Two Weeks of Kindling
I've now had my Kindle for nearly two weeks, and it's time to share some of my impressions with you.
After unpacking it I immediately charged it up and synched it with my Amazon account. Actually it was already synched - Amazon preconfigures them. I connected it pretty easily to my home WiFi network (I have a prodigiously long, difficult password). I downloaded some new books and some old books. In a short period of time my Kindle was playing host to:
The Kindle always remembers the farthest point I've read to in every book, and syncs this point with the mobile Kindle app on my Android phone and iPod touch (and back to the Kindle).
Another feature I didn't know about but really like - it comes with the New Oxford American Dictionary and the Oxford Dictionary of English installed, and if I move the cursor to the beginning of a word a small pop-up at the top or bottom of the page shows me the definition of the word.
Turning pages is pretty fast, depending on the text size - it seems to be faster if the font is larger (which is logical). With the font I normally use turning the page takes maybe a second at most. Page turning, which of course works in both directions, is done with the two buttons on either side of the device (you can see them in the photo above). One small quibble is that it's fairly easy to turn a page inadvertently, especially while carrying the device. You can always engage the screen lock, so that's not a major problem.
The Kindle 3 has an experimental Web browser, but frankly that's not very useful. Google Mail does load, but the rendering is slow. I'll stick to my Android phone and iPod touch for mobile browsing.
It's really wonderful reading on the Kindle in bed - I have an old volume of Shakespeare's collected works, but it's much too heavy to rest it on my chest. With the Kindle I can indulge myself in the Bard soooo easily!
In summary - I'm glad I indulged myself and bought it. I'll still be reading "normal" books for a long time to come, but I'll tend to buy new books purely electronically. Saves paper!
I've now had my Kindle for nearly two weeks, and it's time to share some of my impressions with you.
- Shakespeare's collected works
- Trollope's collected works
- Gulliver's Travels
- Pride and Prejudice
- Effective Java
- What Technology Wants
- ...and a few samples of other books.
The Kindle always remembers the farthest point I've read to in every book, and syncs this point with the mobile Kindle app on my Android phone and iPod touch (and back to the Kindle).
Another feature I didn't know about but really like - it comes with the New Oxford American Dictionary and the Oxford Dictionary of English installed, and if I move the cursor to the beginning of a word a small pop-up at the top or bottom of the page shows me the definition of the word.
Turning pages is pretty fast, depending on the text size - it seems to be faster if the font is larger (which is logical). With the font I normally use turning the page takes maybe a second at most. Page turning, which of course works in both directions, is done with the two buttons on either side of the device (you can see them in the photo above). One small quibble is that it's fairly easy to turn a page inadvertently, especially while carrying the device. You can always engage the screen lock, so that's not a major problem.
The Kindle 3 has an experimental Web browser, but frankly that's not very useful. Google Mail does load, but the rendering is slow. I'll stick to my Android phone and iPod touch for mobile browsing.
It's really wonderful reading on the Kindle in bed - I have an old volume of Shakespeare's collected works, but it's much too heavy to rest it on my chest. With the Kindle I can indulge myself in the Bard soooo easily!
In summary - I'm glad I indulged myself and bought it. I'll still be reading "normal" books for a long time to come, but I'll tend to buy new books purely electronically. Saves paper!
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