The first thing I did last Monday morning – even before having breakfast – was to order myself a Kindle ebook reader. I had seen a prototype some months ago, and I knew I was going to want one. At the same time, I ordered a 2GB SD card; I figure that should hold me forever. While waiting for delivery, I read the various “reviews” and blog comments, most of which seemed to be written by people who had never seen a Kindle, and who kept repeating the same rhetorical questions which they could probably have answered very easily if they’d bothered to think. ((History lesson for Cory: the first Apple iPod came out in 2001, priced at $399. It took another six years for the major music businesses to abandon DRM. See also Neil Gaiman’s perspective.))
Also while I was waiting, I arranged for some downloads to be in the queue when I powered up the device for the first time. I bought one book (“The World Without Us” by Alan Weisman), and ordered previews of two others (“Takeover” by Charlie Savage, and “Arsenals of Folly” by Richard Rhodes). I also practiced transcoding a couple of files into Kindle format using the free non-wireless approach. ((You mail a suitable file as an attachment to NAME@free.kindle.com
, and Amazon emails you a link from which you can download the file to your PC or Mac; then you can transfer it via USB to the Kindle.))
At 5:45pm today it finally arrived. (Yes, I was like a little kid waiting for Santa.) I opened it up ((Admiring the gorgeous packaging – this is an area where I think Apple has raised the bar for the whole industry.)), turned it on, and found myself reading the pre-loaded user guide. By the time I located the “Home” key, the content I had pre-ordered was already installed. Then I turned it off, removed the back panel, and plugged in the SD card. At this point, I encountered the only glitch so far: when I turned it back on, I couldn’t get a wireless signal. I checked the various menus to see if I could see any wireless settings ((No, of course I didn’t read the manual. Who do you think I am??)), spotted a “Restart” option, clicked it, and the Kindle came right back up with an 80% signal. Not a big deal.
Reading on the Kindle just feels right. There are six font sizes, and I picked the smallest, which works for me. ((I could perhaps have used a seventh, even smaller, setting, but that might have been pushing it.)) People have described the design as “bland”, but for me that’s actually the point. After using the Kindle for a few minutes, you don’t notice it any more, which is as it should be. Intrusive, edgy styling would be exactly wrong for this kind of device. The controls work well, and I especially like the “silver strip” cursor.
I started reading “Arsenals of Folly”, and kept reading until I reached the end of the preview chapter… And that’s when it became expensively seductive. Because there’s a link there inviting you to buy the full book, and one click, $9.99, and 30 seconds later you’ve done exactly that. My advice: choose those previews with care, because it’s far too easy to buy. (Or perhaps I should just say that it’s a very compelling user experience!) ((Speaking of prices, the Amazon Kindle store has a remarkably long tail, priced from $0.01 (really!) to $1,079.96. And of course you can also get 20,000+ free titles from Project Gutenberg.))
This is easily the best ebook solution I’ve encountered. I’ve tried reading ebooks on my PC or Mac – wrong, wrong, wrong: reading a book is a “sitting back” activity, while using a PC is a “sitting forward” thing. (That’s a fundamental dichotomy, which is why you can comfortably watch a DVD on a laptop but not a desktop.) I’ve tried various PDAs, but the screens are too small and the fonts are always ugly. I’ve never tried a tablet PC, but that seems far too heavy and bulky. The Kindle just works. The size and weight are appropriate, I find the fonts “comfortably satisfying”, if that makes any sense, and the e-paper screen is unobtrusive, the way that the page of a book is supposed to be.
Things to try tomorrow: the New York Times, the dictionary, the web browser, and loading up Gibbon’s “Decline and Fall…”. Oh yes, and reading some more of “The World Without Us”. Because that’s what this is all about.