Kindle? What’s a Kindle?
I want to establish something right from the start: I love to read. If there’s a few spare minutes with nothing to occupy my brain I feel like it’s wasted time. Lunch in my car without a book? Wasted time. A trip to the bathroom without a book or at least a magazine? Wasted time. While that’s probably more than you wanted to know, my guess is that since you are reading this blog, you are probably much like me. If you don’t have a book within reach for those idle moments in between those other things that you have to do, you feel like something is missing. If there’s something I’m doing that it is possible to do while reading then I probably am. I’ve been known to read a paragraph or two at a stop-light if I’m in the middle of an especially compelling part of a story. While that might sound a little extreme, I’ll bet you’ve done something like that yourself. In our culture of constantly being on the go, compulsive readers take advantage of every moment we can get to indulge our passion.It’s because of this overwhelming compulsion to read that I find myself ever on the look-out for my next book. I like to have three or four waiting in the wings. Sometimes I find myself in the book section of the local department store browsing for that “next book” even when I already have several lined up. I don’t know why I do that exactly, but I think it has something to do with the fear that I’ll finish a book without something else to move on to. That would not be good, not good at all. So, the hunt for a potential good read is almost always on.
Enter, the e-book reader
While book stores, department stores, grocery stores and garage sales are all great places to find books, sometimes I like to visit Amazon.com, the on-line mecca for many a book-buyer. You can find virtually any book, CD or DVD that you could want, often through a third-party seller at a good discount. It was during a trip to Amazon.com that I noticed a device advertised on the front page that caught my attention. It was an e-book reader of some kind that I vaguely remembered seeing on previous trips to the site. Amazon has dubbed their device the Kindle. For some reason I had never looked at it too closely before, most likely because I never had much interest in this particular intrusion of technology into the realm of my favorite pastime.
For those of you wondering, an e-book reader is a small electronic device. They are designed primarily to read books that are downloaded from an on-line store, similar to downloading mp3’s from a site like I-Tunes. Sony has an e-book reader along with its own on-line store boasting 20,000+ books to download. Sony e-books are downloaded to your computer and transferred to your reader via a USB cable. Some e-books also claim the ability to display PDF files but due to formatting issues, results have been mixed.
While I’ve been reluctantly curious about the idea of an electronic device to read books, the $300-$500 price range has discouraged me from looking too hard. Also, while 20,000 books might sound like a lot, it really isn’t. Sony’s store focuses on new releases and popular authors with a bundle of classics thrown in for free when you register your device, but everything in between seems lacking at this point.
Features that set the Kindle apart
So, after having said all of that, why did the Amazon Kindle catch my attention when the others didn’t? There are a range of reasons that I’ll go into deeper in following posts, however the one thing that sets the Kindle apart from all other e-book readers is what Amazon has cleverly called Whispernet. Whispernet is what Amazon calls the wireless connection between the Kindle and their on-line store. Whispernet uses the Sprint data network to download books directly to the Kindle and works anywhere Sprint has coverage. If you don’t have Sprint coverage, you can still transfer books from your internet-connected computer to the Kindle with a USB cable like the Sony reader.
Amazon has over 110,000 books currently available for the Kindle plus 10 newspapers including the New York Times and Washington Post that can be subscribed to and sent to you every day. There is also a selection of magazines including Time, Newsweek and Reader’s Digest. Amazon also gives you the option to download samples of each book for free, allowing you to browse before buy.
Even with great features like these and more, there are still reasons why the decision to order a Kindle was a very difficult one. Over the course of this blog, I’ll recap my experience so far and share what comes. As of this writing I still don’t have the Kindle in hand. I placed my order on March 8th and due to the high volume of orders, I’m still waiting. The wait time seems to be in the 4-5 week range right now and I knew this when I ordered so no surprises so far.
What’s a Kindle? I’m not completely sure yet, but if it’s anything like I’m hoping, it’s extremely useful tool for the avid reader. I’ll keep you posted.
-Kyle
Kindle is definitely the thing for bookoholics. I’m about as compulsive a reader as you, and feel so taken-care-of, knowing where my next 150 or so books are coming from. The main drawback to the Kindle is that buying books from Amazon is a one-click maneuver, and far too easy. I’ve already dropped several hundred dollars on books that I wouldn’t have dreamed of buying in print – because of the expense, the shelf space, or both. And then there are all the free books, public domain or not, that are available from other online sources. I hope you get your Kindl soon, and have fun Kindling.
Dana
Dana Vinicoff
April 8, 2008