I just unboxed my Amazon Kindle (or amazonkindle as it says on the front) This thing launched yesterday and I had to have one, so here it is on my doorstep today. All the way from Kentucky overnight, courtesy of DHL.
First impressions, it is a nice light little package. Sleek & white but relentlessly functional – no iPod/iPhone sexy curves here. The screen is great. Not quite paper-quality but the closest I’ve seen on a real device. It’s a little hard to read in dim light, but so are books.
I downloaded a couple books and it just worked. Reading Liar’s Poker right now, which I always wanted to read but never got around to buying and for $10 seems worth it. Got a few more queued up to read as well. In the long run this will save me a lot of money since I am always buying new $20 books from amazon, reading them, and letting them pile up on our bookshelves. The idea of tossing this in my backpack on my next trip instead of a stack of dead trees is pretty compelling. Plus the added bonus that I can buy more while I’m sitting in the airport or hotel and get instant gratification.
Lots of blog-pundit blowhards are ranting about the DRM and that it’s not a book and it’s not a laptop. It’s way smaller and lighter than any laptop/tabletPC/origami I’ve ever seen (and I’ve seen them all). The screen and reading experience is vastly better than any smaller iPhone/smartphone form factor. And Amazon’s done a great job with the integrated wireless service. So far it just works which is more than I can say for most early adopter gadgets I impulse-buy. (my wife is going to kill me about the shittiness of our new Vonage service) So I give it a tentative thumbs-up.
On the down side – it’s got its own incompatible power adapter. Another thing to lug around and lose, why can’t it just charge from USB, damn it! I could never get the "experimental" web browser to work, it just hangs. The buttons seem a touch too sensitive for my hamfists – I’d like a little more tactile feedback there. The screen is gorgeous, but updates are SLOW and have an annoying flicker to black before changing.
The killer app for this thing would be a Windows print driver that lets you "print" any document to your Kindle. I am always printing off tons of specs and powerpoints and stuff to lug around. Amazon has some service where you can email documents to a special @kindle.com address and Amazon will reformat them and send them to your Kindle for $0.10 but that seems pretty klunky. (haven’t tried it yet) File->Print->Kindle would rock.
So far no indication what this thing is running. Linux or some home-grown Amazon thing I guess. Haven’t tried hacking it much yet but I expect it’s only a matter of time until someone cracks it.
1. eInk is good for read.
2. The price is high, I can get a lot wih 400USD.
3. They charge $1 per month for blog, I can\’t believe this.
4. Can this thing be more ugly? Is it that difficult to copy-cat Sony or iLiad?
5. Why a book need a keyboard? for search?
6. They charge 10$ for that book? It\’s 10.20 on amazon…
Yes, some people care about money
John does love his Kindle. I see 2 problems with it, though. First of all the kids really want to get their hands on it, & John does not want them to have it. I see a market for a kid\’s Kindle. Secondly, it has a proprietary charger. I\’m sure Amazon makes money on the new chargers we buy, but the ill will I feel toward them when we forget the Kindle charger often remains when I consider where to make my next purchase.
In my own defense, our Vonage phone service did not work: callers could not hear me & I could not hear them. They seem to have sorted that out after about 3 months of trying. I did complain a bit, but never even considered killing my incredible husband.