kindle

Issue #63

Last Update April 30, 2009

Technology Amazon's Kindle by Sten Grynir January 20, 2008 The advent of “electronic ink” has altered the desirability of reading books on an electronic gadget, making the experience far more book like than reading from a computer screen, PDA or, God help us, a cell phone. Our July article on iRex's Ilead electronic book reader (“Ilead Electronic Book Reader”) described one such device. Recently, Amazon.com has been marketing its own reader, the Kindle, which has some advantages over the Ilead (and over the Sony Reader), and some disadvantages. Given Amazon's clout, however, the Kindle is likely to be more successful than its competition.

With the exception of the Ilead, which goes for a hefty $700, all of the rest of the ereaders on the market that have electronic ink screens are in the $300-$400 range. The Amazon Kindle, which has some unique features, goes for $399, and demand has been high enough that the gadget is perpetually back-ordered, which means that list price and street price are the same, for the time being.

The Kindle is a light weight unit, sized about that of a paperback book. It comes with a cover that makes it even more book like, and protects the unit from damage. The screen is approximately 5” x 3 1/2”, which is about the reading area of a paperback page, although the amount of text various with font size.The overall dimensions of the Kindle are 7 1/2” x 5” by .7”, to accommodate the page-turning controls, keyboard (yes, a full querty keyboard with tiny, odd-shed keys) and other function keys. The screen, like all other electronic ink screens, is a paragon of clarity, but displays in back and white only. There is a USB port, power in, an earphone port, and a built in speaker. There is also a slot for an SD card, to supplement the Kindle's 256MB memory.

What makes this reader special? The killer difference is that with each Kindle you get cellular broadband connectivity, free when you open an account with Amazon. This enables you to go to the Amazon Kindle store and search for and buy books wherever you may be, without requiring a computer. The process is relative painless and very fast. You can also subscribe to newspapers (including the New York Times) which magically appear daily on your reader, and to a variety of magazines and blogs. There is also a somewhat limited web browser that enables you to surf the web, with built-in connectivity to wikipedia and other useful sites, and to any site whose URL (web address) you know, although the limitations of the browser may cause some sites to render imperfectly.

To use the reader as a reader, you have to download books, newspapers and magazines (in Amazon's format) from the Kindle Store, for a price. (The price is somewhat cheaper than the paper version.) Alternatively, you can supply your own content, although this can be a little complicated. Content has to be in one of three formats for the Kindle to recognize and display it: .azw, Amazon's own reader format; .txt, standard text format; or html, for use with the browser. This is where the Kindle falls behind the Sony and the Ilead – common formats such as PDF or Microsoft Word's .doc can't be viewed directly by the Kindle. Amazon offers a service that allows you to upload a number of file formats to their website using your computer, convert them to .azw, and either download them directly to the Kindle (for a small fee), or download them to your computer for later transfer to the Kindle (free). Unfortunately, PDF is not one of the supported formats.

Amazon's attempt to control where you get your reading material from, and restrict this to Amazon itself, is doomed to fail. For example, the PDF limitation is easily overcome. MobiPocket, which makes ebook creator and reader software (and which Amazon bought a while ago) is also the basis for Amazon's .azw format. Downloading the free MobiPocket Creator software (not the Home edition) allows you to import PDF, html, .doc, .rtf and other file formats and output a document that the Kindle can use.

You can also load mp3 files onto the Kindle, which an experimental program in the device will play as background music, either through earphone or through the small, built-in speaker. Unfortunately, in its current configuration, this is not a replacement for the iPod; you have no control over what is being played, and if you pause the music (or podcast), it doesn't resume where you left off, but instead randomly chooses another file to play. This feature is badly in need of revision.

To sum up: positives – free cellular broadband for ordering, surfing, and downloading; a pleasant reading experience, with bookmarking, ability to change font size for easier reading if your vision is poor, or to fit more on a page if your vision is terrific; music capability; ability to annotate and highlight; easy access to dictionary entries for unfamiliar words; ability to use audio books; expandable memory using SD cards; a clever scheme whereby Amazon remembers what you downloaded, and allows you to redownload it (no charge) if you have removed something from the Kindle to save memory; good form factor and ease of use; interchangeable, inexpensive batteries that last a long time before recharging (if you turn off the cellular radio) due to the fact that electronic ink screens only draw power when the page is being written. Negatives – music program is a botch job (how hard would it have been to provide the ability to control what is played, like any $30 mp3 player?); getting at the SD card slot requires opening up the battery compartment; inability to directly display .doc, .rtf or PDF files; high cost (although the cellular broadband makes it worth it).

So, why read books on an ereader when real books are so convenient? Three reasons come to mind: when traveling, you can carry a whole library with you weightlessly; if you have eyesight problems, you can enlarge the font size to make reading easier; and the on-line feature means that you can buy books and download other content instantly, no matter where you are, as long as cellular service is available. With the PDF, .doc or html conversion dodge described above, you can also carry around a ton of manuals or other reference material without dislocating your arm.

How does the Kindle stack up to its competition? It is more feature rich (and format poor) than the Sony, and much cheaper than the Ilead. Still, it feels like Kindle version 1.0. If you wait six months, you will probably get a better Kindle, and the competition will have come out with cheaper devices with more features. But that free cellular broadband is hard to beat.

New York Stringer is published by NYStringer.com. For all communications, contact David Katz, Editor and Publisher, at david@nystringer.com