Kindle

[ewx]

I’ve bought a Kindle. I love it.

The screen is clear to read and the updates quickly for ordinary reading. It is not lit but the (separately sold) cover includes a small reading light powered from the device itself. I’ve not made much use of this since I’ve always had some other light source available so far, so can’t really comment on how useful it is. Battery life is pretty long - I haven’t quantified this, but I can say that I only had to recharge it a small number of times in a two-week holiday.

The small size makes it convenient to hold while reading. I don’t recall my hands yet getting tired while using it.

PDF support is distinctly ropey; for instance it could only display the first 46 pages of a PDF of a novel. (As it happens in that case I have HTML too and converting it via Amazon’s converter did the job.)

It is not the device to use for reading image-heavy books. The occasional picture of a C19^th Russian general in line with the text is fine (albeit in grey-scale) but a collection of maps at the start or end of a book suffers both from inconvenience of reference and from lack of fine detail - more a problem with the small size of the screen compared even with a paperback than the resolution of the display. (It’s also worth mentioning that the images embedded in some ebooks aren’t up to much even when a better display is available.)

Built-in 3G is wonderful. There is no telco setup to do: it’s just online automatically, all the time. Not only can it automatically download purchases, but it has a (slightly slow and rudimentary) web browser too - perfectly adequate for BBC news and Gmail. Don’t even think of trying Youtube. I assume the cost is hidden in device and book purchases. (The 3G version is more expensive than the wifi-only version, but I found it well worth it.)

It comes with not one but two decent dictionaries (NOAD and NODE), with easy lookup access for words in books you’re reading. Simply moving the cursor to a word will bring up the first line or two of the definition, and you can click through to see all the details, a brief etymology, etc.

It’s not disposable in the way that a book is, by which I mean if you accidentally damage a book you’re only out the cost of that book (if that), if you damage an e-book reader then that’s another story. In particular if you sit on it on the train then it breaks and you have to buy a replacement. It coped with knocking around in a rucksack with a bulky camera for two weeks though.

Once the replacement arrived and was connected to a power source it was very quick to get back up and running with the books I’d already bought: losing your Kindle doesn’t mean losing the books you’ve bought, nor (provided you’ve turned on synchronization) your annotations and bookmarks. I’ve not yet investigated the possibility of getting the old one repaired.

Comments

[ewx.livejournal.com]

I don’t hear much clicking. (But for all I know I’m relatively speaking insensitive to clicks.) I’ve used the keyboard lots; mostly with the web browser (gmail wouldn’t be much use without text entry…) and so far only occasionally to search. Actually most of my searching thus far, when writing reviews, has been done in the Mac app rather than on the Kindle itself.