Kindle experiences

From LLN

Kindle experiences

Contents

This page combines commentaries on actual experience with Amazon's Kindle and links to existing articles on Kindle experiences. For general notes on the Kindle and other ebook readers, go to Kindle and ebook reader notes. For notes on ebooks themselves (that is, the digital texts rather than the devices), go to Ebook notes. For commentaries on the Sony Reader, go to Sony Reader experiences.

Kindle DX reviews and commentaries

Very early commentaries for the big-screen Kindle that isn't actually available yet...

A pricey pleasure--despite many flaws

That's most of the title of a Wired GadgetLab review and commentary by Brian X. Chen published May 6, 2009. A few excerpts:

"The large-format Kindle DX is even more of a pleasure to hold and read than its smaller predecessor, but its flaws are still aplenty."

At the product launch, Amazon announced partnerships with three major textbook publishers and five universities planning to test the Kindle DX as a textbook device--and three newspapers planning to offer reduced-price DXes with long-term subscriptions. (The cellphone model at play!)

"The reader’s 9.7-inch screen does a beautiful job displaying newspaper articles. New York Times articles look even slicker and cleaner on the Kindle than they do on the publication’s web site, although the lack of color photographs is certainly a major compromise."
"Weighing only 19 ounces, the DX was very comfortable to hold. The smooth, aluminum back is reminiscent of the original iPhone’s silver case. My only issue with the DX’s design is the reader’s flimsy keyboard and the crummy joystick. The keyboard keys resemble Tic Tacs, and they’re pretty unpleasant to type with..."
"In the current state of our economy, we’re doubtful that most consumers and students will pay [$490] for an e-book reader, only to have to spend even more on content. And a real blow to digital distribution is students can’t sell back their textbooks like they would with physical books at their university bookstore. Also, they can’t buy books “used.”"

Chen concludes that consumers won't go for this at the current price in today's economy. "In a few years, maybe."

Steven Levy's take

A month after Brian Chen's commentary, Wired published Steven Levy's review. A few additional notes:

  • The DX "flaunts 2.5 times more display space. More text on a page means more lines and, if you prefer, a bigger font, without having to turn the page as often. What does that mean for you? It's easier to read via the DX."
  • Noting the addition of PDF and MS Office file support and the autorotation feature, Levy says of Office pages: "When you view those pages, it makes sense to use the Kindle's sensors for the auto-rotation... But just plain readers won't appreciate the feature. People assume weird, tilted angles when they get comfy with books... Fortunately...it's easy to turn off the pivot."
  • "Reading a long newspaper article on the DX can be daunting, as it appears like a dense block of text."

Kindle 2 reviews and commentaries

Kindle 2 review

By John Houser, excerpted and adapted from this March 3, 2009 post and this March 4, 2009 update at Discovery tools.

Design and user interface

In some aspects, the new Kindle is an improvement over the old one. It is thinner, fits the hand better and does not encourage unintended page turns like the old one did. However, Amazon has introduced two new problems that were not issues with the first version of the Kindle:

  • The battery is not user-replaceable (although there are already posts on the web explaining how to do it, anyway.)
  • Amazon removed the SD card slot, so there is no way to increase or swap out the storage.

Amazon says the lack of a user-replaceable battery is a result of the new, slimmer form factor. Fair enough. The second issue, however, appears to be a concession to publishers who do not want you to be able to share content with your friends, even if the restriction prevents you from sharing content that is copyright free or of your own creation. It may also be an attempt to further tether users to Amazon’s online services–-such as its online store of content you have purchased. (Personally, I think publishers will eventually figure out new business models that do not require digital rights management (DRM) schemes and crippled hardware–-or they will go out of business.) Whatever the motivation, the lack of expandable storage does not serve users well.

Two other minor issues:

  • My Kindle already looks grungy, because the white plastic surrounding the screen picks up dirt and fingerprints easily, and it does not come clean with water...
  • Screen updates are slow and involve flashing that can be annoying at times.

Software

The Kindle 2 software is, well, odd. It uses the physical hardware (the little, square button Amazon calls a five-way controller and the delete button) in ways that will be unfamiliar to most users. Further, it is annoying and slow to use the controller move to links in a page or to select text for clipping. A better selection method is needed...This problem is more likely to be an issue for most users when reading blogs and newspapers (which tend to be sprinkled with links) than when reading books.

The web browsing experience is poor. JavaScript, flash and other plug-ins are not supported, breaking many pages. The screen flashing is annoying, screen updates are slow and, of course, there is no color.

One feature I like very much is the ability to change the font size. When my eyes are tired, I particularly appreciate this feature, an advantage not offered by any books I own.

As a service

The Whispernet service that allows you to find, purchase, and download content directly to your Kindle works well. To my mind, this service is the primary reason to purchase a Kindle–-especially if you travel and do not like to be caught without a book. This service will only get better if Amazon follows through on its plans to make your purchased content available on other devices, such as the iPhone. The idea is that you will be able to read a book on the Kindle, put it down, pick up your phone, and continue to read the same book at the place where you left off...

Data formats and DRM

You can put new, personal content on the Kindle by e-mailing a file of a supported format (HTML, Word, PDF, GIF, or JPEG) to the Kindle at its individual e-mail address. (What...prevents my Kindle from being spammed with unwanted files, I wonder?) Personal files are not backed up by Amazon so back them up before you put them on the Kindle.

Text files are converted to Amazon’s proprietary format, sometimes incorrectly. A large but simple word file I tried didn’t convert cleanly. I would rather that my content were not converted at all, but supported in its original format. Worse, some of the content I’ve downloaded from Amazon has suffered from the same conversion problem I saw with my own file: indented paragraphs result in lines that extend beyond the right edge of the screen and cannot be read. This is unacceptable in purchased content.

Of course, copyrighted material purchased from Amazon is in a proprietary format with DRM. Thus, it is not usable on any device not supported by Amazon. You can download a copies of your purchased files to your PC...but you cannot choose a non-proprietary format.

Tim O’Reilly has pointed out another problem with the Kindle’s proprietary format. It does not support the complex formatting required by many technical books, including tables and monospace fonts for code examples. As a result, many of O’Reilly’s books are not available on the Kindle. All O’Reilly books are available in the open ePub format on the iPhone and other devices. Presumably, this formatting restriction applies to other technical publishers as well, whether or not they are inclined to support an open format.

Kindle for the iPhone

Added March 4, 2009.

I saw an article [about Amazon's new Kindle iPhone app] while I was on the train to work. I downloaded and installed it before I got to the next station! When I did, I found my Kindle books listed in the archive, transferred the one I’ve been reading to my iPhone and was whisked straight to the last page I read on my Kindle. Pretty cool.

Even better, the reading experience is better than any of my other ebook applications. The page is totally uncluttered with software interface controls. There are controls; to get to them, you tap the screen. Then they appear. To page forward or back, you swipe left or right.

Audio rights

The Kindle 2 will read your book out loud in a computer-generated voice. The quality is remarkably good. Words are occasionally strangely pronounced or given an odd accent or emphasis, but the text is quite understandable.

The Authors Guild has complained that this functionality violates an author’s copyright... I...disagree, both because the quality of the reproduction–-good as it is–-is not at equivalent to a recording of a human being reading the book, and because no new copy of the work is made or retained...

Amazon has agreed to allow publishers to decide whether the device will be able to read their books. They continue to argue that the Kindle’s voice synthesis does not violate copyright.

Editor's note: It should be noted that nearly every personal computer sold in the last five years includes text-to-speech capability--it's in Windows Vista, Windows XP, Mac OS X and Adobe Reader, as well as in many free Linux applications. Is the Authors Guild planning to sue Microsoft, Apple, Adobe and everybody else--or did AG just know that they could get Amazon to cave, particularly after their hardball against Google succeeded?

Conclusions

The Kindle is a very useful device for reading non-technical content such as novels, particularly when traveling in the United States. The screen is sharp and the reading experience is comfortable. It is also a means of acquiring the latest bestseller at a reduced cost. It is not a good device for reading technical material because of restrictions imposed by its proprietary format. Nor does it support blogs, newspapers or other highly linked content well, because of the limitations of its browser and its awkward page navigation.

Kindle 1 reviews and commentaries

Four months, two books, and a weekly magazine

By Jenny Levine, excerpted and adapted from this September 2, 2008 post at The Shifted Librarian. Used by permission.

I’ve had my Kindle ebook reader for just about four months now, and as I suspected, the amount of book reading I’m doing is going up. I know two books doesn’t sound like a lot and some people read that in a week, but for me, this is a big difference. Before the Kindle, I think I’d finished two books in two years, both when I was away on vacation... [D]uring the summer I tend to start multiple books and finish none of them.

But the Kindle is changing this, mainly because I’m using my daily commute and other travel times to integrate reading books back into my routine. I’m reading less online and more on the Kindle.... I like options, so I like to alternate between books and magazines, which just adds to the weight. On the Kindle, I have fiction, nonfiction, and Newsweek, so I always have something to match my mood. And when I needed (okay, wanted) a new title last week, I was able to add it to the Kindle in about one minute. I do take advantage of free ebooks, too. It’s like having the stack of reading material that normally piles up by the bed with me all the time.

Pros and prospects

I especially like having Newsweek automagically appear on the device at the beginning of each week. I stopped subscribing to the print version years ago because I couldn’t keep up with it, but for the grand total of $18 per year, I can get this eco-friendly, text-only version every week. I do miss the pictures, but I read it much faster and more often now. In fact, having a weekly current events magazine on the Kindle is changing my expectations of what I should be able to do with an ezine. I’ve found myself routinely disappointed that I can’t email snippets to friends directly from my highlights on the device. It makes no sense to me that something that has a keyboard and is already on the celullar network can’t do this, but I’m sure this will change in the future. I certainly expect it to.

Cons and unknowns

Overall, I’m really enjoying carrying around a library of current reading with me, but there are a few things I really dislike about the Kindle. The biggest issue is the placement of the navigation buttons. It’s just too damn easy to accidentally hit the “next page” or “previous page” buttons. There have been a few times I’ve missed having a backlit screen, although the clarity of the screen in the sun is still one of the biggest advantages. There’s a slight flicker of the screen when I “turn pages,” but I’ve gotten used to it pretty quickly. My one concern is how well I’ll be able to find text I “highlighted” six months or a year from now. Only time will tell.

DRM and availability

I’m torn about the proprietary nature of the device, even as I want more content for it. A few of the titles I’ve thought about buying recently didn’t have Kindle versions, so I didn’t get them. That’s not to say I didn’t order other titles as physical items since they’d work better in that format anyway. And luckily, a lot of the new titles I want to read are available for the Kindle, whereas they’re not available in other ebook formats. Still, I would much rather do without the DRM, and I’d still happily pay for my ebooks (”Dear Publishers and Amazon…”).

I’m ticked that I can’t check out Kindle titles from my library, but then I don’t use my library much for print books, either (partially due to...weight factors...but also because of some arcane policies they have on new titles).

Overall

So overall, I give the Kindle a B+. Rumor has it[1] that some of the problems will be fixed in version 2, although I doubt I’ll upgrade. For my needs (and YMMV), the revolutionary content delivery system (titles just magically appear) and the convenience far outweigh the annoyances. I can really sense the future of on-demand content with this device, and I think we’re only a few years away from a viable system that lets the user pick and choose granular content from disparate resources that can be downloaded from the cloud to a mobile device instantaneously.

Once in a while I miss the paper, but I’m looking forward to taking the Kindle with me on international trips, and I hope it makes it that much easier for me to read multiple titles while away. I also hope to delve into some of the hacks to make my Kindle do more, but I haven’t had time for that yet. I’ll report back again at the beginning of the year to see if I’m still happy with the device and if my book reading is still increasing.

I <3 my Kindle

Excerpts from a September 18, 2008 post by Jason Griffey at ALA TechSource blog

...I Love my Kindle. I love it the way I haven't truly loved a piece of technology since my first iPod, and for many of the same reasons. It allows me to carry the media that I love with me everywhere I go, in a form that makes it easier to organize and consume...

So what's to love? There are a number of things, but primarily it's the screen. The e-ink screen is visible in any light... In bright sunlight, the screen is magnificent, crisp and clear, and very closely replicates the resolution of the traditional ink-on-paper. It took just a few hours for me to completely forget I was reading on a screen at all.

The wireless connectivity is what separates the Kindle from other readers like the Sony’s device... The real key to the wireless access is that it gives you full access to the Amazon Kindle bookstore. Within minutes, you can be reading any of the 175,000 books available there. You click “buy,” the book is purchased, and it shows up magically on your Kindle in less than 5 minutes. That is an amazing experience, and it opens the door to some seriously reckless book purchases.

The Kindle also has the ability to bookmark, take notes, search text, look up words, and access Wikipedia articles. All of those features are useful in their own way, and add value to the reading experience on a Kindle in ways that the physical book can't.

What are the other advantages of having an electronic reading device like the Kindle? The biggest advantage that I see right now is the almost obscene number of free books being made available online. After all, you don't just have to buy from Amazon. The Kindle will read text files, html and Mobipocket files, or Amazon will convert Word or PDF files for you for free...

In the 6 months that I've owned a Kindle, I have actually started to prefer it to reading physical books...

The Kindle has changed the way I look at, consume and enjoy reading. What more could you ask for? This is the future of reading, and whether the Kindle comes out the winner for the hearts and minds of the world's readers or not, it is a brave and significant first step.

Our Kindle

By Leslie Dillon, from Leader's Digest July 2008

The eBook has arrived at last! It’s Amazon’s Kindle and we own one (well, it’s my husband’s, but he lets me use it sometimes.) It isn’t perfect and it is expensive ($400), but it’s well over the threshold of what’s needed to guarantee its success and usher in the era of the eBook.

What’s to like

  • Satisfies the 4 B’s—use in the bathroom, bus, at the beach and in bed.
  • Easy on the eyes—easier maybe than some print books.
  • Comfortable to hold.
  • Easy to adapt to. Before I’d finished my first book, I was reaching out with my right hand to turn the page — as if it were a “real” book!
  • Enough power. Lasts many days without recharging.
  • Able to accept different formats.
  • A sizable collection of both free and for-purchase books. Available best sellers usually cost less than $10. As the Kindle pipeline cranks up, more and more recently published books will be available.

And more:

  • Wireless capability. Here’s a scenario–You’re at the beach, and the weather is awful. You contact Amazon (you can even do this from your car!) and discover that the new Alan Furst novel is available. You download it instantly for $9.99. Let it pour!
  • Amazon’s energetic development of available books. An eBook reader is no better than the the books available for its use. Having Amazon as the conduit from publisher to reader is a real plus here.
  • Experimental new functions. Web browsing, GPS, iPod features, Wikipedia, and dictionary look up are available. Email and messaging are in the works. While these experimental features will need improvements to be truly useful, they should come quickly in today’s collaborative environment. Can Skype be far behind?

What’s not to like

  • Easy to lose your place. The page turning bar on the left can be easily engaged. So if you don’t pick up your Kindle carefully, you’ll suddenly be on page 500. Sliding a rubber band into the slit behind the page turning bar will help you avoid that.
  • Difficulty navigating back to your place. Sometimes when new users lose their place, it’s hard to get back to it.
  • Typeface. I didn’t particularly like the serif typeface. You can change the size, but hopefully soon you’ll be able to change typefaces.

The Kindle won’t replace the paper book any time soon, except perhaps for specialized uses, e.g., students. Key uses will be for travel, for storing and using tools that are available free, e.g., dictionaries of foreign languages, reference works of all types including encyclopedias, and for collections of eBooks downloaded from free services. Most of the classics now available on the Web can be made available in Kindle format.

Here’s a great set of over 100 tips for the Kindle linked to by George Needham, a fellow Kindle owner, on It’s all good.

Fewer Cheetos and other Kindle-related observations

By Doug Johnson, adapted from this July 26, 2008 post at Blue skunk blog. Used by permission.

"Always be wary of any helpful item that weighs less than its operating manual." - Terry Pratchett

I've been using the Kindle e-book reader now for a solid month. I'd like to be able to say that I either love it or hate it, but I can't. The reading experience isn't better or worse than a paper book, just rather different. And there have been some surprises--fewer of a technical nature and more of those that are behavioral or social. So...

  • I am much neater about eating and drinking around this device. It's one thing to get Cheetos fingers on a book page; quite another to gum up this pearly white and costly machine.
  • While it is very nice having the decreased weight of multiple books on a trip, it's almost unnerving not to be able to read during take off and landing. The airline magazines suck. I worry about leaving this machine...in the airline seat pocket--which I have done more than once with a paperback.
  • The LWW is not happy when I buy something for the Kindle that she also wants to read, such as Sedaris's When You Are Engulfed in Flames (which is very funny). She also needs to ask me what I am reading on a regular basis--sometimes 2-3 times a day.
  • The relatives who normally buy me a Barnes & Noble gift cards are now flummoxed.
  • Nonfiction doesn't hold my attention any better on the Kindle than it does on paper. I am finding the much celebrated Here Comes Everybody a little tedious. Sorry, fans. Perhaps I am just in a summer mindset, requiring my books revolve around guns, goons and gorgeous girls rather than the social implications of Web 2.0. Zzzzzzzzz.
  • It's annoying to find a book you want to read not available for the Kindle. I can see I will need to use two formats--print and electronic - for quite some time. There are some books this device just doesn't do justice to. The Back of the Napkin, which depends on graphics to get its message across, is a poor choice for reading on the Kindle.
  • I was really hoping that the adjustable font size would allow me to read without having to find my K-Mart reading glasses. It is certainly possible to make the text that big, but it then means turning the page every 30 seconds. Four or five words per line doesn't help the narrative flow. The clicking noise of the select wheel drives the LWW nuts when she is trying to get to sleep.
  • It is much more difficult to find your place after losing it on the Kindle than in a print book. And given the unfortunate, much lambasted position of the page turn buttons, it is very easy to lose one's place. If you let somebody borrow the device to play with, you can be assured you will be spending time finding your place again.
  • The device has a primitive web browser, but the software is pretty crummy yet. I don't see that Amazon has much incentive to improve it since one could use it to read for free the blogs it sells on a subscription basis. I've not yet used the device to listen to an audiobook or a song or to view a photo. I did trial subscriptions of both a newspaper and a blog. The newspaper didn't have the funnies and the blog was expensive so the subscription to neither lasted past the trial.
  • I love how the Kindle tells you the time. If you press ALT-T while reading, a small script appears that says, "Six minutes of eight." or "Half past seven." Just as though you had asked a person.
  • I am amazed at the body of support that has already developed around the Kindle. Stephen Windwalker is releasing the draft of his book The Complete Users Guide to the Amazing Amazon Kindle. Lots o' blogs, discussion groups, etc. "I was so busy learning how to use the book, I never got around to reading it," Groucho might now say.
  • My mother-in-law's biggest complaint is that Amazon allows one to read the beginning of the book rather than the last chapter before purchase. Margaret always reads the end of a book to make sure it has a happy ending before she buys it. Given that only English majors and film critics much care for tragic endings, perhaps Amazon should rethink its preview policy.

Will I keep using it? You better believe it--I've got $360 wrapped up in this puppy. It works great for trips. It's much easier to read at a table when eating alone. It has features I've not yet explored enough. And it does become transparent when the reading material is compelling. It just needs to be priced much, much lower to find a popular market.

It is the future. Have you noticed that the future always seems to take some getting used to?

Editor's notes: "The LWW" is Johnson's term for his wife--the Luckiest Woman in the World. And I'm delighted to note that you'll be seeing more of Doug Johnson's comments--and those of other school librarians, with any luck--here at PLN.

Reviews elsewhere

  • Walter S. Mossberg was less than kind in his November 29, 2007 Wall Street Journal review, "Amazon's Kindle makes buying e-books easy, reading them hard." He loves the ease of buying books from Amazon--but finds the device poorly designed with a clumsy interface, although he did find the screen "good enough to make me forget I wasn't reading the book on paper."
  • Peter Terzian compares the Kindle, the Sony Reader and print books in this December 19, 2007 Newsday piece. Terzian is less enamored of the e-ink display (both Reader and Kindle) than others, saying the "dim, dishwater-gray screen can be difficult to read except in the best light."
  • Jeff Scott discussed a range of ebook readers (and devices capable of displaying ebooks) and some of his own experience in a December 9, 2007 Gather no dust post, "Bricks, Overdrive and the scary thing I found out about myself while using e-books."
  • George Needham (OCLC) offers favorable "first e-Impressions" of Kindle at It's all good. He finds the reading experience more than good enough so that he was "thoroughly enmeshed" in the books, "as thoroughly as if I were reading the paper edition." He wonders what it means for libraries: "Do we have in Kindle an opportunity, a threat, or a parallel course?"
  • Needham also devotes an "I'm Curious George" column to the Kindle, E-ink and ebooks in general...and points to William Lund's review at WebJunction. Briefly--it's a careful review--Lund (Brigham Young University) says "This is the first ebook reader that I have not been able to put down" and the first ebook reader "that I have truly loved."

Notes

  1. ↑ It may be worth noting that an Amazon spokesperson explicitly denied rumors of a new Kindle in 2008, saying a new version was expected "sometime next year at the earliest."

Related articles at PLN

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