Amazon Kindle 2 review

[rockymtnhigh]

I would buy a Kindle DX for work if they had good PDF support. Most of our TECH docs are 11x17 format and some over 100MB. Without links, zoom, directory support or indexes current support is very poor. Cheap Kindle DX: Amazon's 9.7" Wireless BestDeal!

Not certain about the discount in that link; it ultimatevely resolved back to Amazon at $489.

Also do not know how well the DX works with PDFs in terms of bookmarks or indexes. But I just did a search in a PDF on my K2 and it worked pretty well. I searched on a term I knew occured several times, and it brought up a page with 9 hits, showing the hit in the context of the sentence, and easy to move to. But remember the Kindle's keyboard is NOT its greatest strength.

 

[Smith P.]

As for a book, I may buy audio books on my PDA to have the book read to me while Kindle users will have to actually read the book themselves. In my case I may be able to do two things at once, but with having to visually read the book, it is hard, at least for me, to do other tasks while reading a novel.

Kindle 2 and DX will read books for you.

 

[rockymtnhigh]

Amazon Kindle 2 is now reduced in price to $299. A smart move on Amazon's part. Big psychological price point difference between the two. I emailed them, and they have credited me the $60 difference since I bought mine 2 weeks ago.

Now if they could get it to $249, I think they'd see its sales soar even more.

 

[Foxbat]

When we came back from Denver, there was a woman in 1st class reading a book on her Kindle. I could see the screen flash black every time she went to the next page. The screen seemed very readable, even from a couple of rows back. Plus, no worry about pages flipping back on you if you dozed off.

Don has made the point that the Kindle's problem is that it isn't ambitious enough. Sure, you can read books and load PDFs, but without a music player, e-mail, web (FF or Chrome at a minimum) and Wi-Fi, it's just one more thing to lug around. Add Bluetooth and GSM and you've got a phone except it's too big.

I still think the world needs the MCI communicators from "Earth: Final Conflict". The pull-out screen gave you a large reading surface that could be tucked away for ease of carrying.

Back to the Kindle, I think I'd could see myself buying one for my wife, but only if our public library could download books into it. She must check out 10 books a month. It would be cool if you could go to the library web site, "check" a virtual copy of the book out for a couple of weeks, after which it disappears from the Kindle unless you pay a daily "Late Fee" to keep it on your Kindle.

Oh, and color. I am waiting for color e-paper.

 

[rockymtnhigh]

When we came back from Denver, there was a woman in 1st class reading a book on her Kindle. I could see the screen flash black every time she went to the next page. The screen seemed very readable, even from a couple of rows back. Plus, no worry about pages flipping back on you if you dozed off.

Don has made the point that the Kindle's problem is that it isn't ambitious enough. Sure, you can read books and load PDFs, but without a music player, e-mail, web (FF or Chrome at a minimum) and Wi-Fi, it's just one more thing to lug around. Add Bluetooth and GSM and you've got a phone except it's too big.

I still think the world needs the MCI communicators from "Earth: Final Conflict". The pull-out screen gave you a large reading surface that could be tucked away for ease of carrying.

Back to the Kindle, I think I'd could see myself buying one for my wife, but only if our public library could download books into it. She must check out 10 books a month. It would be cool if you could go to the library web site, "check" a virtual copy of the book out for a couple of weeks, after which it disappears from the Kindle unless you pay a daily "Late Fee" to keep it on your Kindle.

Oh, and color. I am waiting for color e-paper.

It has a mp3 player; it has a mobile web browser; it has speakers. It can play audible.com audio-books. It can play music. I can check email, browse the web. Take notes in books.

From what I have read, color e-ink is going to take some time; something about the technology. Not sure what.

As far as the screen, yes, it flashes when it refreshes the page, but you get used to it very quickly. And the quality of the text is really like ink; hard to explain, but so much easier on the eyes than reading on an iphone or PDA. And it works great in bright sunshine.

also, it only uses power when a) wireless is on; which for me is just once a day when I update my newspaper subscriptions, or download something; and b) when you refresh pages. Otherwise, it uses no power.

I am two weeks in and it goes everywhere with me. It is an awesome device. I can't believe I waited so long to get it. And for $299 its a decent price.

 

[jayn_j]

also, it only uses power when a) wireless is on; which for me is just once a day when I update my newspaper subscriptions, or download something; and b) when you refresh pages. Otherwise, it uses no power.

Just a nit, but it does use a small amount of power, a few dozen microwatts or so. The processor needs to be on in low power mode to format the display, and the display needs power to feed the lcd matrix.

People tend to think of low power mode as no power, but try putting it in a drawer for 2 months and see if it displays anything. Sorry to be anal, but this is the sort of thing an embedded engineer thinks about.

 

[Smith P.]

Just a nit, but it does use a small amount of power, a few dozen microwatts or so. The processor needs to be on in low power mode to format the display, and the display needs power to feed the lcd matrix.

People tend to think of low power mode as no power, but try putting it in a drawer for 2 months and see if it displays anything. Sorry to be anal, but this is the sort of thing an embedded engineer thinks about.

While I'm support second part of your post, but totally disagee with first one: a) this is NOT LCD type b) check eInk site how the type of dislplay working ( or Philips patents).

 

[rockymtnhigh]

While I'm support second part of your post, but totally disagee with first one: a) this is NOT LCD type b) check eInk site how the type of dislplay working ( or Philips patents).

Exactly. Its not an LCD. Its e-ink.

 

[jayn_j]

Exactly. Its not an LCD. Its e-ink.

OK, so I went to the e-ink site and also the howstuffworks site. The no power claim is that the charge is only needed to move the particles and that they will stay put "for weeks or months" after being put into place.

OK, but I am skeptical. That statement violates the second law of thermodynamics that states that entropy of a closed system increases over time. I've been doing an analysis here considering bleed resistance and the tendency of like charged particles to repel. I believe a small charge muust be maintained, probably lower than for LCD. However, I don't want to hijack this most useful thread, so if anyone wants to discuss technology, we should probably spin off a new one.

 

[Smith P.]

I would recommend you to order evaluation kit with the eInk display and learn the new technology. As to answer to your last concern - no, after flip a page the eInk controller doesn't required to be powered.

 

[rockymtnhigh]

OK, so I went to the e-ink site and also the howstuffworks site. The no power claim is that the charge is only needed to move the particles and that they will stay put "for weeks or months" after being put into place.

OK, but I am skeptical. That statement violates the second law of thermodynamics that states that entropy of a closed system increases over time. I've been doing an analysis here considering bleed resistance and the tendency of like charged particles to repel. I believe a small charge muust be maintained, probably lower than for LCD. However, I don't want to hijack this most useful thread, so if anyone wants to discuss technology, we should probably spin off a new one.

You are already beyond me, all I know is when I am done, I let it automatically fall to sleep in 10 minutes
(switching to a wallpaper view) and leave it alone. The battery level does not seem to be impacted by being in sleep mode. NOW if you leave the wifi on, that's a different story.

I do love this device.

 

[jayn_j]

I heard on All Things Considered this morning that Amazon cut off access to a copy of Orwell's 1984 over a copyright dispute.

People who had purchased the book can no longer access it. Now that's something you can't do with a printed book. You buy it, you own it.

I also find it scary/ironic that this occurred over this particular title.

 

[rockymtnhigh]

I heard on All Things Considered this morning that Amazon cut off access to a copy of Orwell's 1984 over a copyright dispute.

People who had purchased the book can no longer access it. Now that's something you can't do with a printed book. You buy it, you own it.

I also find it scary/ironic that this occurred over this particular title.

I trust they refunded the purchase price too. Copyright disputes happen. I have seen it happen with an occasional audio book from Audible.com.

Not sure why you are so negative against the kindle. I was traveling the past 5 days, and it was awesome having access to a bunch of books, and 2 daily newspapers while carrying just a 10 oz. device. If I wasn't already a champion of the kindle before, I am 10X more so now.

 

[Smith P.]

Old news, jayn_j.

 

[Agonizing Fury]

I trust they refunded the purchase price too. Copyright disputes happen. I have seen it happen with an occasional audio book from Audible.com.

Not sure why you are so negative against the kindle. I was traveling the past 5 days, and it was awesome having access to a bunch of books, and 2 daily newspapers while carrying just a 10 oz. device. If I wasn't already a champion of the kindle before, I am 10X more so now.

Yes they did refund the purchase price, however they also deleted any notes that the users had made, including one student's entire high school summer project (there is a lawsuit pending regarding this). I agree that the kindle is a great device, I just wish it had been made by a company with some balls so they would quit bowing down to the content providers. As long as Amazon is in charge, I will never purchase a kindle, because I prefer to own things that I purchase, not just lease them for the exact same price.

Edit: BTW, just thought I would add that the particular book was deleted because it was put into the store without the permission of the copyright holder. Perfectly good reason for removing it from the store, however deleting copies they had already sold seems way overboard. If I purchased an illegal paperback copy of a book, I would not be required to return it. The person publishing the book (not the store) should be financially responsible for paying back the copyright holder.

 

[jayn_j]

I trust they refunded the purchase price too. Copyright disputes happen. I have seen it happen with an occasional audio book from Audible.com.

Not sure why you are so negative against the kindle. I was traveling the past 5 days, and it was awesome having access to a bunch of books, and 2 daily newspapers while carrying just a 10 oz. device. If I wasn't already a champion of the kindle before, I am 10X more so now.

I am not negative on the Kindle. I think it has a great future.

I AM negative on anything that encourages someone to come in and restrict access and/or change content after the fact. In that respect I am a pinko liberal. The potential of this scares the heck out of me. Today it is a copyright issue. Tomorrow it is some politician deciding someone's writings are not politically correct.

 

[jayn_j]

Old news, jayn_j.

Maybe so, but it hasn't been discussed here.

 

[rockymtnhigh]

I am not negative on the Kindle. I think it has a great future.

I AM negative on anything that encourages someone to come in and restrict access and/or change content after the fact. In that respect I am a pinko liberal. The potential of this scares the heck out of me. Today it is a copyright issue. Tomorrow it is some politician deciding someone's writings are not politically correct.

I am disappointed they eliminated the person's notes as well as the book; and agree that they should have handled it differently.

I have generally been pretty happy with Amazon's customer service; I suspect they are walking a tight rope with publishers, trying to get as many as possible to make electronic copies of their books available. Still they should have held a stronger line than they did.

 

[rockymtnhigh]

BTW, there is a version of 1984 available on Kindle right now, but its an expensive $9.99.

 

[Smith P.]

"As long as Amazon is in charge, I will never purchase a kindle, because I prefer to own things that I purchase, not just lease them for the exact same price."
You're mixed things - Kindle is your, but some content as we seen in that example is not. You could keep your books on it after cancel the sevice and there is no obligation from your side.