The new Kindle is pretty solid
The good:
It’s light and tight. It feels like an Apple product. (The original iPod nano, to be specific.)
The screen is faster. It’s not exactly snappy, but it’s fast enough that you can actually map the UI to it. That let the designers get rid of the roller bar.
Text-to-speech is decent for non-fiction. It has no sense of dialogue, so it’s hard to hear two characters talking. But it would be great for reading a magazine article aloud while driving to work.
Quite smartly, Amazon automatically links it to your account, so you don’t have to do anything to access books from your previous Kindle.
The bad:
It’s so thin and smooth that I feel like I’m going to drop it. It doesn’t ship with a case/cover, but adding one will help a lot. (I just ordered the standard one
.)
Although it was prone to accidental bumping, I was a fan of the giant “Next Page” button. In the Kindle 2, your thumb has to hit it dead-on.
The little joystick is only okay. Nudging it around, you’re never quite sure how much pressure to apply.
There’s definitely room for improvement, but I can certainly recommend it to all the folks who were fence-sitting. Having access to so many books simultaneously — and adding new ones at a whim — is a game-changer.
For example, I was at the San Antonio airport waiting for a flight home, when I finally decided I needed to read Twilight. It was $19.99 at the airport bookstore, or $6.04 on Kindle
The Kindle 2 runs $359, and is in stock. If you order through this link
- My non-review: I can see why Twilight is so successful. Caitlin Flanagan’s analysis is spot-on. ↩
- And on the flip side, getting the first chapter free has helped me not buy a few books I otherwise might have. ↩
Articles
February 24th, 2009 at 4:59 pm
I know virtually nothing about the Kindle save for what its primary function is. That said, I’m quite interested now that I know you can buy books directly to it (wifi?) and more importantly you say that you can read the first chapter free.
My biggest issue with buying any book remotely is that you don’t get any kind of substantial preview. Maybe things are different now though.. I gave up on remote purchases years ago for this very reason.
I imagine you can find titles with the Kindle that you wouldn’t normally. I like that prospect.
February 24th, 2009 at 5:01 pm
Pfff. I’m never trading in my horse for a kindle.
Oddly enough, I bought Twilight when flying out of Burbank, read it in a day and sold it back upon my return. Saved me a couple bucks at least. But that was the paper version, because I’m not trading in my horse for a kindle, like I said.
February 24th, 2009 at 5:24 pm
Not doin it till there’s a backlight.
Vote NO on prop V.
Discrimination is discrimination.
Vampires are people too.
February 24th, 2009 at 5:39 pm
Here’s the real question: Was ‘Twilight’ less angsty on a small computer generated screen?
February 24th, 2009 at 6:02 pm
@Joel:
You’ve always been able to buy books wirelessly. It uses one of the cell provider’s data networks. I’ve never connected it to a computer.
@J:
No. No, it wasn’t.
@Synthian:
Not convinced there’s going to be a backlight soon. E-ink is opaque, so you won’t be able to just stick an LED behind it.
http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=25266
In my experience, any light under which you can read paper, you can read the Kindle.
February 24th, 2009 at 7:24 pm
The big question for us industry types…how does it fare with PDF’s, scripts in particular? I’ve heard the first wasn’t really up to the task, and wondered if they’ve managed to make it any easier the second time around. This town could save several large forests by switching to a paperless and non-eye-straining method of reading scripts.
February 24th, 2009 at 7:34 pm
The Kindle is actually quite classy; it’s like a convergence of old school and new school technology
February 24th, 2009 at 7:47 pm
Oh! gotcha… I was just hoping to not have to get up & turn off the light. Aspiring to new heights of laziness I suppose.
Eventually I intend to write screenplays horizontally in bed, with Final Draft being Epson-Projected onto the ceiling and a Hawking Industries lap-keyboard while being fed McNutrients through a straw :)
February 24th, 2009 at 10:10 pm
John,
“I married a dude.”
That was a hilarious response…just had to say.
February 25th, 2009 at 6:30 am
I’m interested in the Kindle, but I have some love for holding a book in my hands. I even like old, yellowed books. But then again, It would be nice to carry a whole bunch of them with me without hurting my arm.
February 25th, 2009 at 8:07 am
I’m half-Luddite, so can someone tell me if it sort of feels like you’re reading a real book? Or is it just a compromise you make for the convenience of reading while traveling?
February 25th, 2009 at 8:32 am
JA Can you read scripts in .pdf format on version 2? Or is the format to much for it to handle
February 25th, 2009 at 10:17 am
Ooo, I just started reading Twilight on my iPod Touch (via Stanza, the new ereader program) and I’m hooked! Not on the writing, but on the story. And on feeling like a 12 year old girl again, haha. I’m very curious to read the analysis at the link you provided…
Note on the Kindle’s speaking feature: there’s a bit of a fuss about that since Amazon doesn’t actually have the license for audiobooks and that’s essentially what it’s providing via that feature. See: http://tech.yahoo.com/blogs/null/121556
February 25th, 2009 at 10:50 am
@Jake and @Hobbs:
The Kindle can ingest pdfs, but it doesn’t retain any formatting, so scripts are pretty badly mangled — dialogue doesn’t indent right, etc. I suspect a clever person could devise a way to preformat a script so that it looks decent, but there will definitely be an intermediate step.
@Paula:
You very quickly forget that you’re not reading a physical book.
@Kristan:
I got on a long debate about the text-to-speech function on another site, which I won’t fully recap. But I see both sides. In terms of pure copyright, I think it’s closely analogous to handing the book to someone and having them read it aloud, which is clearly allowed.
Amazon isn’t selling you the audio version; they’re just selling you the text. And machines to speak text aloud (such as the computer you’re using) have been possible and legal for quite some time.
From a business perspective, the best solution might be for Amazon to find an financially attractive arrangement to sell a bundle of text plus the real audiobook version.
February 25th, 2009 at 1:53 pm
I am not the target demographic for Twilight so I have neither read the book nor seen the movie- but the buzz about it has been unavoidable. I am wondering (but not enough to read nigh on 500 pages mind) what’s with the creepy old guy hanging out in a highschool? My guess is that the fixation on skin deep appearance is enough for the intended audience to just not think about it… as long as Edward looks and acts like a skinny emo punk it is okay for a contemporary of your great great grandfather to get with the high school girl.
Can you imagine the obsessive effort that this old dude has put in just to remain current on the fashions and foibles of young adults? I can only assume that gramps has a serious kink for underage girls.
February 25th, 2009 at 2:43 pm
But I can’t take it in the tub, my absolute favorite place to read!
February 25th, 2009 at 3:19 pm
@Clint Johnson:
Mike Dougherty had a status update I liked:
@JM:
Ziploc bag and you’re set.
February 25th, 2009 at 9:45 pm
Sure First Chapters say a lot about the ability of the writer to tell an engaging story, write it with style. I use to say it’s the same with “first reel contact” for 98% of movies: if it’s not very good, it hardly ever gets any better.
Now with books one shrewd writer could start with a fine idea and be inspired for a dozen pages, even 50 pages. Then, if the novel lacks structure, if the writer adds fodder along the way to delay the climax, it shows. Have you heard about McLuhan’s page 69’s test? http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/booksblog/2008/jul/23/tofindyourperfectnovelsee
I feel it works for 98% of novels, while reading the incipit might only be efficient 80% of the time (just spitting balls in the park…).
February 26th, 2009 at 2:53 pm
I know the wireless won’t work outside the U.S…. but if you travel, say, to the UK, you can still read everything you’ve already downloaded, right?
February 26th, 2009 at 3:29 pm
Have you seen today’s xkcd?
http://xkcd.com/548/
February 27th, 2009 at 12:10 pm
I’d hardly compare a text-to-speech feature with a professionally narated book.
March 2nd, 2009 at 10:56 am
I’m just reposting this — hopefully someone can let us know — it’s the most important question for our office in terms of buying a Kindle2 for development purposes…
“The big question for us industry types…how does it fare with PDF’s, scripts in particular? I’ve heard the first wasn’t really up to the task, and wondered if they’ve managed to make it any easier the second time around. This town could save several large forests by switching to a paperless and non-eye-straining method of reading scripts.” -Jake