Ontic Oren

As of today, I’ve had my Kindle for two months.  I’ve read 13 books in that time, a few magazines, two newspapers, one blog, and a PDF or two.  The verdict?  It’s a good device.  It’s clearly the future.  If you’re not an insane geek, wait till something a bit better comes up.  Here’s my more in-depth thoughts:

Screen:

Amazing, and a bit disappointing.  If you’ve not yet seen e-ink, you’ll be in for a surprise.  It looks like printed text.  It is extremely readable in all lighting conditions.  The slight grey background has no impact for me at all.   The screen can display the text in 5 sizes; I’ve found that I most like the second smallest.  It’s the right compromise between jaggy and density.  The screen is only 600×800 pixels, so the smaller font sizes are noticible for not being smooth.  They are totally readable, but just not as good as the printer page.  I’d almost call them comparable to an inkjet on quick - a little messy, but totally readable.   If they could double the resolution, I’d be happy.  The single font doesn’t bother me at all, nor does the lack of formating.  Just get rid of the jaggies.

The flash: yes there is one.  The screen goes black for 1 second while it’s changing pages.  Beyond the speed impact, it’s not an issue.  At all.  I got used to it in 10 min, and don’t notice it.  Move along.

Graphics in books are a joke.  The “screensaver” shows that it’s possible, but I suppose that no one is releasing graphics optimized Kindle e-books yet.  If your book includes graphics as a key element, just get it in print for now.

Ergonomics:

The first real red flag.  Take a gander at that picture.  See how the disembdied hand is holding the Kindle?  Good, cause that’s basically the ONLY way to hold the kindle.  Pick it up anywhere else, and you hit a button.   But you don’t want to hold it that way?  Tough.  And see those nice big buttons on the side?  You are going to hit them.  Not only to turn the page, but every time you glance at the thing.  You will lose your page a dozen times till you get locking religion, and lock out the keyboard everytime you put it down.  A sneeze will change the page.  The keyboard?  It feels like crap, but that’s ok, cause you’ll use it for 5 min max.  So why does it take up 20% of the machine?

You can hold onto the included case, which gives you some more options.  Till the Kindle drops out, as it’s held in by weak little monkeys trying vainly to clamp onto the 2 square micrometers of free space that doesn’t have buttons, and even their genetically engineered hands don’t have the strength.  Especially if you’re like me and hold books in odd ways, upside down hanging off couches, etc.

Oh yeah, about that case.  You’ve been trained like a good Pavlovian OCD pigeon to lock the keyboard EVERY time  you put the Kindle down?  Right?  Right!?  Cause if not, forget it.  The cover will hit some button, if you’re lucky you’ll be 50 pages from where you were when you put it down.  If you’re like me, your battery will be DEAD.   Let’s say your lucky, and only some random location from where you originally were.  Well, good luck.  Changing pages takes ~ 3 seconds per page.  3 x 50 = 150.  That’s 2.5 minutes of flipping pages.  SO BORING.  So remember, LOCK the keyboard, even if you’re putting it down for 5 seconds.

Now, the much maligned, and well, frankly asinine back button.   This deserves a special place in hell.  The concept is great - take me back to where I was just at. The problem is, let’s say you’re reading a book, and maybe, for some reason, you might have say first started this book at the front, then flipped forward 20 pages.  Then you hit the back button.  and you’re back… to the begining.  Literally.  Yes, you now need to flip 20 pages.  It’s SO easy to hit this, and totally lose your place.  It’s in the #1 button position, begging to be pressed.  DON’T DO IT.  I have yet to find a situation in which I’m not better off figuring out some other way of getting back.  I’ve trained myself to just never hit that back button, and I’m much better for it, thank you.

Content:

Content is king, or so 18,900,000 people say.   Amazon has decent coverage, borderline acceptable.  I am constantly finding books that aren’t available however.  I’d say around 50% of the books that I’ve wanted to read have not been available, and some are not exactly long tail.  If you are into some more obscure content, forget it.  I was curious to get some philosophy books, with NO luck.  The collection is fairly similar to my library.  That’s not fair - my local library has more books.

The other aspect of content is appropriateness for format. Obvisouly, this isn’t the device to read coffee table photography books.  Unexpectedly, I’d also argue that it isn’t the device to read reference material on.  The Kindle is ideal for linear content, such as fiction or some non-fiction.  However, I often find when I read more challenging material, 10 pages after reading something, I suddenly realize I need to re-read a paragraph.  Usually it’s a 10 second flip flip, found the section, read and think, then back to where I was.  Not with the Kindle.  Here, you’ve got to find the passage, which can take a while as you press, flash, wait, scan over and over.  Then you need to get back to where you were.  ick.  This cuts out all reference, programming, and intellectual content for me.  Sure, you can search, but I need the serendipitous random search, not the computer driven kind.

Blogs and periodicals fall into the same problem.  I like to skim, and dive.  Kindle doesn’t work for that.  Stick to linear works.

Social:

Reading is inherently a social activity for me.  My family goes on trips once a year, where everyone brings books, reads everyone elses, and powers through way too many.  Not with the kindle.  No sharing here.  This may be Olivia’s #1 issue with it.  I read something, tell her about it, and basically taunt her, since I’m not going to give her my Kindle.  This isn’t really Amazon’s fault, it’s just something to be aware of.  If you do have multiple Kindle’, it actually works fairly well.  My dad also has a Kindle, and it’s tied to my account.  Although he’s in NJ, and I’m in CA, we both have full access to anything the other person purchases, barring periodicals.

Technology:

The wireless is slick.  Great signal everywhere I go, and it just works.  Surfing web pages is stupid painful, due to the screen and UI refresh.  Wikipedia access is cool, and useable.  I use the embedded dictionary at least once an hour, possibly my favorite ancillary feature.  Battery life, assuming you lock the damn thing, is great - 5 days with wireless on, 2 weeks with it off.  Although it has a USB port, that’s just for data transfer, not charging.  Only way to charge is to plug in with the wall-wart.

The sample feature is neat.  You can download the first few pages of any book for free.  It seems to be the first few pages from the beginning, regardless of the book.  If there’s a huge TOC, you may only get 1-2 pages of actual book.  If there’s not much fluff at the beginning, you could get a whole chapter.  I’ve love to see them move to the first 20 pages of “content” if possible.

Je ne sais quoi:

All things being equal, there’s still something about the paper book.  It just feels better to read on paper.  There really just is a certain something about paper.  Now, that said, I’m very happy with the Kindle.  I’m reading more, both on paper and electronically with it.  Especially for traveling, the Kindle is great.  Having 5 books on hand at once, in a light package, is wonderful.

If they fix the basic ergo issues, I’d recommend it for linear reading with a big thumbs up.  As it is, go in with your eyes open, and you may find it’s a great device.