My Month with the Amazon Kindle 2

Note: The following review was posted to my closed blog, PROSELADY, and is reproduced here in its entirety.

Bottom Line: I love my Kindle, I'm already addicted, and I'd rather read on it than anything else, especially paper. (That's it. You're done. Don't bother reading on unless you're curious.)

The Long, Windy Review

I'm a reader. In fact, it's fair to say I've had a love affair with books all my life, and blindness is about the only thing that could prevent me from reading every single day. [Read about my somewhat traumatic eye troubles and book love here, if you're interested.] Therefore, Amazon Kindle ownership seemed to be made for someone like me.

Here are the Top Ten things to love about the Kindle, and a few quibbles, following.

PROs:
1) Size. It is a perfect size, almost exactly the same as my Moleskine journal, but much thinner (without its cover—I bought the Amazon-designed leather cover with the hinges, which suits me fine). And it's light—just 10.2 oz, without the cover. I used to carry at least one trade-size paperback in my briefcase every day. Now, it's just the Kindle. Because I can leave those heavy books at home, I find myself only reading what I can read on the Kindle, too. About the limited selection of books, well, see below.

2) eInk. It's so easy to read on the Kindle that I now prefer it to reading on pretty much anything else, including paper, computer screens. Billboards are possibly the only thing easier to read. eInk does not tire my eyes the way a bright computer monitor does.

3) Ease of use. It was easy to figure out--quite intuitive! I did read the user's guide and downloaded two other guides as well so that I would know the ins and outs. Menus are easy to use and I really like the 5-way controller. Buttons are well placed. The keyboard reminds me of my cell phone keyboard (I have an LG enV2); keys are small but quite serviceable and the spacing is more like a keyboard than the phone. The ability to change the font size has to be one of my favorite features, for someone whose eyes aren't what they used to be. That feature makes reading on the treadmill possible for me.

4) Instant Gratification. Talk about instant gratification! Whispernet allows me to download a sample and then if I'm enthralled, I can buy the full version of the book in under a minute. I've done that twice now. In fact, it's so easy to buy books from the Kindle or from the Amazon website, that I've spent more than I care to admit here on reading materials since I got the Kindle. And free 3G network is sweet, too!

5) Virtual library. I wanted a Kindle so that I could convert my massive library to an electronic library, and it's letting me do just that, a little at a time (because I just can't afford to convert hundreds of volumes at once). Now that I have a Kindle, I can see that I will really want to do this as soon as affordable and as soon as the books are available. I cannot wait to donate my physical books to some worthy cause as I replace them. (See why I need an e-reader here.)

There's a lot of press about the limited library available, and quite a lot of snarky comments about "only being able to load content from Amazon". This is untrue, a fact I've written to some reviewers about. A number of websites offer public domain works for free, such as Feedbooks. From that and Manybooks, together, I've downloaded more than 100 classic works of both fiction and nonfiction.

You can load anything to your Kindle that's in the following formats, either through USB or through their email conversion service.

• Kindle (AZW)
• TXT
• Audible (formats 4, Audible Enhanced (AAX))
• MP3
• unprotected MOBI
• PRC natively
• PDF, HTML, DOC, JPEG, GIF, PNG, BMP through conversion.

6) Space. Not much dusting involved with the Kindle, no bookshelves needed, no heavy boxes to move either. Gotta love that!

7) Battery life. I am a nut about battery life. I cannot stand having to charge a cell phone daily for example, and try to choose a phone that will last for days without charging. I charge my Kindle about once a week in spite of the fact that I read daily and have downloaded a number of books and samples and subscribe to a few RSS feeds through KindleFeeder. Battery life, as far as I can tell with my usage, far exceeds my expectations.

8) Dictionary and Web Browser. If I don't know or understand a word I'm reading, I just place the cursor next to the word and the dictionary launches at the bottom of the screen, displaying the word's meaning; I can go to the dictionary entry and return to the page I was reading quickly and easily, without ever leaving my chair. That's a feature physical books can't have. The rudimentary web browser does make it easy to research something in more depth as I read. I appreciate that very much.

9) Notes and Highlights. I can make notes and highlight as much as I want in any book I want. Kindle remembers those notes and highlights even if I've archived the book. My notes are searchable too.

10) Book Prices. New York Times Bestsellers and many other new books are priced at $9.99 or lower, prices that make reading more enticing than it's been in a while. Some authors offer a limited time lower price (and even free) for a newly released volume just for Kindle readers. I've gotten three or four brand new books just because I've been lucky enough to hear about the introductory offers.

CONs:
OK, after all that, you'd think I wouldn't have anything to nag about. Not so.

A) Organization. The Kindle lacks the ability to organize the library, except in the most fundamental ways. I can view my books by Recent, Title, or Author. Period. Not so bad if your library contains 10 items. A real pain if it has 1,000. Of course the Kindle is searchable, so I could find an item through that functionality. And one could archive 990 items and just keep the 10 on the Kindle that are in the reading queue. That is kind of what I've done with mine.

B) Book Availability. I want to have all my books in an electronic format eventually but not all books are available at the moment. And, just as I wish with my iPod, I wish that all my books would be compatible with my e-reader in the way that I wish all my music was playable regardless of device. Not yet.

And maybe not ever, since copy and tampering protections just aren't what they need to be to prevent unscrupulous individuals from toying with copyrighted works. The race is on between Sony, Amazon, and other smaller players for market domination. In the background, publishers are wringing their hands over what to do to save publishing in general while Amazon launches its multiple electronic publishing venues. I'm betting on Amazon, frankly, even though I'm not fond of a single entity controlling as much of the market as it would appear that they will.

C) No Desktop Application. One solution could be to have an optional desktop application like Mobipocket Reader, so that the library could be contained elsewhere (with better organization). I have the Desktop and Mobile applications on my Palm, but abandoned them because 1) the screen is so small, and 2) the titles are so much more expensive at this site. Amazon archives your purchases on their servers to make sure that you'll never lose them to device failure or computer failure, however. But a computer application that allowed me to read either on the Kindle or on my computer screen might be nice. Since Amazon owns Mobipocket Reader, I wonder if they will lean this way.

D) Text-to-Speech. While I like the idea of Text-to-Speech, the voices are far too robotic for my taste. I don't think the Author's Guild has much to worry about with this feature. It is comforting to know that, should I have more trouble with my eyes, my Kindle can still read to me.

FEATURES I'D LOVE TO SEE ADDED, SOME DAY

--Color screen
--Touch screen
--Folders and/or organizational features

LEARNING MORE ABOUT KINDLE and KINDLE CONTENT
For about three weeks, I've been subscribed to a listserv about the Kindle, just to glean others' tips and tricks. But a few blogs and websites have proven more useful. I've been doing my best to keep up with Kindle Nation, Stephen Windwalker's informative but somewhat cluttered blog, Blog Kindle, Kindle Reader, a website focused more on content than the device itself, and Kindle Chronicles, a terrific weekly podcast about all things Kindle that I've subscribed to on my iPod. Joe Wikert's Kindleville blog inspired me to follow his Tweets.

I'm looking forward to taking my Kindle everywhere with me and using it for years.