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Kindle: Amazon's Wireless Reading Device | 
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| Brand: Amazon.com
Category: Amazon Devices
Buy New: $359.00
Rating:  5530 reviews
Sales Rank: 1
Color: Bisque
Media: Electronics
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 7.5 x 5.3 x 0.7
UPC: 892685001003
EAN: 0892685001003
ASIN: B000FI73MA
Shipping: Eligible for Super Saver Shipping
Availability: Usually ships in 3 to 4 weeks
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| Features:
| » | Revolutionary electronic-paper display provides a sharp, high-resolution screen that looks and reads like real paper. | | » | Simple to use: no computer, no cables, no syncing. | | » | Wireless connectivity enables you to find, buy, and read instantly—whether you’re in the back of a taxi, at the airport, or in bed. | | » | Shop the Kindle Store directly from your Kindle. | | » | Buy a book and it is auto-delivered wirelessly in less than one minute. |
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| Customer Reviews: Read 4990 more reviews...
 From a longtime eBook reader and technology writer: Three stars. November 20, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This will be a short, no-nonsense review that tries to summarize everything a savvy non-Kindle owner needs to know.
The Good:
(1) Whispernet. This is the killer feature. No need for USB cables, card readers, installing applications (so no compatibility problems, it doesn't matter whether you're Windows/Mac/Linux or even completely computer illiterate). Subscribe to a newspaper and magazine and it automatically shows up in your Kindle the moment it's released. Buy any Amazon.com Kindle title immediately with the push of a button and start reading it now. No credit card numbers, no long forms to fill out, no waiting.
(2) Extra features. The web browser is spectacularly useful. Use the web anytime, anywhere. Look anything up in Wikipedia no matter where you are. It costs nothing extra. Play MP3 files. Do keyword searches that automatically search (a) all of your books, (b) all of your magazine and newspaper subscriptions, and (c) online / at Wikipedia. Super-fast access to knowledge.
(3) Design. It doesn't feel so "techish" as other eBook readers, which is interesting because the device is Linux-based. The white plastic and simple buttons and squarish construction make it feel more book-like and more organic for those who are technophobic. The giant buttons for next page/previous page are genius and make reading a decidedly non-technological experience on the Kindle.
(4) Price. Though the reader is pricey, the titles on Amazon's Kindle store are very cheap. Nearly any title is $10 or less, much cheaper than print and much cheaper than most other eBook formats or stores. If you buy a lot of reading, you'll save money even though the initial cost may be higher.
The BAD:
(1) No folders, no indexing, no organization. All of your books will be shoved into a single, long, many-pages-long title list. If you only have a dozen books, you'll only have to browse through a couple of screens full of titles to open and read one. If you have hundreds or thousands of books (for example, I have several hundred), you will have literally hundreds of pages of titles to page through, one page at a time, to find the book you want and open it. You can jump straight to the "R" titles by pressing the "R" key, etc., but it's still unwieldy, especially if you have 20-30 (several pages of) titles for each letter. You can't "search through titles" (you can search, but any search you run will search through all the text in the device and also online, meaning a long list of results). Intolerable. No folders or indexing in a device that can store thousands of books?!? Almost a deal-killer. Imagine living your life having to keep every document you ever use, create, submit, or receive in single, giant filebox with no folders. Same problem. Amazon needs to implement folders... BADLY. Anyone with a long reading list should think twice right here, and this is 90% of the reason why I give the device only three stars.
(2) DRM. Any Kindle files you buy are locked forever to your Kindle(s). When Amazon someday goes out of business and/or retires the Kindle line, you will no longer have access to the books you bought. If you want to switch to another brand of reader, you will no longer have access to the books you bought. Don't expect to be able to print and/or share the books you bought. You're actually "renting books long-term" rather than buying them. You won't be leaving these books to your children someday.
(3) Case/cover. The black case/cover is just cheap. It should either have been beefed up or left out. It doesn't clip solidly enough into place, holds in the center rather than at edges (so that the book can slide around and fit crookedly at times), and closes via an elastic band like the ones that you find in underwear and pantyhose waistbands that sag and stretch and wrinkle and fray very quickly. Why no snap or zipper? Beyond me.
(4) Shoddy construction. The materials aren't poor, but the workmanship may be. My new Kindle came with buttons that don't quite fit and/or are a little bit crooked or slightly out of alignment. It's not "defective," just "cheaply made," which is a shame because with better tolerances and quality control, it would be a very nice fit/finish device.
CONCLUSION:
If you are a mature bookworm and just want to read books, from cover to cover, and don't want to bother with computers, technology, "learning how to use" eBook readers as a separate appliance, etc., then this is the reader from you.
If you're a gadgeteer with no particular love for the medium of the book as a physical thing, then this is clearly NOT the reader for you, as the "design flaws masquerading as features" list will drive you nuts (i.e. DRM, no folders, no way to use the inherent computing features of the device outside of the basic reading features). It's not hack-friendly.
If you're young, look elsewhere. You'll break it and you'd probably prefer the more tech-oriented design of other units anyway.
If you're somewhere in between all of these, ask yourself: will you be buying books over whispernet, or are you going to just be reading Gutenberg eBooks or other free eBooks that you want to download with your computer? If the latter, look at Sony. If you really will use the subscriptions and instant buying ability of Whispernet, then go Kindle, there's no competitor right now who comes close.
 The Best Gift I've Given Myself This Year November 20, 2008
Well, since the gift-giving season is almost upon us, I thought I'd review my Kindle. Right before a big trip this year, I thought I might be doing more travel in 2008 and beyond than I'd been doing for a few years, and I decided to give myself a lovely graduation gift, so I started looking at electronic books. A friend has a Sony e-Reader that he'd let me paw, and I liked it, but he was already having to jump through some hoops to get books, so that seemed like a bit of a negative to me. The Kindle had been out for a while, but I was leary of spending almost $400 without touching it for myself.
Still. I figured if I bought it and hated it, I could return it, so I went for it.
Wow. I have been overjoyed with this purchase. As my poor long-suffering fiance comments - he's a Kindle-widow. I try to tell him he's a book-widow, but... I LOVE to read. When doing almost anything else for fun, I always have to ask myself, "But, would I rather be reading?" (Hence, my picking up and putting down all knitting and stitching type projects, stamping, jewelry-making, and other other cool hobbies that many of my friends do!). The Kindle, therefore, has made my travel life much easier - I no longer have to put 3, 4, or more books in my carry-on and my suitcase just to see me through a couple of plane flights. Instead, I pack one paperback or magazine for take-offs and landings... and my Kindle, with its over 120 books on it currently.
But let's get to the nitty gritty of this review - details!
Kindle is available exclusively from Amazon.com and the current price is US$359. It comes with USB capability, so you can upload books, text files, MP3 files, PDFs, and etc. to your Kindle from your computer. I've never used my USB cable. Instead, I take advantage of the proprietarily named Whispernet. When I turn on the wireless access, I can connect to the Web (very minimalist surfing capabilities - I'd rather use my phone's browser most of the time)... and to the Amazon Kindle Store. The Kindle store (neither via browser nor via Kindle)is not great for browsing, although you can search by genre, and the Amazon recommendation engine is at work. On the other hand, if you know what you want to buy -- in under 3 minutes, you can find, purchase, and have downloaded the next book in that series you're reading, the new book by that author, or whatever you're looking for. Your Kindle is tied to your Amazon account, so your credit card on file is automatically charged (which can be dangerous if you're not paying attention to how many books you're buying), but the speed and ease of delivery made me a chain reader for a while when I first got my device!
Kindle books are less expensive than most of what you'll buy for a paper book, although just in the last few weeks, the prices have gone way up. For the longest time, I didn't find any books - including those brand-new hardcover bestsellers - that were selling for more than $9.99. Most paperbacks were more like $5.99 or around there. The last hardcover I bought, however, was more. Still, a quick glance through the front page of the Kindle store at Amazon shows that only three or four books on the first few pages were more than that $9.99 standard -- new hardcovers for $11.99 and $14.99. Searching from high-to-low on price shows that there are some multi-thousand dollar text and reference books available, but if you're talking your every day fiction and non-fiction that you might pick up in the airport bookstore -- you'll pay between $5-$10.
One of the things that most concerned me when I considered picking up the Kindle was book availability. I do read many of those airport books, but I also like literature, science fiction, fantasy, historical fiction... You get the idea. I didn't want to invest in this and realize I couldn't get the books I wanted! There are currently around 200,000 books available for the Kindle from the Amazon store, about 85,000 of which are fiction. I have been a little disappointed at not finding some books I truly wanted to read on the Kindle, but the selection of books they do have is pretty good. I'm not going to kid you - it's one of my wish-list items that more books in the genres I like most would be available, but I've also found many new authors through trying what I found on my Kindle. I've liked being able to download a sample. It's about a chapter or two of the book (from the beginning) that lets you get a pretty decent page test in before you buy. Once you buy, you do have one quick chance to return (oops, I clicked the wrong one type of thing), but after that, the book is yours. No sharing (or so the rules say - I haven't tried it). It's easy to store books on the Kindle - I think I had almost 80 or 90 before I started wondering what my space was like. I bought an SD card and slid it in the back and feel like I can go on forever now. You can also delete books and redownload from your Amazon account or computer.
Battery life is great. Right up until you spend a lot of time with the wireless turned on. Wireless use really whacks the battery life, but since I'm mostly using it to buy and download a book, it doesn't impact me too much. I've gone for a long weekend with fairly heavy book reading with no need to recharge. If I don't turn on the wireless, I've gone almost a week, in fact. The joys of the electronic paper, where the battery power is only being used to turn the pages. Related to this is the backlighting and readability. There is no backlight. This keeps the battery life long and the readability high. Have you noticed that when you try to read on a computer, your eyes get tired? A lot of this is the backlighting. Kindle has none, which means that you can read just fine in bright sunlight (out by the pool, where you can't read a laptop mostly) and in any other normal lighting. I did buy an LED booklight to take for night-time flights, when the overhead light doesn't always do enough, but that's more about me getting old than it is about the Kindle, I think. I find the Kindle very easy to read. Easier in fact than some paper books, as I can up the font size at any time when I'm feeling tired or have been reading too long. Maybe that's a bad thing, but the ability to choose from about 6 font sizes on the fly makes readability pretty good. Screen is clear and electronic ink is so much like reading a printed book that almost everyone I show it to does a double take just on that aspect.
My biggest issues with the Kindle have been around how to hold the darn thing. Where the hands in the image are holding it always seems awkward to me and doesn't really work for the lying in bed reading. I often hold it where the left thumb is, but I use my my index and middle fingers (one on each side of the device), with my thumb supporting the bottom. Sometimes I use the top area to hold it. If you try to hold on the left or right wide areas, you'll see that you'd be hitting the buttons that you use to turn the pages. Which means that sometimes, you accidentally turn a page when you don't mean to do so. Not that big a deal, but...
Okay, a few more complaints and then we'll wrap it up.
The "Back" button (NOT to be confused with the previous page button) does not act in a predictable way. Now, this is coming from someone who prides herself on knowing how to figure out technology and how things work. Sometimes the back button takes you to your book list, sometimes to a previous pages, sometimes to someplace totally unexpected. Either make it predictable or kill it.
The book list... hmm, it works well enough when you have only a few books or magazines, but not so well after that. I've got about 27 JD Robb books on the Kindle. If I try to sort by author to find them all, well, some are catalogued with periods between the initials, some with spaces, some with no spaces, some with last name first... So they don't all show up in the same place. If I try to sort by Most Recent, well, it means the most recently touched book - either what you've just been reading, what you downloaded, or what your friend opened while you were showing off your Kindle. While the search works wonderfully, the organization should be improved so the books I've got are easier to sort. They should also have a folder or categorization system so that I can put all my JD Robb books, all my Michael Moorcock books, etc, in their own folders.
Now, that issue with the cataloging - where the names aren't standardized. I suspect part of the problem there is the electronic production process. I've noticed that there are a lot of errors (small ones, to be sure) in the electronic books that don't seem to be as prevalent in the paper books. Things like "skirt" for "shirt" or homonyms or other small typo/transcription errors sneak in. They bug me because of my editorial eye and my persnickety nature, and throw me out of the story.
Charging for blogs? Okay, so they're delivered more like a magazine or newspaper and it's only the "A Listers" but not worth it for me.
Bottom line, if you are a ready who travels, this is absolutely a must-have. If you need to cut down on the number of paper books you're trying to to store in your house - again, awesome. It will never completely replace paper books for me, even though I believe in trying to live a greener life - I just love books. However, I've bought more Kindle books than paper books in the almost 6 months I've had my Kindle and look forward to the improvements that will invariably come in selection and technology to improve it.
Love My Kindle November 20, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I've had my kindle for a little over a month, and I love it! I haven't had any problems with it. The button placement and all the things people have complained about really are not a problem. I wouldn't change anything about it or it's features/capabilities.
Great Device But Cost Prohibitive November 20, 2008
1 out of 7 found this review helpful
I recently had a chance to take the Kindle for a 'test drive'. A friend loaned me hers to read a novel she had raved about.
I found the unit to be a good size with an easy to read selection of fonts, although sometimes not quite bright enough. It was a bit annoying trying keep track of where I was if I forgot to bookmark or if I accidentally hit the wrong 'key'.
I did like the Kindle a great deal, but the $359 - $399 price puts it out of my price range, so for now I'll just keep reading the old fashioned way.
 OVERPRICED!!!! November 20, 2008
0 out of 12 found this review helpful
I think that the Kindle is a novel piece of technology. However, I think that it's overpriced! Just as is the iPhone! When the time comes that both of these items have sold enough, or the technology has become more advanced to warrant a price decrease, then is when I would consider buying either!
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