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Why and How the
Kindle Changes Everything
By Steve Gibson "eBook
Lover" November 25, 2007
Amazon Verified Purchase
"This is less a "pros and cons" review than a hopefully useful
commentary about the Kindle compared with other eReaders and
what it means for the eBook industry. (I believe that everything
has changed with the Kindle's creation.)
For many years I have been an avid reader of eBooks using almost
every eReading device on the market. So as an early-adopter of
techie gadgets I had been anxiously awaiting Amazon's Kindle
since its first rumors. So I immediately purchased it both out
of curiosity and hoping for a better "next generation" eBook
solution. In case you're wondering whether I'm "that" Steve
Gibson, I probably am -- I'm the guy who gets Google's first
three or four links when Googling my name.
I was driven to write this review because it is somewhat
distressing and, it seems to me, a bit unfair for the Kindle's
average review rating to be dragged so far down by Kindle
NON-OWNERS who, judging from their comments, seem to be quite
annoyed by all of the positive comments about a device that's
expensive, monochrome, not a general purpose media player,
unable to leap tall buildings, or in some way less than they
were expecting, wanting, or hoping. In contrast to non-owners,
the people who actually HAVE Kindle's appear to universally love
it, though with very valid caveats. I think of this as "The TiVo
Effect" since, for the right sort of user, the Kindle will be
life-changing ... but it certainly won't be that for everyone.
Although it took me a few days to get completely comfortable
with it, I am now hooked.
So, for what it's worth, if this posting is discovered by any
truly interested pre-purchasers, I hope that the following
commentary might place the Kindle in "perspective" and be of
some value to you. (And if it is, I hope you'll click the button
at the bottom to indicate that, so that this review might be
found by more potential buyers ... Thank you!)
I have read many novel-length books on my various Palm's, I
owned the original Rocket eBook, and I own both generations of
Sony's eInk readers, the PRS-500 and PRS-505. So my clear bias
is of someone who enjoys technology for its own sake and who
loves the idea of reading books on a "device."
Amazon's first-generation Kindle arguably has a few warts (see
below). So depending upon your needs, budget, willingness to
purchase a "first-generation" gizmo that you might regret
purchasing and want to replace a year from now, and so forth,
you might well decide to wait for the next generation Kindle
that will doubtless be even better. But whether you choose to
jump aboard now or later, Amazon's entry into the eBook market
is a BIG deal -- it forever changes the game. I think there is
no doubt that for the first time ever, a substantial number of
people who were never captivated by ANY previous eBook system
will find themselves reading and enjoying textual content on
Kindle's eInk screen.
The weird initial love/hate reaction to the Kindle is being
compared with Apple's iPod, which was also initially met with
striking polarization. We all know how that turned out. :)
Although the iPod was far from being the first portable MP3
player, and critics called it a copycat, it was the first
portable music player to go mainstream, and it changed the
world. I believe that, similarly, the large and tightly
interacting collection of Kindle features, that go far beyond
those of any other previous eBook attempt, will cause the Kindle
to be the first eBook to succeed. By connecting their massive
book library, as well as newspapers, magazines, blogs and the
Web -- wirelessly -- to a long-battery-life chunk of consumer
plastic, Amazon has kicked eBooks into the mainstream.
Is the Kindle perfect? Not yet. Is it expensive? Yep. Does it
feel like a first-generation product? Absolutely. Will I
purchase the next Kindle too? Please let me be first in line!
Investing in Kindle's future...
From a DRM (digital rights management, aka eBook
copy-protection) perspective, my eBook content ownership is
already spread around all over the place; from Mobipocket, to
Palm eReader, to Sony Connect, and now to Amazon Kindle. Sure,
that annoys me a bit, but it's the price one pays for being an
early adopter of technology that isn't yet ready for prime time
... as, until now, no eBook system has been. Sony's efforts came
the closest, but that all ended for Sony (and everyone else)
with the introduction of the Kindle. Existing owners of other
eBook formats will certainly continue purchasing content for
their devices, but who in the U.S. would purchase a new $300
Sony eReader when for an additional $100 they could have the
Kindle ... which is so much more than any of the other
"disconnected" read-only devices?
In other words, given that Amazon is Amazon, and the fact that
they already, right out of the gate, offer so much more than any
other previous solution, I feel comfortable now building up my
eBook content ownership with Amazon. Sure, I've been wrong
before, but this is where I'm placing my bet. I won't be
purchasing any more content for Palm's eReader or Sony's. And I
like the fact that the content I am purchasing now for this
first-generation Kindle will certainly always be readable on
whatever future generation devices Amazon's efforts will evolve
into.
Look Ma, no wires!
The huge deal with TiVo was time-shifting and commercial
skipping. The huge deal with the Kindle is its wireless
connectivity. Being a "traditional" eBook user -- i.e. download
into PC and "dock" the eReader to upload -- I didn't 'get' that
at first. Now I'm as hooked by that on the Kindle as I am by my
Tivo's ability to whiz through endless commercials. The Kindle
brings the same sort of freedom and power to textual content
that the cell phone brought to voice communications.
Sure, I'll purchase eBooks for the Kindle. But I have subscribed
to a newspaper and two magazines ... and it is truly a paradigm
shift to have their content "just be there" in the morning all
by itself. And the periodical content is clean, blessedly free
of ads, unnecessary pictures and distractions.
An ugly duckling in need of forgiveness?
Like many people who worship the infinitely-understated elegance
of Apple's iPhone (and many other Apple creations), the Kindle's
appearance put me off at first. I was as vocally critical of the
darned thing as any of those "one star" reviewers. When the
first early photos of it leaked a few months before its release,
I thought "No way, what a joke! That must be an early balsa-wood
mock-up." Now that weird angular wedggie is sitting here next to
me as I type this. And I have forgiven it because something odd
happens after using it for a few days: You begin to realize that
it really works ... and it works well. (And have you ever tried
actually typing on the iPhone's all-screen keyboard?)
Did someone say "warts"?
The Kindle's screen appears to have slightly lower contrast than
Sony's second generation reader, but much more than Sony's first
generation offering. Also, the Kindle's fonts are *far* superior
to Sony's, extremely legible, in six sizes and with real
italics, not just algorithmic slanting. I'm a bit annoyed that
the line-spacing is so large on the larger fonts since page
changing is an "event", but, again, this is just the first shot.
And speaking of page changing, I am not a big fan of the page
navigation on this first Kindle. So much of the device is
devoted to making page changing easy that it's difficult to pick
up and handle the device without inadvertently changing pages.
But once you're settled down and reading, the fact that only a
thumb-twitch is required is nice. One way or another I'm sure
that Amazon will get plenty of feedback about everything ... and
the next one will be even better.
You want to charge me what??!!
There's also been a great deal of confusion about Amazon
charging for the conversion and delivery of our own content into
our own Kindles. Amazon *only* charges for wireless delivery,
the conversion is 100% free. If you eMail your content to
YourKindleName@kindle.com it's converted and downloaded into
your Kindle for 10 cents. But if, instead, you eMail your
content to YourKindleName@free.kindle.com it's converted and a
link to the converted file is eMailed to your registered eMail
address at NO charge. You can then download it and use your PC's
USB connection to transfer the content to the Kindle.
Moreover, the FREE MobiPocket v4.2 Creator will convert many
formats -- HTML, MS Word Docs, Text, and Adobe PDF into .PRC
files -- nicely compressed and encrypted if you wish -- which,
when transferred into the Kindle are directly readable. I have
converted two large eBooks which I already had in PDF format
into native Kindle format and they work perfectly -- no cost and
no Amazon involvement at all. And I'm sure that quite soon there
will be all sorts of free Kindle content converters popping up
all over the place.
So I'm glad that I purchased this first-generation device, and
that I'm participating in the first real wave of eBook industry
creation. None of my other eBook readers offer nearly what the
Kindle does. Thanks to Amazon and their Kindle, eBooks have
finally happened."
Amazon has taken an e-reader that was already good and made it
even better.
Amazon's Kindle has come a long way since Mr. Gibson wrote his
review of the original Kindle in 2007. Today's Kindle is a
slimmer, more compact design than previous Kindle. Other
improvements include improved screen with higher contrast and
faster page turns; native PDF support; large library of hundreds
of thousands of e-books, newspapers, magazines, and blogs via
Amazon's familiar online store; Wi-Fi access to Amazon's online
store; built-in keyboard for notes; with 4GB (3.3 usable) of
internal memory, it's capable of storing 3,500 electronic books;
eight fonts available, including two new extra-large sizes;
excellent battery life; displays image files, and plays MP3 and
AAC audio. |
