is usually the limit), I’ll be much happier with a Kindle (which weighs less than my super-sturdy coffee cup).
I’ve heard most of the criticisms, and I think a few of them have merit. The non-backlit display, while great for conserving battery power, would obviously preclude one from reading in low light. I can understand how this would be a deal-breaker for bed-time readers.
The “clunkiness” of the E Ink display and how it flashes every time you change what’s displayed - Again, I don’t imagine having a problem with this, personally. Once you understand how the technology actually works, it makes sense that it works that way.
The price! The price! Probably the most oft-mentioned complaint about the Kindle is the $400 price tag. I think this is partially due to the misconception that it’s just a glorified Etch-a-Sketch and just shows crummy books. If this is you, read the list above (more carefully this time ;). Just know that a big chunk of the price tag is probably there to offset the cost of the wireless connection.
So, as you’ve probably guessed, I’m hoping to pick one of these bad boys up as soon as I can scrape the cash together. If you’re planning on buying one and would like to support this blog (and my subsequent Kindle purchase), please consider using this link.
Does anybody actually have one of these things? Am I completely deluding myself? I’d love to hear some more reactions (specifically those that didn’t need the approval of some marketing department) - sound off in the comments!
Technorati Tags: amazon, kindle, e ink, ebooks, reading, technology, christmas
If you enjoyed this post, won't you consider a Stumble?
Popular Posts
comments
13 Responses to “Why the Amazon Kindle is Going to Completely Rule”
Leave a Reply
Just one question: does it have DRM? If so, then it’s dogshit.
I have one and I love it! I’m glad I ordered mine the day they became available. Like you, I routinely read multiple books at once, and my kindle has already lightened my backpack. I see myself using it as a replacement for the paperback. I haven’t made up my mind on whether or not I’ll use it to replace hardcovers. (I just like the feel of them.)
I’ve also started loading my own content into mine. PDF conversion is dodgy, but most other file formats work well. I haven’t tried the audio yet. Guess I’ve fallen into the trap of calling it a “book”. Anyway, I wrote a quick review at http://ktstevenson.com/2007/11/21/amazon-kindle-libraries-in-the-palm-of-your-hand/
I think you’re confusing whether you like the sound of it and would find it useful, with whether it has any commercial legs. My guess is the answers are yes and no respectively.
“The non-backlit display, while great for conserving battery power, would obviously preclude one from reading in low light.”
That’s the whole point of it, that you can read ebooks without the screen beaming light into your eyes. You read off reflected light, like a real book. That’s why I’ve never gotten into ebooks, because I can’t concentrate on them the same way. You can get an LED booklight for like 10 bucks and read it in pitch black.
@Vince - The content you buy from Amazon is DRM’d, but I’d hardly dismiss the whole device based solely on that. Apple and the iPod would like a word with you.
@Ed - I admit, my being enamored with the device may have shown through a little more than I’d planned. But, the fact is that most of the features I mention are indeed valuable. And as much as it may not be apparent, I think the Kindle is extremely innovative in its space.
I agree with most of your points. People have strange expectations for this device. I have not handled one, but I looked at a Sony 505 recently, and I really liked the way the screen looked, very crisp. As for reading in bed, none of my current books lights up, so I don’t need a backlight. For me they could skip the audio portion completely, my iPod does a fine job with that. As for the flashing display, I suspect you quit noticing it after about the first 30 pages or so. I don’t find the price off-putting either. My husband’s subscription to the Wall Street Journal is more than $200 per year, and when he is out of town on business it just piles up, and we often miss papers or get a different one by mistake. We could get him a Kindle subscription for $120 and he would be able to read it daily from wherever he is. My recycling bags would no longer be overflowing with newspaper. I am seriously considering the purchase of one next year.
@verena - Your point about none of your books lighting up has earned you “awesome comment of the day”
Maybe I’m just old fashioned, but I don’t want to pay $10.00 for a book that I can’t put on my shelf and lend to friends. That’d be the biggest hurdle, having to buy the paper version and the Kindle version, because while I could read either and be happy, when I find a good book I want to own it, have it, lend it, talk about it, etc. etc.
1. It only works in the US. That’s the biggest bummer of all.
2. It has DRM. That means that I’ll probably won’t be able to read it again ten years from now.
I’d buy it if it had wi-fi instead, and its files were standards like PDF or RTF. Otherwise, I think it’s awesome, and I’d buy one myself if it worked where I live. However, I think it’s ridiculous to charge for subscriptions, because you can get most of it through RSS.
I’m actually between the crowds, here. I like and use e-books. I already own two different reading devices (both of which kind of suck for actual reading — but are great for reference material). I probably won’t be getting a Kindle, and I’m betting that the Kindle will ultimately fail. Here’s why:
Firstly, remember that the Kindle is being marketed as a true *reading* device: something that will revolutionize both book-reading and book-buying. That’s an ambitious goal. And, there’s a lot to like about the Kindle for that purpose. E-Ink is amazing, and the flicker on other E-Ink devices I’ve used is really not as annoying as people presume it will be. It’s less interruption than turning a real page, and the advantages in readability and battery life are well worth it.
However, at $400, your average reader isn’t going to buy this thing. I think Amazon knows that, and they’re trying (quite wisely) to position this device toward the bibliophile and technophile communities.
Since I’m both a bibliophile and a technophile, I am excited about the possibility of a truly good e-book device. The Kindle isn’t it, though it’s much closer than past attempts. There are two major types of reading I do: research/scholarly (yes, programming books fall in this category), and recreational.
The Kindle is pretty nice for recreational reading, but if you like to read materials beyond mass-market books and “stuff on the web”, the Kindle’s capabilities are somewhat cumbersome. I don’t want to have to send Amazon a PDF made from a set of documents I downloaded from Gutenberg.org, only to transfer it in the proprietary format back to the Kindle. Could they really have not included direct support for common, standard formats?
Still, not bad as a recreational reader. Not $400 worth, but not bad.
The Kindle is *horrible* for research/scholarly reading. The annotation capability is pathetic. There is *one* typeface, and it’s not monospaced. I can only imagine trying to read technical documents and books without access to the typographical conventions that lend to clarity, and without proper alignment in code samples and the like. I can’t store my annotations back to my computer in a standard form — if the Kindle line fails, gets purchased, or what have you, I can lose all my notes. Yeah, I could use a separate pad or device, but I’m not going to spend serious cash on a book-reader that can’t keep my notes at least as well as the margins of paper books can.
And, finally, the deal breaker: the DRM scheme. I’m not entirely anti-DRM, but the implementation on the Kindle prevents me from reading a book and then giving it (or selling it) to someone else. It makes it damn near impossible to lend a book to a friend. These are important features to me, and until Amazon — or someone else — figures them out, I won’t be buying any e-book reader.
I have a Kindle. Overall, I am very impressed. Route around the DRM by using non-DRMed Mobipocket. I’ve got a 4gb SD card in there loaded with literally hundreds of books, none DRMed.. The sweetest thing that never gets mentioned about the Kindle is the awesome search utility. It runs some sort of pre-indexing routine on all books when they’re added, so you can do lightning fast searchest across hundreds of books.
That said,
1. Wireless EVDO — yes, you can use this, but mine remains off 99% of the time. Very slow for web browsing and rains the batteries ridiculously fast.
2. Audio — yes it can play audio files, but the DRM gets you here too. If you want to listen to an audiobook you *have* to buy the audiobook from Audible. If you’ve got MP3s of audiobooks, like I do, they won’t work because the Kindle will only play MP3s in a random shuffle mode. That is probably the single dumbest design defect they put in there.
Hm, seems that the cinese Hanlin eReader is a better product:
http://www.jinke.com.cn/Compagesql/English/embedpro/index.asp
I think I will use US$400 to get an Asus EEE laptop instead. Perhaps this Kindle won’t fit everybody’s budget.