kindle first impressions

[charmian]

Got some hand-on experience with a Kindle (it's not mine, but I got to use it).

I haven't really read a book with it, so until I do that, consider this an incomplete review.

Some people I talked to said that they considered the screen to be not high contrast enough. Compared to a hardback, or high quality paper trade paperback, it is of somewhat lower contrast, but IMHO, the Pearl screen is comparable to a mass market paperback. So if there's enough light, I don't think the screen is a problem. And that's really the most important thing. I get the impression with ebooks, if you are good at using computers, the most important factor in an e-reader are the display-related elements. However, the key to the Kindle's success is that they make it relatively painless for people with little tech knowledge to use. Registering the Kindle only takes a few minutes.

Form factor: The form factor really makes it clear that this thing is to be used for reading text. The other buttons are pretty darn small. They're okay for light usage, but not really very pleasant for sustained navigation of menus, or typing. The direction pad is small, the keyboard is small... The largest buttons are the navigation ones. I wonder what the DX is like? I think I would all things being equal (that is, if the DX were not costly and I had more money) prefer a DX, because that would have large buttons (probably) and also be able to read manga and image files more easily. (Haven't yet tried using Mangle for formatting manga for the undocumented, secret Image Viewer)

Web browsing: Why does the Kindle browser not default to mobile views on sites that do have mobile versions? Anyway, it's troublesome to browse, as mentioned before, because of the form factor, and because it wants to show the non-mobile versions of sites. This should be considered mainly for emergencies; a smartphone is much more suited to browsing. I wouldn't want to type an email or anything longer than a txt message on this.

Loading files: Sideloading works fine; haven't tried the more typical methods of loading in books. I used Calibre to convert some files I have, and they displayed fine. Happily, Japanese .txt files display fine. (Kindle has Japanese font support) What would make things even better would be a Japanese dictionary to look up words, but unfortunately there doesn't seem to be one available for Kindle.

Other thoughts: Anyway, with Calibre, I don't anticipate lack of .epub support being a problem, but it is too bad that Kindle's pdf support isn't stronger (I hear there are probs with text reflow), although I think I can convert those too if they are text (vs images).

Before trying out the Kindle, I had read many blogs where people talked about the need for Kindle to create apps to compete with Nook Color or iPad to court the so-called casual reader market (people who only read one book a month). With games or crosswords, the Kindle IMHO isn't really suited for games or other apps (like word processing) because of the smallness of the controls and the refresh rate of e-ink. There is little that it can do game-wise or app-wise that wouldn't be better done by an iPod Touch or an iPad. I think for someone who reads only a book a month, unless this is a damn long, difficult book, it doesn't really make sense to buy a dedicated e-reading device at all: it makes much more sense to buy a tablet, so Kindle shouldn't even bother competing.

Comments

[sub_divided]

Agreed that there's really no point putting games on an ereader, though maybe you could put something on with a low refresh rate, like chess or scrabble. Anything where you have to stare at a stationary board for half a minute before making your move.

I got a Sony Pocket Reader for Christmas. I <3 it, it feels really solid, like an object rather than a device - my brother said it "doesn't feel like technology". And since I also use Calibre to load things for free, and intend to use it mainly to read academic texts, I don't care so much about Amazon having the better software and library. The only thing I will say against the Sony Pocket is that it doesn't handle pdfs well - doesn't cut off the margins, so you can't read them at original sizes, and keeps the original line breaks when you enlarge the font. I've actually started pulling the text out of pdfs and pasting it into text files before loading these onto the Sony.

But this is a small complaint and mostly I am very, very pleased!

Better than the "casual reader" market would be the "business reader" market, with newspaper subscriptions, screens the size of regular 8.5 x 11 paper, and the ability to highlight and add notes, to export notes, and to print directly from the devise.

[charmian]

Yeah, although.... It just seems that in the future everyone is going to have a smartphone or a iPod variant anyway, so it (games) seem to be beside the point, unless they are somehow extremely-reading oriented.

Oooh! Which size do you have? What do you think of the touch-screen? Actually, the ebook store for Amazon doesn't overly concern me, however, the software is important to me (because it influences page refresh speed, for example). Is it true you can write on it with a stylus? How are you finding that?

There is a way to cut off PDF margins, I heard. PDFscissors or something of the sort? IIRC can't you convert from PDF using Calibre also?

Yeah, I hear that Asus or Acer is working on something similar. Printing directly from the device, though, would be a difficult thing, given how many drivers you would need.

I think the small screen is perfect if you want to read novels, but problems arise if you want to read anything that is really formatted assuming a larger size. The Kindle DX is rather large, and does also have note taking ability (via the keyboard), and IIRC there is probably some way to export notes, although I'm not sure about printing.

[sub_divided]

The Kindle DX doesn't allow you to export notes or bookmarks, and doesn't follow the chapter breaks in imported PDFs. I know because I looked all this stuff up four months ago, for work, when we were spending hundreds of dollars a month printing documents for lawyers who didn't want to read pdfs on their computers. We concluded that it didn't make sense to buy a reader because there wasn't one on the market that could display an entire readable page at a time, or that supported exportable or printable note-taking. We almost got an iPad for the office instead, but decided that a netbook made more sense, at which point the partners decided that they might as well start reading on their computer screens.

Perhaps these features have changed in the last four months though.

Thanks for the pointer about the margin snipper! I am definitely going to try that ^____^.

My reader doesn't have a touch screen or a keyboard. I am fine with this. When I see something notable in a paper, I bookmark it, which is the same thing I do with physical books (fold the corner over). I'll remember my thought when I look at the page later.

Refresh rate is good, but it takes a long time to resize the text for books not bought through the Sony ereader store.

Speaking of everyone having a smartphone, I was at my aunt and uncle's house in Ohio over the holidays, and every other commercial was for some smartphone or iPad like device. True, we were watching the Science channel, but there were a lot of these ads on the sports channel too. I think now that everyone has a flatscreen, high-definition television, this smartphones/tablets are going to be the next big consumer push.

[charmian]

Ah, that's too bad. Yeah, it really seems like ereaders are not suited as productivity devices for the workplace. They really seem aimed at the leisure reader.

I'm kind of uneasy about a touch screen... I would worry that it would get dirty.

Huh, I don't think there's a diff with Kindle on the resizing.

The thing w/ smartphones, I think, is that the data rates need to come down before there is more adoption. I hear that next year the price of the lower end smartphones is going to seriously drop, to the point that they are going to be $100 retail without subsidies.

[morineko]

I have the older version of the Sony Pocket (probably the same one you have, as it doesn't have the touch screen.) Despite a lot of people considering the lack of wifi/3G connections to be a drawback, I don't think it is for me. I'm more comfortable with it not being dependent on the cloud, if that makes any sense.

[sub_divided]

You mean you don't have to worry about something like Amazon pulling revoking your right to re-download self-published erotica it originally sold you because it has decided that it doesn't approve of the content?

The only time I miss the wiki/3G connection is when I can't find my mini USB cord. XD