Review: The Kindle From a Book Reader’s Point of View

Hong Kong — The Amazon Kindle Wireless Reading Device can be reviewed from two perspectives: as a technological item — rating its speed, memory, potential for memory upgrades and compatibility with various formats. Or from the reader’s view point. In which case the verdict is: (4/5)

Small and Convenient

The Amazon Kindle Wireless Reading Device is the smaller of the two Kindles offered by Amazon. It is 20.3 cm long, 13.5 cm wide, only 0.9 cm thick and it weighs just 289 grams. That makes it lighter than most paperbacks.

The screen is only 15.2 cm (measured diagonally) and the small size does take some getting use to. The 2.0-cm frame that surrounds the screen seems unnecessarily wide, and begs the question: why Amazon didn’t make the screen bigger?

Free wireless (almost) all over the world
The Kindle doesn’t try to be anything else than an e-book reader, which earns it its first star. And, it is intuitive to use. The “home” bottom calls up the the virtual Amazon Kindle bookstore. Simply type in the author, or keyword, and within less than 60 seconds, the search results show.

The device has a built-in wireless connection capable of getting online free in over 100 countries. The map of online availability indicates that only the Siberian tundra, North Korea and inland Africa are Kindle-free zones. The Kindle’s free wireless access is extremely useful, and something that should be a prerequisite in any e-book reader. It earns the Kindle another well-deserved star.

In Taiwan last month, sitting at the airport without a guidebook, it took this reviewer only three clicks to call up the Lonely Planet travel guide within five minutes. Very useful indeed.

Lose yourself in the books
The Kindle’s limited web connectivity permits users to access only the Kindle book store, Wikipedia and few other selected web pages. But this is not necessarily a disadvantage for readers who want to read — and not feel obligated to check e-mail, pay bills, or cruise the web.

Longevity
The third star. Turning off the wireless connection boosts the Kindle’s battery life to two weeks. An e-book reader isn’t worth much without power and the purpose of portable e-book reader is lost if readers need to constantly chase up power outlets.

The Kindle lets readers immerse themselves in the world of books for hours on end.

The Downside
It is one thing to read books. It is another to read magazines or travel guides with advanced formatting. Time magazine, The Herald Tribune or The Lonely Planet guides, are displayed in versions that look like old version PDF files. They lack the friendly design, formatting or eye candy.

These media formats are probably better viewed on the bigger Kindle (Kindle DX), or the new Apple Ipad. This shaves off half a star.

Another half-star is lost to the Amazon Kindle e-bookstore. The bookstore might have 385,224 e-books available, but these are mostly classics and bestsellers. If you want to get books in between those two categories your chances decline.

Five out of the 10 books searched for by this reviewer weren’t there. And the odds gets much worse for those seeking e-books in foreign languages.

Prices for e-books vary a great deal. Most books retail for between HK$20 to 100. Others are surprisingly expensive – especially non-fiction and textbooks – and free copyright-free e-books cost money at the Amazon Kindle bookstore. Those same books are free at Google Books.

The solution? Go the web page (www.gutenberg.org) run by the Gutenberg Project that collates copyright free e-books. These can be downloaded to your computer, and with a small conversion program called Calibre, they can be transferred to Kindle. Free of charge examples include Bram Stoker’s Dracula and The Island of Dr. Moreau by H.G. Wells.

Redeeming features
Beyond these imperfections, the Kindle is still a very good device for readers. But there are three features that, combined, give it a fourth star.

These are: Firstly its ability to look up any English word while reading via a single click that connects to the integrated Oxford Dictionary.

Secondly: the highlight tool that also saves the highlights in separate documents accessible from the Kindle, or from your computer — complete with direct hyperlinks to your highlights in the e-book.

The third feature is the tools that let you take notes while you are reading, and saves the notes along with your highlights while noting the exact line referried to.

A Personal View

All in all The Amazon Wireless Reading Device is a good e-book reader. Its screen is makes you forget you are not reading a proper paper book. While there is “only” room for about 1,500 books in its memory, which isn’t very much compared to other e-book readers, it is more than enough, believe me. I have been a keen book collector all my life, and I am still only one-third of the way to 1,500. And if you really want to stock up on your reading material, you can always download the books to your computer. If you want an e-book reader to read literature on, the Kindle is definitely an excellent choice.