I
got my Kindle in August 2008 so I’ve been kindling for six months. Yes,
I considered a couple of other e-readers (especially the Sony) but Kindle was far superior on every level and well worth the
additional costs.
Friends
began asking me for my thoughts about the Kindle as they considered buying one. The
week after I scribbled these notes, Amazon announced the 2nd edition of Kindle.
The changes appear to me to be real improvements. The improved eInk with
more shades of gray and a faster page turn is a real bonus. The map indicates
a wider availability of Whispernet coverage. The easy switch to an audio book
also looks good to me.
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For me, the incentive
to buy was that the airlines were charging for luggage and since I always take ½ a suitcase of books on vacation, suddenly,
the Kindle looked economical as well as convenient. I stick my Kindle in my over-sized
hand bag and I’ve got an entire library at my fingertips in about the same space
and weight of a paperback book.
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I’m a real
bibliophile—a librarian by profession, I’ve always loved the feel of a book in my hand. Quality paper, lovely
fonts, beautiful illustrations—these things really matter to me and I was concerned that a white plastic techno-gadget
might be a poor substitute. I was wrong.
I LOVE MY KINDLE! Reading on the
Kindle is a very satisfying experience.
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It comes with a leather-like cover and the feel in the hand is satisfactory. I generally hold it
in my left hand and click “next” “previous” page controls
with my thumb. Or I prop it on my lap desk/pillow while I sit in the recliner
and click “next” on the right side with the index finger of my right hand as it rests on the lap desk. The duplication of controls on both sides is convenient and
when kept in the cover (folded back and secured with the elastic loop) one does not push buttons unintentionally.
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The e-ink technology for the screen is very, very much like a printed font on a paper page. It’s easy on the eyes and the font size can be adjusted. The range is about 8-18 point in a san serif font similar to Verdana. In the larger size the line-spacing
is also larger so it’s very much like a large-print book. It is not
at all like reading on a computer screen. There is no flicker, no glare. The screen is not back-lit. The high
contrast black e-ink on the light gray ground is very easy on the eyes. I can read non-stop for hours and hours. There is no color
e-ink and until MIT invents it there is not likely to be. If one thinks of Kindle
as a computer, that’s disappointing but if one thinks of it as an electronic book, Kindle is wonderful. Remember if you need to turn on lamp to read a large-print book, you will have to have a light source to
read on the Kindle. You’ll probably want to buy a book light. One of the small LED ones and look for one with
a flat insert between book pages rather than a bulky clip so you can slip it between the folded, secured covers on the Kindle.
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When one “turns a page” the screen
does a blank-refresh and critics/new users sometimes find that annoying. It took
me about 25% of the first book to get used to it. Now I’ve developed a
feel for exactly how many words/lines ahead to click. So I click, read, blink
and there is the new page to continue reading without missing a beat. And with
the larger font size that I prefer that blink helps keep my aging corneas well lubed.
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Kindle comes loaded
with The New Oxford American Dictionary
so it’s possible to lookup a definition just by clicking from the page you’re
reading. That’s super! If
a definition is not found Kindle offers the option to connect via Whispernet (more on that later) to check Wikkipedia or Google.
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Don’t
buy an extra battery (unless you camp
out for weeks with no access to electricity) because in the reading mode the battery lasts and lasts. I’ve read for days without a recharge. A recharge doesn’t
take very long; I plug it in about once a week when I go to the grocery store or overnight and unless I spend a lot of time
on Whispernet (more on that later) the charge lasts forever.
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Don’t
buy an extra memory card. More memory would let you keep more books on your Kindle but it will slow down search options (more on
that in a minute) and I doubt if you really need it. At the moment I’ve
got 132 titles not including the dictionary that came with it. I’ve got
many, many novels and non-fiction books plus a reference library that includes 5 versions of the Bible, a Bible commentary,
Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations, a biographical dictionary, the complete works
of William Shakespeare, all of Jane Austen and all of Gerard Hopkins (my favorite poet), a lot of my own writings, and room
to spare.
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One thing you won’t
need is a biblical concordance. The Kindle
has a search option. Open search from the mini-keyboard, enter the word or
phrase you want to search. You’ll get a listing of the term’s appearances
in the book you’re reading, in any other book you have loaded on your Kindle, and in the dictionary and the option to
use Whispernet to search Wikkipedia and Google. {That’s why you do not
want the extra memory card: the search takes longer the more stuff it has to
search through. Remember the Kindle books you buy from Amazon are always available
on your bookshelf at Amazon to donwload again for free.} The search opition means that I have, in effect, not
only concordances for all my Bibles but also for Shakespeare and Jane Austen and my favorite poet and my own files ad inf. I use the search option to lookup words in the dictionary
and then I can page through and even read the dictionary. The Kindle is a reference
librarian’s dream come true.
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Whispernet uses Sprint cell phone technology to access the Kindle store at Amazon (where you can buy content) and the Internet.
Whispernet does not work everywhere but there is a map on the Kindle site
that shows where it does and doesn’t work. Generally if you’re in
a town/city near an interstate highway it works. I’ve accessed from multiple
locations in Houston, several airports around the country, Brenham, College Station, Waco, Austin, Abilene and Montrose, CO.
When Whispernet is available it is the easiest way to download content. It is also possible to use Whispernet to access Basic Web (experimental
and free at the present) so one can do a bit of Internet surfing but it’s slow and remember there is no color e-ink
so it works best with text-laden sites, as a way to download free e-books (more
on that in a minute), as a way to check news (MSNBC and BBC and ESPN are pre-bookmarked),
and for Wikki and Google searches (also pre-bookmarked.) I’ve added a number of bookmarks of my own and it’s nice when I’m travelling and away
from my computer to visit a few favorites. Apparently it can also be used as
rudimentary GPS although I’ve not had much luck trying to use it that way. But
keeping Whispernet connected will exhaust the battery much more quickly, in a
matter of hours not days. If you found yourself spending a lot of time web surfing
on the Kindle then you might want that extra battery after all. Whispernet also
comes with an email address that downloads to the Kindle. One can use it to download .txt files and jpegs. There is a $0.10 charge. One could share that email address
with friends or family or business associates if sending such a file were necessary and one did not have access to other technology. Again, if you think of Kindle as a computer or as an iPhone, it may be disappointing
but as an electronic book with a few extra capabilities it’s great.
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It’s got MP3 capabilities but I have not used this option at all. I just don’t do MP3s. I’ve read that playing them
will also use up battery time.
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Free
Content: I read a lot of 19th Century & early 20th Century books which are out-of-print
and in the public domain. I download free
e-books using the Basic Web option via Whispernet. The websites I use most
are: http://mnybks.net/ where I select books and then download to my Kindle
by selecting the Mobipocket format and http://www.fullbooks.com/ which can be read online while connected via Whispernet
and http://onlinebookspage.library.upen.edu/ which refers to other sites where books may be
read online or downloaded as .txt files. I usually do the downloads via Whispernet
but I can download to my computer and then use the USB cable that comes with the Kindle to download files to Kindle. I can use the USB to download my own .txt files (my Psalms notes, my creative writings,
stuff from evelynwhitakerlibrary.org) or I can send an email to my Kindle with a Word file attached and Amazon “converts”
it and sends it to my Kindle for $.010. I also buy books from Amazon’s
Kindle store. There is also a free software that will convert .pdf to Mobipocket which will download to your Kindle which opens up an huge world full of content.
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Buy
books from Amazon’s Kindle store. One can download a sample before buying
which means one can virtually browse the bookstore anywhere there is Whispernet. More
and more titles are becoming available. Older
titles are often very cheap (some are from the same sources as my free books and have been converted and sell cheap, generally
$0.99 and almost always under $5.00. (That’s the price I paid for my versions of the Bible which came with content pages
that were searchable and worth the price over the free editions which did not have clickable content pages and indices.) There are also lots of new titles—including most best sellers. Usually these are less expensive than the print versions. If
one buys a title from Amazon Kindle then even if one deletes it from the Kindle it remains in your Amazon Media Library and
may be downloaded again free. I find that I’m reading more but spending
a bit less for books. One disadvantage
is that a Kindle book is mine alone—I cannot hand a copy to a friend who might enjoy it—I cannot share it with
another Kindle user—I cannot sell it to Read It Again & Again or Half Price Books for store credit to buy more books. Since I probably paid a reduced price for my e-book.
I call it even.
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Subscriptions to some magazines and newspapers are available
for automatic download. For me not a satisfying experience. Turns out I want my magazines to have slick colorful pages and glitzy advertisements. I want my newspapers to have comics and sudokus and crosswords and ads.
But it is nice to buy a single issue of The Houston Chronicle as needed
to keep up with my city when keeping up with the world is not enough.
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The instruction
manual that comes with it will get you started with the Kindle as an electronic reader but the Kindle can do more than
they tell you. Its guts are in fact a small computer. After a month or so you’ll want to learn a few Kindle tricks and “pimp” your Kindle. The most useful Kindle trick I know is ALT – t will give the time. There are a bunch of others. I “pimped” my Kindle
by downloading personalized screensavers so that I have a few favorite photos of the evelynwhitakerlibrary.org logo and
ornate book covers to which I've added my contact info on my screen. If my Kindle
every gets lost, my info is right on the screen so that it can be returned to me. I recommend Ursem, Don: I Got My Kindle!...
Now What Can I Do? Informative, interesting and funny. Just download it to the Kindle and try anything that looks interesting.
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You’ll also want to visit http://kindlerama.com/ where there is a ton of information and even more links and all sorts
of detailed instructions. Visit it either from your computer or directly from
your Kindle. Type in the url (at the top of the Kindle) then bookmark it to your
Whispernet bookmarks
Recommendation: Buy a Kindle! Buy it now! Buy the new version. If you can’t
afford the price tag, use the public library, save your book budget until you can afford a Kindle. Or investigate buying a used Kindle (be sure you and the seller understand the registration changes that
will be necessary) because all of us early adopters who have v.1 are starting to covet v.2.
