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Its the Vodka-kindle!

1. Yes, I did in fact get a Kindle for Christmas.
2. Yes indeed, I do love it. It truly is worth the money.
3. Yes, I do have some things I would change but first let's talk about what I like:

- Fundamentally, its an Amazon device, and that means something deep and important and yet its often completely overlooked. What it means is that the catalog of written books that live on Amazon are now accessible via the Kindle. Not all books, but many, many books and the number is growing every day. Whats more - they are about a third of the cost of the hardcopy version.

- It has a feature called "Whispernet". Whispernet is an EVDO connection via the Sprint Phone Network. "Oh no! I dont want another bill for network access and I already have a cellphone! Hold on. No one said anything about a bill, there is no bill for "whispernet". Whispernet is all part of the system under Kindle. You dont do anything or sign up for anything to use whispernet. What it gives you is instant connectivity to Amazon and the internet from anywhere at anytime( so long as you are under a cell tower somewhere of course...). You want to read a book, you turn on the kindle, shop the kindle store at amazon, you find what you want and blam! - there it is, right on your Kindle. You can download samples of the books, leave bookmarks, use the internet to research information that you find in the text, leave notes for later, all the things you do when you read a normal book.

Imagine sitting in the passenger seat of a car on a long road trip and in the tedium of it all, it suddenly hits you that now's the time to read that book you always wanted, open your kindle, turn it on and it gets downloaded to your kindle. Its that simple.

It also has a new experimental web browser to let you read web based content, such as Vodkapundit(see above) or Glenn Reynolds' Instapundit and just about anything else that's out there as well.

- "So what" you say. You say that you can get PDFs of books right now on your laptop, and that is already internet enabled, so whats the big deal? Well, the big deal is that this is not a laptop. Its an electronic book. Its optimized for the purpose of reading books. Amazon just happens to sell a whole lotta books. Besides, if you're like me, if there's a keyboard in front of you, you're doing something besides reading, you're surfing, you're reading other things, but books and computers don't come together very well. Kindle gives you an environment that's built to be optimum for a book environment, with the added ability (in a pinch) to get internet access for that type of information.

- It also allows you to play MP3's as background music while you are reading. It has a slot for an SSD, so long term storage of the recorded media is not a problem.

As someone who reads on average 4 books a week, its a complete lifesaver. If you think about the logistics of storing 4 books a week for 50 work weeks a year, you get some idea of the uphill battle I face in my office.

So that's the good side, whats on my list of complaints?

- The Sony E-Reader is a competing design and its made of metal. I like Metal. I wish the Kindle was a brushed aluminum like the Sony E-reader. Kindle is made of plastic. Ergonomically I have an issue with the kindle that I have with virtually everything else on the planet earth, its built for right handed folks and not lefties like me. Oh, The Sony E-reader is nice, but the fact that its not tied directly to a book catalog like Amazon or Barnes and Noble is a key factor for me. I don't like the download-to-the-pc-reformat-and-upload-to-the-device method. If I need a PC to get to the book, I'll just read it on the PC in the first place and skip the E-reader.

- Color. I don't mind that its only a 'black and white' display, but Im of an age where Black and White media isn't a big deal. I'm not sure the kids will accept it until it has a color display. I also think a small email app or Instant Messaging facility would not be a bad thing to have on the Kindle as well. The browser is good, but it could be better.

- Bluetooth connectivity. I would prefer to connect to my laptop or other facilities like headphones without wires. Bluetooth is a perfect facility for that. USB is nice, and the Kindle has that, but I would rather have a Bluetooth connection.

Posted @ January 09, 2009 04:31 PM

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