My Kindle Stuff

When the Kindle 2 was announced, then began shipping a year ago, I happily gave my Kindle 1 to my daughter.  She has been cheerfully downloading both books and knitting patterns (for on-the-go knitting) since then. About a week and a half ago, she announced that it had died. When we contacted Amazon, we eventually found out that they no longer have any units for repair/replacement in stock. Her end to the story is that she got a Kindle 2, but I wonder what Amazon will be doing for other K1 owners.

You can still get replacement batteries, USB cords and chargers for the Kindle 1, but don’t look for much in the way of other accessories except for the ones that fit the Kindle 2 as well.

Kindle DX – $489

Kindle 2 – $259

Kindle 2i (International) – $279 

Refurbished Kindle DX – $399

Refurbished Kindle 2 – $219 (Good price as still under Amazon warranty)

Refurbished Kindle 1 – $149

I don’t usually deal in a public argument, but I guess I’ve read one Kindle-Killer article/post too many.  Then when I saw this on Twitter, I just couldn’t resist.

People who own Kindles and who are book readers are fully aware of all of the Kindle’s shortcomings and limitations.  One thing that they realize after owning/using the device for a while is that the Kindle is not a netbook.  Its (as advertised) a book reader. It emulates reading the mass-market or trade paperback reading experience using technology.  It’s better in some cases (finishing a book with no backup) and worse (page numbers, sharing) in others.  It’s got a basic browser, but doesn’t deal elegantly or swiftly with many web pages and even though it has an MP3 player, I don’t think it’ll replace my iPod anytime soon.

But for reading books, it does what it is supposed to do and does it very well.

With that said, I’d like to rebutt the blog post Kindle will be history within a year, from The Downside web site.

• Holds up to 3,500 books, periodicals, and documents - Amazon downplays the fact that this is only 4GB of storage, a pathetic number for any modern netbook.
  • Maybe for a netbook, but a Kindle is an computerized eReader, not a computer

• Beautiful Large Display: 9.7″ diagonal e-ink screen reads like real paper; boasts 16 shades of gray for clear text and sharp images - Are you kidding me?  16 shades of gray?  Sure, that’s better than the Newton, but this isn’t 1992, guys.  Any modern netbook offers 32 bit color, giving millions of colors.  If I want to read a text book or a blog post on my Kindle DX, you better believe I want color.
  • It’s a fact that textbooks or blogs containing color don’t display as well on the Kindle, but backlit color screens are very hard on the eyes.  Flipping the script, I don’t want to read a book on my pc either. I have dozens of textbook pdfs where I stick to paper format because the pc doesn’t do books justice.  Before going green, I printed because it was so much easier to read; since going green, I just don’t bother to use them.

• Auto-Rotating Screen: Display auto-rotates from portrait to landscape as you turn the device so you can view full-width maps, graphs, tables, and Web pages - We’re only down to the third bullet point, and this is the best you can do?  This is truly trivial, and easy to do on a netbook. 
  • See above point

• Built-In PDF Reader: Native PDF support allows you to carry and read all of your personal and professional documents on the go - PDF readers are free to download on any PC.  Just because this is better than the original Kindle doesn’t make it cool.
  • See above point, again.  Also note that PCs aren’t really portable.

• Wireless: 3G wireless lets you download books right from your Kindle DX, anytime, anywhere; no monthly fees, no annual contracts, and no hunting for Wi-Fi hotspots - if you really need to download a book while you’re outside of wi-fi range, apparently this is the device for you.  If you don’t have a Kindle, just download the book to your smartphone, then transfer it to your PC.  
  • I’m beginning to understand that this author is not a real ‘reader’.  Nuff said

• Books In Under 60 Seconds: You get free wireless delivery of books in less than 60 seconds; no PC required - You can also download an ebook to your netbook in less than 60 seconds, no Kindle required.  Fail.
  • Okay, now I’m laughing.  How many times does it need to be reiterated that a Kindle is NOT a netbook?  Or that no one really reads on a computer?  Dude!  The Kindle is a replacement for carrying around a bunch of books.

• Long Battery Life: Read for days without recharging - Who reads for more than a couple hours at a time, anyway?  Non-problem solved.
  • Well…..readers many times read for more than a couple of hours at at time.  Ever hear of someone staying up too late to finish a book?

• Read-to-Me: With the text-to-speech feature, Kindle DX can read newspapers, magazines, blogs, and books out loud to you, unless the book’s rights holder made the feature unavailable - Now you can have A Brief History of Time read to you in the author’s own voice.  Awesome! 
  • Actually, it is pretty awesome.  I have my books read to me on my drive home from work every day.

• Big Selection, Low Prices: Over 275,000 books; New York Times Best Sellers and New Releases are only $9.99, unless marked otherwise - This has nothing to do with the device and will surely be available on any PC very soon.
  • You think?  Wanna place a wager? (Have you seen the Sony Store prices?)

• More Than Books: U.S. and international newspapers including the New York Times and Wall Street Journal, magazines including The New Yorker and Time, plus popular blogs, all auto-delivered wirelessly - Again, I have a PC and a cool new thing called a “web browser” for this. 

The only things that make the Kindle superior to a PC for the purpose of reading are:

• It’s lightweight with a super-compact form factor
• Um…that’s about it.  I guess this isn’t much of a bulleted list.
  • I agree

Per Amazon and posted on their site here, as of Monday, 5/4/2009, there will be a new policy for documents sent wirelessly to your Kindle.  They are charging $ .15 per MB (rounded up).  I never heard of anyone who got charged on the previous fee structure, but am pretty confident that they used the past few months to test and came up with the new policy.  I find this interesting as I had in the past sent a couple of documents that I was told were too large.  I’ll have to go thru my past uploads to calculate, so I’m not sure just yet how this will affect me.  Unfortunately, many non-technical users will have no idea how to calculate this.

Also for those of you using Microsoft Word 2007, note that you may want to save as a .DOC, since it’s now noted that the new Word format (.DOCX) may not format correctly

For anyone who has recently sent personal documents to your Kindle, we’d like to let you know about some updates to our Personal Document Service (via Whispernet). 

Starting May 4, in addition to the existing list of supported file types (DOC, HTML, JPEG, GIF, PNG, BMP, TXT, AZW, MOBI, PRC), you can send RTF files to your Kindle email address for convenient wireless delivery. In addition to the existing experimental support of PDF, you can also send DOCX files for conversion. Some complex PDF and DOCX files might not format correctly on your Kindle.

We have also modified the fee associated with sending personal documents wirelessly to your Kindle. This fee is now based on the size of your file. The fee for Personal Document Service (via Whispernet) is 0.15 per megabyte rounded up to the next whole megabyte.

If you would like to download your personal documents for free, or if you are not in a wireless area, you can continue to send attachments to ”name”@free.kindle.com to be converted. These documents will be e-mailed to your computer at the e-mail address associated with your Amazon.com account login.

As always, you can also use our free document conversion service for any document you want to transfer over USB, and you will not be charged.

There was a flurry of articles this week on how the partnership between Sony and Google offering 500,000 free public domain was going to challenge the Kindle’s dominance and headlines went so far as to call it a Kindle Killer.  My first reaction was a very puzzled “Huh?”. 

Its great to be able to get to all that free content from one location, and the eReader has a easy on the eyes interface; sometimes a better user experience than slogging thru the Project Gutenberg’s website. Amazon has many of the same public domain books, but they make it way too hard to easily find them unless you know exactly what you’re looking for. (Can I say it again–Way too hard.  Hey Amazon–add a category!)

Why exactly is this supposed to be a Kindle Killer?  So far the main reason seems to be the number of books; this partnership gives Sony a grand total of more than 600,000 titles.  Are they crazy?!  500,000 free books that can be downloaded from other sources are supposed to kill the Kindle?  Doing the math, that means that only about 100,000 mainstream books are available in the Sony store.  Since most of those are priced higher than the same Kindle books on Amazon, I think Jeff Bezos is still laughing his head off at the Kindle Killer claim.  Kind of like Steve Jobs did at the iPhone killer Blackberry Storm (snicker)

The only thing which the Sony device can do which I wish Kindle could is read .PDF files. Viewing some of the threads in forums out there, however, suggest that .PDFs in general probably should be converted to other formats for better ereading, no matter what the device.

Okay, what can Kindlers do who want easier access to those Googled books?  Install the eReader software, create a free account and download to your heart’s content!  The books download in .EPUB format and you can use Calibre to convert for use on your Kindle.  (They canNOT be delivered via email to Amazon for conversion).  In some instances, it may be easier to either download the text only version from Project Gutenberg or get a really cheap version from Amazon.

I tested one of each type after listening to the The Kindle Chronicles podcast.  Len said he had problems with Sense and Sensibility so I decided to use that book and compare to the same book from Project Gutenberg and an $ .80 Jane Austin bundle from Amazon (Emma, Lady Susan, Mansfield Park, Northanger Abbey, Persuasion, Pride & Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility).

Both the Google and Project Gutenberg versions have disclaimers at the beginning of the book about how it was scanned, etc.

The following images is a view of the book downloaded from the Sony bookstore in their native app, Calibre and converted (Calibre conversion)/uploaded to my Kindle 2. 

Click any image for a larger view

eReader	Calibre
Kindle

Additional Images

eReader 1st Chapter	Converted 1st Chapter
Gutenberg Version	Amazon Version

The above is a long way round to demonstrate that other than what is admittadly a nice interface, there is nothing in the ‘big’ announcement that lets Sony eReader users do anything more than Kindlers (or other ebook readers) can do.  In fact, for Kindle users, it offers a single interface to find public domain books which is a nice plus.

I have a few recommendations.  Use the eReader store in conjunction with Project Gutenberg to get your public domain books.  If either has crappy formatting, head on over the Amazon to try to find the book as well.  (Note if Amazon formatting is bad also, you can get a refund within 7 days of purchase).  Use Calibre to convert both the eReader and Project Gutenberg files to Kindle format.  

If you need additional information on converting books in Calibre, see the instructions here.  You can use the Calibre instructions when converting eReader books.

Download Calibre
Download Sony eReader
Amazon Public Domain Books
Calibre Conversion Instructions