Pros: Sleek design, excellent wireless capabilities, Amazon's huge book selection
Cons: Very expensive, a few ergonomic quirks, frequently awkward software
The Bottom Line: A luxury item for certain, the Kindle 2 offers a tantalizing glimpse at the future of electronic reading, and has become my constant companion since its purchase.
onionhead2001's Full Review: Amazon Kindle 2 Handheld
Over the last few years, my life has grown increasingly virtual. My huge music collection, once proudly displayed in racks, now exists inside a five-ounce mp3 player. The discs have been shoved into a Case Logic folder and hidden away. I have already begun holding off on DVD purchases, electing to stream movies from Netflix when available. And while the loss of physical possession bothered me at first, I've come to appreciate the loss of clutter and the extra space.
It seems a matter of time before books go the same way. And with that in mind, I decided to roll the dice on a Kindle 2, Amazon's well-publicized electronic book.
The Basics:
The Kindle 2 (from here on, just Kindle) is a remarkably sleek little gadget, roughly 5 1/2 by 8 inches, and pencil-thin front to back. The screen is smaller than a typical printed page (just shy of 4 by 5 inches), but highly legible due to its remarkable greyscale e-ink technology. Below the screen is a Blackberry-style keypad, and the borders of the device are fitted with wide page-turning buttons. The Kindle is, following Apple's whim, bone white with a brushed aluminum backing, and feels sturdy in the hand. Overal, the Kindle carries a spartan and modern appearance that strikes a good balance between form and function.
Inside, the Kindle has 2 GB of flash storage for your books. There is no slot for a memory card -- 2 GB is all you get -- but this should be enough to hold thousands of books. A USB port allows easy connection to any computer for data transfer, but the Kindle's secret weapon is its cellular antenna that allows book purchases without physical connection or Wi-Fi access.
Reading:
The basic Kindle reading experience is excellent, and entirely on par with reading a phsycial book. Although the screen's base color is a liitle darker than I'd have prefered, text and graphics stand out suprisingly well, and sustained reading is easy on the eyes. It is meant to be read under normal reading conditions, with sufficient ambient light. The "E-ink" technology is not just a buzzword -- it is a literal ink that changes shade when charged. The screen looks so much like a printed page that I thought a label was affixed to its surface when I first pulled the Kindle out of its packaging. Text can be scaled to match your eyes.
The large "Next Page" button on each side of the device allows for simple one-handed page turning. This sounds frivolous, but I was surprised at how much more comfortable this was than fumbling with pages. Unfortunately, the "Previous Page" button is only found on the left side of the unit. The rarely-used "Home" button sits in its place on the right side, which is an unusual ergonomic misstep on an otherwise well-considered layout.
Turning pages causes a brief (but potentially jarring) flash on the screen. It's no more annoying than turning a real page, but the effect is admittedly strange. One benefit of electronic ink is that a static page draws no power -- even with frequent use, I haven't needed to recharge my Kindle more than once a week -- and the device doesn't need to be turned off (although it does enter a "sleep" mode, replacing the screen with one of many pre-loaded images of authors and book covers until you return to read some more).
Although there are other e-readers on the market, the Kindle is the only one to currently benefit from Amazon's tremendous business clout as a bookseller. By accessing high-speed cellular networks available nearly everywhere (Amazon has arranged a deal with Sprint), the Kindle has effectively permanent access to more than a quarter-million books sold directly through Amazon. These books can be browsed and purchased on the go at any time, and take just seconds to beam to your device. Purchases can also be made directly from Amazon's website, and it is always fun to pick up your Kindle later to find the book magically waiting for you.
This "Whispernet" service is what unequivocally separates the Kindle from the pack. Books are typically available for less than $10. Although they are priced lower than their physical counterparts, you'll need to read a whole lot of books before you break even on the initial $360 price tag. But the convenience of having so many books in one place is unbeatable (especially if you're a scatterbrained reader like I am, unable to chose which ones to bring on a trip).
You are also given the option to download free samples of books, typically the first chapter or so, which is a feature I've greatly appreciated.
Also available are newspaper and magazine subscriptions, which will conveniently beam to your device when available. It seems really cool to wake up to the New York Times delivered wirelessly each morning, but the subscriptions are offensively expensive (especially with most of these articles available for free on-line). Until the subscription costs come down, I can't see many people using them beyond the two-week free trial period.
Bells and Whistles:
The Good:
The Kindle's built-in dictionary is a fantastic boon for readers. We'd all like to think we look up the words we don't know, but let's be honest. Now, there's no excuse. You just point to the word in question (which, admittedly, requires use of the sluggish joystick), and the definition is displayed at the bottom of the page. I've been pleased that the dictionary also contains a good number of proper nouns and historical facts, helping flesh out details in many books.
A rudimentary internet browser also allows similar access to Google and Wikipedia, which is a nice touch. Although the browser allows for general web surfing, it is unquestionably meant as a convenience and not a full browsing experience. The browser is slow and ugly, and only useful in a pinch.
The only downside to Kindle's fantastic wireless access is that it drinks batteries fast. Best to keep it off until you need it. The Not-So-Good:
The Kindle comes with a much-publicized "Text to Voice" function that allows a voice synthesizer to read your books aloud. Although publishers have expressed concern that this might infringe upon their rights, I don't know what they're so worried about (although Amazon bent, and has allowed publishers to selectively disable the feature). The voice sounds better than you'd expect, but still a few miles short of listenable with its disinterested inflection and creepy pacing. It chokes on anything with non-standard characters (like æ) and resorts to spelling words that contain them. It cannot distinguish between homograms, so when Cupid brandishes his lead-tipped arrow in Bulfinch's Mythology, it is instead forged of "leed." And it stubbornly insists on reading superscripts, which means you'll hear a lot of numerals if a passage is loaded with footnotes.
Making your own annotations and highlights is a nice touch, but is addressed gracelessly. You need to move a sluggish cursor through the text using a well-intentioned but poorly-implemented joystick (it needs a rubberized surface to have more traction with your thumb). Highlighting is a simple point-and click affair, but annotations are unusual... you need to place the cursor before the word of interest in order to place the footnote after it. And the highlights and annotations do not work in concert -- footnotes can only be linked to single words, which is silly. If I want to annotate a sentence, it makes sense to put the footnote after the final word. But when you go to review your annotations, this results in the note beginning with the final word, completely omitting the sentence you intended to mark.
Typing is also a bear. The keyboard button-presses are less than satisfying, and even the most basic punctuation marks are managed through a menu. They clearly drew inspiration from Blackberry, and I can't imagine why they chose not to use a standard "alt" configuration for choosing common punctuation marks.
On the Whole:
Most complaints leveled against the Kindle are regarding its ancillary functions, and are less important for it. In its primary role as an electronic book, the Kindle performs admirably, and gains a leg up on the competition because of its fantastic Whispernet wireless access and massive selection of books.
That said, the Kindle costs $360, which isn't chump change in a recession economy, and it can safely be regarded as a luxury item. Unless you do a spectacular amount of reading, you will not save money with this device. You are paying a premium for convenience, and for the excitement of fiddling with a nascent technology that will almost certainly be vastly improved and more cost-effective within the next two or three years.
Once a skeptic, I'm now sold on e-reading. Some books will always be best in physical form (you'll have to pry Absolute Watchmen from my cold, dead hands), but the vast majority can be faithfully represented in this new format with no loss of enjoyment. I look forwrad to seeing this technology evolve, but until it does, I'm happy to keep the Kindle 2 by my side.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 360 Recommended for: Gadget Lovers - Trendy and Hip
Epinions.com periodically updates pricing and product information from third-party sources, so some information may be slightly out-of-date. You should confirm all information before relying on it.
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