After more than a year, I finally succumbed and bought myseld a Kindle. I got the new second generation device. I was intrigued by the DX, but thought the price was too steep, and I really did not want a device that weighed 2 lbs. with a case. So I dug into my pockets, and spent the money on the K2 (as I am calling it).
I also splurged for the $3.99 overnight, and it arrived today around 1pm. I opened the box, and plugged it in to start charging; and turned it on. Amazon pre-configures these for the user, I did not need to register it or anything. It knew it was me. The screen was set to tell me how to set it up. Very simple.
The screen is interesting, in that even when off, it displays a static picture (right now, it is displaying a picture of Mark Twain). I was surprised by it. Since I already had tried to Kindle iphone reader, I had 8 books in my library. All I needed to do was go to archive, select the book and the 3G whispernet network downloaded the books. As promises, under 60 seconds.
I ended up buying a book on Amazon, as well as trial subscriptions to the Washington Post and PC Magazine, and they showed up almost instanteously.
Now to the device. It has pretty intuitive buttons; was able to figure it out without having to read the manual (which comes preinstalled, of course). The screen is very readable. THere is a fraction of a second refresh from page to page that I think could be a little less noticeable, but all in all, the black and white screen seems easy to deal with.
Kindle also has a basic and advanced web browser, and I was very intrigued by that. So I opened it, and tried to load up SatGuys. I selected the PDA mode, since they say the browser works better on text-based devices. It was slow, but actually worked. I had a few issues with it remembering the login cookie, but in a pinch, that works. I need to try other websites.
I then tried to download a PDF to it. I setup my kindle email address, and sent a Supreme Court decision that was recently handed down to myaddress@kindle.com. In a minute, the converted file was on my device. But since they charge .15 to download private content, I decided to try the free method. I sent another PDF to myaddress@free.kindle.com, and in a minute it send the .awz file back to me. I needed to setup the device to work with windows. This is where I ran into problems. I plugged the cord into my Vista-64 machine, and it automatically recognized the Kindle, and downloaded the driver. But as soon as I went to Explorer, Explorer froze. Ultimately had to reboot. Did a google, and found out that this 64-bit issue is not unique. I did a soft reset of the kindle, uninstalled the drivers, and tried again. This time when I plugged it in, it said it needed to reformat the drive (no way). So... I turned on my WinXP netook, and connected the Kindle. It recognized it, and the drive popped up, as it should have. Transferred the file from my email to the drive, and it worked like a charm.
So, obviously there are some Vista-64 issues (apparently they are 64-bit issues, and not stuff that occurs with Vista-32 bit. I still need to play with that.
Will this revolutionize how I read? Only time will tell. But so far I am pretty impressed with it. Going to take it outside tomorrow, to see how it does in the bright light, but I think it will be ok, given the nature of the screen.
And that, dear faithful readers, is my initial review, of my not quite 6 hour old Kindle 2.
I also splurged for the $3.99 overnight, and it arrived today around 1pm. I opened the box, and plugged it in to start charging; and turned it on. Amazon pre-configures these for the user, I did not need to register it or anything. It knew it was me. The screen was set to tell me how to set it up. Very simple.
The screen is interesting, in that even when off, it displays a static picture (right now, it is displaying a picture of Mark Twain). I was surprised by it. Since I already had tried to Kindle iphone reader, I had 8 books in my library. All I needed to do was go to archive, select the book and the 3G whispernet network downloaded the books. As promises, under 60 seconds.
I ended up buying a book on Amazon, as well as trial subscriptions to the Washington Post and PC Magazine, and they showed up almost instanteously.
Now to the device. It has pretty intuitive buttons; was able to figure it out without having to read the manual (which comes preinstalled, of course). The screen is very readable. THere is a fraction of a second refresh from page to page that I think could be a little less noticeable, but all in all, the black and white screen seems easy to deal with.
Kindle also has a basic and advanced web browser, and I was very intrigued by that. So I opened it, and tried to load up SatGuys. I selected the PDA mode, since they say the browser works better on text-based devices. It was slow, but actually worked. I had a few issues with it remembering the login cookie, but in a pinch, that works. I need to try other websites.
I then tried to download a PDF to it. I setup my kindle email address, and sent a Supreme Court decision that was recently handed down to myaddress@kindle.com. In a minute, the converted file was on my device. But since they charge .15 to download private content, I decided to try the free method. I sent another PDF to myaddress@free.kindle.com, and in a minute it send the .awz file back to me. I needed to setup the device to work with windows. This is where I ran into problems. I plugged the cord into my Vista-64 machine, and it automatically recognized the Kindle, and downloaded the driver. But as soon as I went to Explorer, Explorer froze. Ultimately had to reboot. Did a google, and found out that this 64-bit issue is not unique. I did a soft reset of the kindle, uninstalled the drivers, and tried again. This time when I plugged it in, it said it needed to reformat the drive (no way). So... I turned on my WinXP netook, and connected the Kindle. It recognized it, and the drive popped up, as it should have. Transferred the file from my email to the drive, and it worked like a charm.
So, obviously there are some Vista-64 issues (apparently they are 64-bit issues, and not stuff that occurs with Vista-32 bit. I still need to play with that.
Will this revolutionize how I read? Only time will tell. But so far I am pretty impressed with it. Going to take it outside tomorrow, to see how it does in the bright light, but I think it will be ok, given the nature of the screen.
And that, dear faithful readers, is my initial review, of my not quite 6 hour old Kindle 2.