Let me re-state that. I'm not going to brag about having a Kindle 2. No, what I'm going to do is discuss some of the features with the hope that I can get some of my friends and readers excited about the new Kindle as well.
In case you haven't heard of it, the Kindle is Amazon.com's e-reader. I'm not exaggerating when I say this: About 20 years ago I started to dream of a handheld electronic reader. Ever since, I've had a really solid idea of the feature set I'd want in such a device. I made the choice to buy the new Kindle 2 because it is the first device to come reasonably close to my original dream. Technically, the Kindle 1 was the first device to do so, but it was ugly as sin. The new model has a much sleeker design and an improved feature set.
The new Kindle looks like an Ipod that has been run over by a steamroller. It is thinner than a paperback book but slightly taller ans lightly wider. Even with the optional leather cover, it is still thinner than most books. About two-thirds of the top surface is an electric ink screen, with a complete keypad of letters beneath and various function keys surrounding the screen. Electric ink is not like an LCD screen, which requires constant power to keep each crystal diode lit. The only time the electric ink screen requires power is when it is redrawn. At that time the screen flashes darkly and then the new text and/or pictures appear. This saves on power since you can view a page as long as you like without consuming any power whatsoever. There's a nifty bonus feature whenever you power off the unit. There are detailed author pictures stored on the device, and one is randomly drawn on screen at power down, remaining there until you turn the unit on again.
The Kindle has built in wireless connectivity— free wireless connectivity. It piggybacks on one of the major cellphone networks with no monthly access fee. The main point of this feature is to provide the user access to the Amazon store wherever he or she is, regardless of the time of day. (I'll discuss the store and reading selections below.) There is also a Search feature allowing you to look up information on Wikipedia or the web in general using this wireless access.
Among the smaller features, there are 6 different text sizes, allowing the user to read in comfort. The screen requires no backlighting and can be read under full light. There is a built in dictionary, and all you have to do is move the screen cursor to any word. The definition pops up at the bottom of the screen. Under the 'experimental' section header, there is also a text-to-speech application, allowing the device to read text aloud. There's even an MP3 player.
Buying books is a snap. I haven't used the built in store browser yet, but I've made several purchases with my existing Amazon account. The device ships pre-registered to the person who bought it. It is easy to re-register the device to anyone else however. I merely logged into Amazon and started selecting books. The next time I turned on the Kindle, they were downloaded and installed in almost no time. Currently, Amazon claims to have almost 300K texts available for purchase. This includes a couple dozen magazine subscriptions and daily newspaper subscriptions. (This was a must-have feature for me from my original dream design.) I signed up for subscriptions to the New Yorker, the Atlantic Monthly, and Analog Science Fiction and Fact. The subscription rates to each are comparable to print subscription rates.
Before I list the other books I bought, I want to mention one other feature— maybe the coolest feature yet. You can upload your texts to the device. Each registered Kindle has an email address. To upload my own text to the device, I only have to send it to that email address in one of several different formats. Once received, it is converted and sent to my Kindle like any store-bought text. Very cool!
So, of course I went through an orgy of book buying to put some content on my new toy. Here's a list:
$4.79 150+ works of Walter Scott, including all his novels
$4.79 200+ works of Charles Dickens, including all novels and short stories
$4.79 200+ works of Arthur Conan Doyle, including all Sherlock Holmes stories and novels
$4.79 50+ works of Edgar Rice Burroughs, including all Tarzan novels, Mars novels, etc.
$4.79 the 6 Barsetshire novels of Anthony Trollope
$4.79 the 6 Palliser novels of Anthony Trollope
$7.99 The Night's Dawn trilogy by Peter F. Hamilton
$7.99 Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut Jr
$26.50 The Illustrated Guide to C#
My Kindle already has years worth of reading in it!
Now I just have to make more time to read.
Until next time.
"We shouldn't teach great books; we should teach a love of reading."— B. F. Skinner
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment