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Reading Kindle Review
By: Melinda J. Smith "Blue-haired gamer girl, cat...
Then I saw its face, now I'm a believer
Why I bought my Reading Kindle?
I love the portability (says the girl who once backpacked hardcover books into the back country of the Olympics) of my Reading Kindle and is indispensable when I travel or commute. I appreciate the Whispersync functionality that keeps my reading progress current across my PC/iphone/Kindle.
I was skeptical about a dedicated e-reader device. I already owned an iphone with multiple e-reading platforms and an Acer netbook that's always in my purse. Once I started reading novels on my iphone, it wasn't insurmountable for me to make the leap to the Kindle. A single battery charge of my Reading Kindle lasts almost two weeks compared to the 3-4 hours on my iphone or the 5-6 hours on my netbook. Have you actually tried reading a book on a netbook or laptop? It's not that comfortable on an airplane, while standing in line, or on a bus.
My bookshelf space is already overflowing and I read through horror/sci-fi/fantasy/contemporary books very quickly (average 5-10 a month). I'm also uncomfortable trading/selling/throwing away finished books. Thus, I appreciate that I can have them all in one device rather than an entire bookcase in my apartment. There's a lot of great works of fiction, non-fiction, comics, etc. that I will continue to have on my shelves, but for my "popcorn reading"? The Reading Kindle is the way to go. I've started reading a lot more non-fiction, business and technical manuals since I've bought my Reading Kindle. Want to feel like you're still holding a book? Then grab one of the many book covers available.
I do think the e-ink/e-paper is a lot easier on my eyes for reading than the glossy or matte computer screens. The screen size is close enough to the size of a paperback book page that it hasn't caused my eyes any problems. I also like that the amount of whitespace (kerning/tracking) as well as font size on-screen is configurable. The text-to-speech feature is novel, but if I'm feeling nostalgic for being read a bedtime story, then it's useful.
I've made peace with the fact that I'm paying the early adopter $ which is a promise of a future superior generation of devices. I guess $259 for a device that I use for 1-2 years is actually a good bargain in my mind. I'll likely get the next best thing and give my Reading Kindle v2 to my mom or someone who could care less about bleeding edge and happy to have a "cool gadget" to read with.
I didn't even know that I'd make such use of the highlighting, annotating and dictionary features of the Reading Kindle. I love that I can virtually dog-ear my pages. There are relatively easy methods for getting non-Amazon purchased ebook and document content onto your computer, and I've made significant use of the drag-and-drop options via USB to my PC and Mac. There are a number of free software options to convert epub or other formats into a Kindle-friendly one.
Some things that frustrate me about the Reading Kindle and/or ebooks in general?
I agree that the current generation of readers aren't designed to handle high-graphic content. I haven't found the PDF versions of role playing game manuals to be that easy to read on my computer, nor are they very readable on the Reading Kindle.
The thumb stick navigation on the Reading Kindle takes some getting used to, especially those who use touch screens or mice everyday.
I want a better file storage or taxonomy system on my Reading Kindle. Perhaps a way to group by genre or subfolders? It's a tad cumbersome when you have over 200 books and they're all top-level viewing in the table of contents (aka home screen).
I'd love to see colored e-ink technology to be released and adopted in a way to make digital magazine reading a possibility on an e-reader device.
Many potential and current customers would love to see some kind of backlighting capability. I disagree because it's what separated the e-ink reading experience from a computer or device screen. It truly is like reading a paper book. Anywhere I can read a book, I can read my Reading Kindle. For those rare occasions where I don't have a good light source, I have a book light... same as I've always had. Besides, I don't want to make the tradeoff of inferior battery life in order to power a device-native backlight.
I don't expect ebook readers to completely take over the printed book, and I think there is a place in society for both.
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Reading Kindle Highly Recommend!