Kindle for Kathy
2 flavors of Kindle: I got the 3G!
I’m a simple geek with simple needs. Keep me in technology, and I’m a happy girl. My latest geek fulfillment is the Amazon Kindle 3G eBook reader. It comes in graphite and white; I picked graphite. I’ve already loaded it up with stuff that lets my nerd flag fly, like all the academic-type books I got for free from the Amazon Kindle Store. I have books of fairy tales from all over the world and Spanish language learning books. I also have some Jane Austen, Edgar Allan Poe, the New Yorker magazine, and even (GASP!) a romance novel. The Kindle Store offers lots of freebies, and not just books that are public domain. There are even some current releases.
I’m delighted with the screen resolution. Even in the garish light of my office I can read the text on the screen. Oh, you don’t think that’s much of a test of how good the Kindle’s screen resolution is in bright light? I sometimes think I can get a suntan in the glare of the fluorescents. I certainly get a headache from them everyday, but, by golly, I can read the New Yorker on my Kindle! I’ll test it in sunlight next, but I expect the readability will not suffer. Here it is in the more humane lighting of my living room:
Mansfield Park by Jane Austen
You can adjust the text size, line spacing, and words per line. You can also change the screen orientation (portrait or landscape) and choose whether the in-document menu appears at the bottom or top of the screen. My Kindle, in the picture above, shows the default bottom-of-screen setting. I made the text bigger because I’m getting old and have crummy vision. The Kindle also sports a text to voice tool that lets you choose to listen to books instead of reading them (there’s a handy headphone jack at the bottom of the device).
The navigation took some getting used to. After all the time I spend with my Droid, I found using buttons to navigate a device to be a little awkward. I kept trying to select items from the menus, or turn pages, by touching or swiping them on the screen (something to look into, Amazon). I also confuse the Menu button with the Home button. My intent is to return to the list of books (Home), but I keep pressing the wrong button and ending up with the Kindle’s settings menu–which flies out on the side of the screen–rather than my book list. I actually found the four-way toggle a bit easier to remember how to use, though I can’t explain why. My brain works in strange and mysterious ways.
Kindle keyboard
I also have a little trouble jumping to places in a book or magazine, confusion I could have avoided by reading all of the very well-written and well-presented start up guide. You’d think I’d validate the hard work of my fellow technical writers by reading every last word of the start up guide before playing with my toy, but no. I scanned it for things I immediately wanted to know, just like most users. The start up guide is the first thing that appears on the Kindle’s screen when you switch it on out of the box (it comes to you charged), but just in case you prefer a more tactile version of the guide, a lovely accordion-shaped one made out of recycled paper is tucked into the box the device comes in. I really like the guide’s design. It’s pretty. Want to see it? Behold!
Kindle start up guide cover
Open Kindle start up guide
The paper version is much shorter than the electronic version, but I’m still kind of enchanted by the paper one. Id’ say I’m old fashioned, but I’m reading books on an electronic device. No wait, I’m also reading dead tree books at the same time. So…only sort of old fashioned? Hmm…
Anyway, I’m getting used to the navigation with help from the New Yorker, which I’m enjoying enormously. You get a 14-day free trial on magazines before buying them, which is pretty neat. It encourages me to try magazines I wouldn’t ordinarily buy online because I don’t want to pay for a subscription to something I’m not sure I’ll like. The New Yorker I like, and quite right, too. It’s an amazing publication, renowned for it’s brilliant writing and clever cartoons. It’s great lunch break reading. I’ll definitely subscribe.
Speaking of things from the Kindle Store, I’m extremely impressed with the download speed over Amazon’s Whispernet, both at home and at work. It’s almost instantaneous. Everything I download should download so quickly. The 3G wireless is amazing! I’m tickled to pieces with it, and the best part is, it’s free!
I also downloaded the Kindle app for Android, and the download to my phone is just as fast as to my Kindle. The interface is attractive and easy to use. Also, I can page turn by swiping the screen, like I’m used to doing. Sure, my Droid doesn’t have the battery life of my Kindle (a day vs. a month), but it’s nice to know that next time I’m stuck waiting in my doctor’s office I can read one of my Kindle books on my Droid. (For you iPhone users, there is, of course, a Kindle app for the iPhone.)
Green leatherette Kindle case
Isn’t that Kindle case pretty? It comes in a bunch of fashionable colors, including black, which is always in fashion. I went for green because, well, I sort of always do. I don’t know if you can tell from the photo, but even with the Kindle inside, it’s really thin. That’s the other great thing about the new Kindle: It’s thin and extremely light, clocking in at just 8.7 ounces and the width of a pencil (specifically, it’s dimensions are: 7.5″ x 4.8″ x 0.335″ with a 6″ diagonal screen). In fact, when I was reading the New Yorker on the Kindle at lunch today, I nearly took the thing out of the case because the case was almost heavier than the Kindle! It is lovely how it can just slip into the outside pocket of my favorite purse and be toted anywhere with ease.
The one thing I can’t figure out is how to get the eBooks I saved on my computer eons ago onto my Kindle. It claims to be able to read PDFs, so once I transfer the eBooks to it, I should be able to read them on the Kindle. I searched the start up guide, but didn’t find anything that answered to the key words I tried. And when I jack the Kindle into my laptop, it won’t let me do anything but charge it and demands that I disconnect the USB in order to use the Kindle whilst charging it with my computer. But if I disconnect the USB, then the Kindle is no longer attached to my computer, so how is it charging via my computer if it’s not connected to it? Ooh, my brain hurts! The USB must have some purpose other than attaching to the plug for charging in a wall outlet, or charging via computer–some purpose like, I don’t know, transferring data from computer to Kindle, perhaps? I’m sure it’s a user issue, and I just need to figure it out.
Speaking of the cables that come with the Kindle, they struck me as looking an awful lot like the sort you get with your Apple handheld devices. Just saying. On that note, the Kindle goes from zero to fully charged in about three hours, according to the start up guide. It arrived almost fully charged, and I finished the job overnight, so I haven’t yet had the opportunity to see how long it really takes to charge it up from dead. Oh, and the Kindle doesn’t turn off. It goes to sleep, displaying lovely, literature-related screensavers in shades of gray as it snoozes.
Shh! The Kindle is sleeping!
The Kindle Store bears the wrong name. It should be something more like, Amazon.com’s Wonderful Wubbulous Magical Shoppe of Brain Candy. But it’s just The Kindle Store. YAWN! They should have let J.K. Rowling or Neil Gaiman name it. As soon as you switch on your Kindle, it checks the store to see if you’ve bought anything or if any of your subscriptions have updated and instantly downloads what it finds. You don’t have to go to the store to get your stuff, it comes to you. You can shop from your Kindle, too, though I haven’t tried that yet. I have a hard enough time controlling myself with the non-Kindle Amazon book shop, much less the one that doesn’t make me wait a few days for my purchases. Buy book, download book, read book. Badda-bing, badda-boom. Instant literature. Yum!
The downside of the Kindle Store is, sometimes the stuff costs more than it does in dead tree format. I also discovered that you have to pay for blogs that you can just read for free online. I read Daily Kos through Google Reader at no cost, but to get it on my Kindle, I have to pay a monthly subscription fee. Not cool.
So to sum up, I love my Kindle! I can load it up with thousands (yes, thousands) of books and magazines to read anywhere, anytime (you don’t need the wireless to read, since your goodies are stored on the device). It’s like carrying a library in my purse–and I’m just enough of a bookish little nerd for that to rock the socks off my world.
