A friend turned up tonight with a Kindle which he bought out of Amazon in the US for around $350.00 Oz and generously let me play with it for about 5 minutes which makes this a kind of first impressions report.
With its thickish device sandwiched between heavy covers with some sort of mock leather finish the whole thing reminds me of a half size executive diary. It feels relatively substantial but not overly heavy and I was surprised by how bookish it actually felt to hold. However inside the covers is where the action takes place and the small grey screen occupies less than half the footprint of the device with its adjustable black on grey print. The screen is not touch sensitive but with the large font size I saw, it seems reasonably crisp and eminently readable in a variety of lighting conditions. Not sure about daylight but I did try it under strong lighting to get these pictures.
If the screen was surprisingly better than I expected I have to say the controls were quite the opposite. The page turning buttons annoyed me greatly after a couple of pushes, the miniature joystick bottom right definitely favours right handed people and the keypad in the middle seemed designed with very heavy operations in mind. Compared to my iPhone, the mechanic UI is frankly, quite primitive. The software does the job but I didn’t really warm to idea of pushing lots of different buttons, it reminded me of a bad mobile phone.
Despite my dislike of the clunky controls I think this version of the Kindle probably has almost enough going for it to tempt the well healed tech head who might like to read a few “books”. Apparently the battery life after a book downloaded and installed is around about 2 weeks but that isn’t a patch on the battery life of the cheapest paperback in my library. The other issue is of course the e-junk issue, I can turn my books into compost pretty easily but I’m not sure a Kindle will decompose quite as benignly.
In short, don’t buy one unless you are the kind of person whose life is measured by the date of manufacture on your latest toy. It might be almost as good as reading a book but then we already have books for reading so if you want to read a book, go and beg, borrow or buy one and start reading. Simple.
Of course there are lots of other things you might conceivable end up doing with an eBook, frankly I think the whole concept is a marketers wet dream but that’s another story. In short the Kindle works pretty much like it should but it cost you a pretty sum and it probably costs the planet more. What’s more the whole concept, the idea that you might pay a lot for the technology and bugger all for the media content probably tells you more about the Kindle than any five minute review.
“In short, don’t buy one unless you are the kind of person whose life is measured by the date of manufacture on your latest toy. It might be almost as good as reading a book but then we already have books for reading so if you want to read a book, go and beg, borrow or buy one and start reading. Simple.”
No, don’t buy one unless
- You like having a whole bunch of reading options (including web content) immediately accessible wherever you are.
- You like to be able to search books. For example I’m currently going through all the Tyrion chapters from the George RR Martin novels. Much easier than lugging all the novels around and manually searching.
- You like to pay less than half price for books (in Australia at least). My monthly book spend has gone from $200 to less than $100. Kindle pays for itself.
Myself (a techie) and my wife (not a techie) both use our Kindles constantly and instinctively. We get more reading done, and enjoy it more. That should tell you all you need to know about the Kindle and other eReaders.
I think you missed the point of this post pretty completely, perhaps less time reading a kindle and more time actually paying attention to the the issues I raised. Certainly you are saving money on your book purchases but where does the money you do spend, including the cost of the kindle, go? I have seem evidence that “publishers” are already exploiting their marketing clout to pay less to writers while they continue to profit from their reductions in cost vis-a-vis the eBook. Kindle is not a technology we need nor is it one that we have to have, it is simple another way of commodifying our culture with the usual capital advantage to the big end of town sold as user convenience to the general public.
(edit) In one way I don’t have a problem with the idea or the technology, in fact if you can show me a kindle that 1. is 100% recyclable, that contains no toxic chemicals, has the same life expectancy as a common variety paperback and doesn’t cost me anything more than I pay now for second hand or give away books then I might be interested but given those considerations no product developer is ever going to see a future market. However early adopters who pay a premium to be the first to have something help to subsidise the development model, your choice and not mine. Personally I think there are plenty of other pressing issues for humanity to address before we start devouring another piece of culture for the sake of a quick buck.