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Can It Kindle the Imagination?
Searching—inside books, inside the device, in the store and on the Web—is speedy and easy. You can do Web browsing on a Kindle, but it doesn't display pages well. (No YouTube, as the device doesn't support animation.)
I didn't scientifically test the battery life, but I found that when you're warned that you have only 20 percent of your power left, you should recharge immediately, because when it goes, it goes quickly, and there's nothing more frustrating than a device that plays dead. And yes, you can replace a battery, for about $20.
The Kindle, mainly because it is not just a device but a well-designed cog in a coherent and useful service, is a high point so far in electronic reading. Deciding whether it's worth the $399 price tag is a classic early-adopter question: if history has any validity, you'll eventually be able to buy an improved version for less. But I'd say that any voluminous reader, particularly one who travels, would be delighted to receive a Kindle by the fireplace this holiday season.
© 2007
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Member Comments
Posted By: apetra @ 12/13/2007 11:50:00 AM
Comment: I've accumulated an 850 page library from Project Gutenberg, at least 250 of which are on any serious "Great Books" or "Must Read in Your Lifetime" list. I've rebuilt and exceeded my personal collection (give away years ago during a move) of classical literature, poetry, philosophy and original historical sources. And I have already pulled down first chapters of about 50 books available for the Kindle using its free "try before you buy" sample system. I've held the Kindle, and I placed my hand *underneath it* to cradle it, like I would a book, I didn't grab it from both edges squeezing hard and hold it up to face level (sheesh). A few accidental page turns? OK, well I have severe arm and wrist pain from repetitive stress, and the huge buttons are a dream -- turning pages on the Sony book reader is physically painful by contrast. I plan to leave the wireless off much of the time, or to suspend the unit (easy two-key combination), which extends battery life with active use to over a week.
Posted By: Mandrake9 @ 12/13/2007 11:24:10 AM
Comment: I think the cliche he's groping for is "voracious," not "voluminous" reader. And surely he's wrong in any case. The voracious reader -- more than five books a week -- is not buying them at ten bucks a pop, unless he or she is very well off and a spendthrift even then. You can buy anywhere from one to four hundred good used books for the price of an empty Kindle, perhaps a year's worth of reading, many of which can be traded back in, and that's what real readers will be more tempted to do. The Kindle hoopla seems a little baffling when you consider that the device fails to address the two disadvantages that have doomed all previous gizmos of its kind: expense and inconvenience. At least, that's how it looks to those of us who are a) actually voluminous, i.e., fat enough to be able to carry fairly hefty paperbacks in our pockets, or b) who long since learned how get a dozen free classics from Project Gutenberg into the Palm PDA we can also fit into a pocket. (And once you have more than two or three books on your person, the ability to get more wirelessly instead of at home doesn't seem worth whatever large percentage of the Kindle's price it represents.) Those who think they can't get used to reading a book on a Palm probably haven't tried very hard, or are using the wrong document reader -- but I can readily believe that the latest digital ink technology is far better. That's the only selling point I can see, though, except to the person with small or no pockets, for whom a regular book is perhaps as inconvenient as a Kindle. (Perhaps. The kindle may be smaller than some trade paperbacks, but it has to be a heckuva lot more breakable.) So far, I just don't get it. I can believe that the gimmick-happy will have to own them, but I don't see the appeal to the average big reader.
Posted By: BMJMiller @ 12/13/2007 10:50:19 AM
Comment: Sorry for the double post--I had to get an account to post, and I thought it had erased my first post.