Kindle Review - One Month In
The Amazon Kindle is a significant product- it is the first e-book reader to offer a built-in wireless network connection and integrated book store. You can wirelessly buy books, newspapers, and magazines from the Kindle without a computer.
I for the most part have given up reading physical newspapers, having switched to electronic, web-based news sources. My hope was that the Kindle would be a nice alternative for my information sourcing needs when away from my computer. Here's what I found:
Design:
The size and weight of the kindle is nearly ideal. I wouldn't mind if the screen were slightly larger, or if it were slightly thinner. It definitely could use a makeover though- it definitely is not very cool from an aesthetic design point of view rather, it's mainly functional. The buttons, as many other reviewers have commented on, are far too large and far too easy to accidentally push. The user interface is unusual. The kindle uses a sort of side-cursor with scroll wheel, along with keyboard for its UI. It's easy to use, and easy to become familiar with, but, I am puzzled why they didn't build it with a touch screen interface which would probably be more natural to work with.Screen:
The screen is very good. It is very readable in bright sunlight, unlike most electronic devices. It's less readable in dim light, due to lack of a backlight, but that is a correctable problem (with a portable reading light for example). The screen has a slightly gray look to it, and I'd say it has a similar look and contrast to traditional newsprint. The Kindle displays black and white (with some grayscale). I have read hundreds, if not thousands of pages on the Kindle, and it works fine as an e-book reader. I do wish the Kindle opened up to have two screens, to more closely mimic a real book, as I find myself turning pages a lot more than I'd like to.Wireless Book Store:
The star feature of the Kindle is its wireless book store, and, I think it works great. I have bought several newspapers and books for the Kindle. Buying is quick and simple. The book-buying experience even has reviews, helping you make your decision. Buying newspapers and magazines needs some improvement- you don't see any headlines or stories, so deciding whether or not to buy is a much tougher decision than it needs to be. When given the choice of buying a physical book or newspaper or a Kindle version, I would choose the Kindle version. The convenience is that good. For magazines, I think I still like the physical magazine because of a better handling of color pictures- the Kindle has no color.Extras: Internet, MP3 Player
The Kindle comes with a few extras.- Web browsing - There's a very simple web browser built in. The keyword here is simple, as this browser has a very hard time rendering all but the simplest web pages. If you stick to the mobile version of web sites, you'll have much better luck. But, the download speeds are rather slow. This is one area I'd love to see improved. Despite having a much larger screen than the iPhone, the web browsing experience is far inferior to the iPhone.
- MP3 Player - There's also a very simple MP3 player built in. It has virtually no features other than letting you play a list of MP3 files. Again, I'd love to see this improved, as I listen to a lot of podcasts.