I write this with dismay, honestly. Despite some major faults, the Kindle does digital book reading, loading, and buying so well, and works so well for me, I’m using the Kindle. Not even the Sony Mercedes ebook reader could lure me away.
Every time I sit down at my computer, I find out about a new way to read, load or access books on the Kindle. I can sync books purchased at Amazon across six devices at this point, and I can email files to my device anywhere. Because of the way I interact with books (lots of them, in different formats, moving around towards me, all the time, pretty much always) the Kindle is the easiest and most versatile device for me.
That said, I fully recognize that (a) many folks loathe Amazon, (b) the Kindle doesn’t work as well if you’re not in the US because of digital book international rights asshattery, and (c) there are other options that would work better for different readers, particularly if you like to borrow books from the library or like to shop at different places for books – or like to go to your local Barnes and Noble store, in which case I near the Nook enables you to get free chocolate. If my local BN didn’t give me hives with the size and immensity of it, I’d consider the free chocolate option.
Anyway, back to Kindle 3. I am dismayed that the Sony, even with the file organization, didn’t work for me. I want to be lured away from Amazon’s store. I’m happy to buy .mobi files elsewhere, strip the DRM and put them on the Kindle, even though that means I can only read them on the Kindle, and not on my phone, computer, iPad, Hubby’s phone, refrigerator, vacuum cleaner, and sock drawer. But Amazon’s Kindle 3 does so many little things so easily that my ability to be on auto-pilot with this device makes it essential and hard to relinquish.
The Kindle three is smaller than K2, it’s thinner, and it weighs just a bit less. The Whispernet wireless network works in zippyfast time – I updated the name of the Kindle and changed the email address on the Amazon website, and the device was updated within 10 seconds. Now, I thought the Kindle network was Sprint, but my box said “AT&T” on it. Yet, even in the New York metro area, where AT&T blows, sucks and everything in between, I’ve had no problems.
A word about the packaging: when I received my Nook, I thought I was going to break it trying to take it out of the clear plastic claw it comes in. The Sony arrives in a box that seems like it wouldn’t protect the device, and when I ship one I have to bubble wrap it. The Kindle comes in packaging that is so amazing, it has Apple-style beauty and welcoming texture. You get that, “Oooh, what’s this?” feeling like when you open an Apple product. The Kindle packaging is all paper based and recyclable, and at the bottom it says ‘Certified Frustration-Free Packaging.” Open box, ahoy, Kindle. No clamshell plastic in sight. And I can chuck the whole mess into the recycling box. That’s awesome, Amazon. Thank you.
What do I like about Kindle 3? It’s thinner, smaller, little, graphite and different.
– I like the rubber back of K3 vs. the metal back of K2, which was so slippery I had to cover it with a sticker.
– I like the graphite color VERY much though one scrape revealed some not-graphite beneath the surface. It’s a graphite veneer!
– I like the rougher texture of the buttons, which make me feel like device is more secure in my hands.
– I like the rounded corners, which are very comfortable to hold in one hand.
– I like how little it weighs, and how easy it is to hold.
– I like the new buttons to turn pages, though I do miss the toggle, which I like better than the recessed square button on the front.
– I like having multiple ways to load the device: plugged in via USB, from the Amazon.com website, via email, or, as I just learned from Jane L, navigating using the onboard browser to my Dropbox and downloading my files.
What do I really like about the K3, and the Kindle line in general? Everyone has a Kindle story, a story of how they bought a book in a location where they never thought they’d buy a book. Why is that not their newest commercial pitch idea? My Kindle story? I read about a book in the in-flight magazine while an airplane was taxiing. I reached down, switched on the wireless to the Kindle, and downloaded a sample before the plane took off, and then read the sample in the air when I was allowed to do so. Took me all of 10 seconds. I’ve met several people who are excited to tell you what strange location they’ve been in while buying a book – at this point the bathroom is mundane. Plus, with book syncing, you don’t bring your Kindle in to the lavatory with you. You bring your phone and pray you don’t drop it.
For those who aren’t as familiar with the Kindle method of managing files, there’s one short review and one longer account I can share. The short review: Kindle file management sucks. It’s awful. It’s rudimentary and awkward and freaking annoying. Books you buy from Amazon and remove from your device are stored at Amazon, or “in their cloud,” which is different from “the” cloud because Amazon is about as much like a cloud as I am, unless by cloud you mean “air biscuit,” in which case you might see the analogy a bit better. Or smell it anyway. There’s legions of stories about books in Amazon’s Air Biscuit Cloud that have disappeared or moved or been not really supposed to be for sale oops, we’ll just take that back, thanks.
Here’s what you need to know about buying books from Amazon: you’re paying money for a book you don’t really actually own unless you download it, strip the DRM off it with some process that at this point involves neuroscience and a micron laser, and then store it somewhere else. If you buy books elsewhere, strip the DRM off the .mobi file, or are in receipt of digital files in .doc, .rtf, or .whatever format, and you convert them and put them on the Kindle, yes, you own those files and can move them around. But if you buy a book from Amazon, you don’t really own it. You get a lease on it. You can calculate the term of that lease for use using the following equation:
Take the name of the book and count the letters in it, then divide by the number of days between Facebook privacy setting updates that you have to change lest Facebook make pictures of your backside visible to the astronauts in the Mir space station, then take the derivative of that number, multiply by the cosign of pi, and that’s the term of your time to read that Amazon digital book. Maybe. Macmillan and the Good Lord willing, creeks don’t rise, etc. etc. etc.
That’s the biggest problem with Amazon: you don’t really own your books, and they’re stored in Amazon’s Air Biscuit.
On top of all that, the Amazon Air Biscuit is difficult to navigate and cumbersome to use. And when you migrate from one device to another, there can be problems. When I received Kindle 3, I hooked up K2 and K3 to my laptop to move the files over. I was in a hurry and wanted to set it up with the latest books I’d placed on K2, and didn’t want to download them individually – and to my knowledge there is no way to move a bunch of files out of the Amazon Air Biscuit all at once. In addition, some of the files I’d emailed to the device and those were obviously not going to be in the archive.
The emailed files transferred fine with no problems. But when I tried to open a book I’d already read, one that I’d downloaded from Amazon as part of a free promotion on K2 and moved physically over to K3, BOTH of which are on my Amazon account, I received the following message:
This item cannot be opened because it is licensed to a different user. Delete the item and download it from your Archived Items or purchase a copy from the Kindle Store.
What the hey now? I did buy this book. From the Kindle Store. On my account. And I only have one user account with Kindle (and, like, fourteen billion different locations to which I can download a file at this point). So what the hell went wrong? I really, really don’t want to have to click and download a bunch of individual files out of the archive, and thought bulk-moving would work. Apparently not.
What fixed it? Changing the name of K3 and K2. Once K3 had the name and email address I used for K2, those free download files worked just fine. VERY odd. And a total accident that I figured it out.
The Amazon Air Biscuit is also crappy in terms of how books are presented. You can’t sort by pub date or purchase date in the archive, and you can’t read or see a blurb in the archive listing.
The individual description page of books I’ve purchased contains precious little information and nothing additional is accessible without wireless connection to reach out to the Kindle Store and get the rest of the data. That’s bothersome in a big way, since I suck at remembering titles and plots together, and constant look up which book is which when I’m reading digitally. Is it really that difficult to include a description in the metadata that’s included on the book file housed on the Kindle?
And finally, the lack of file management outside of the device itself is ri-freaking-diculous. Unless I am using the Kindle software on the Kindle itself, and moving files one by one, I cannot organize my files in bulk or move them en masse into collections. What the ever loving hell is that? I ran this picture with my review of the Sony Touch, and really, it demonstrates so clearly what’s wrong with the library management on the Kindle using the Kindle software. I know NetGalley is working on a solution to the Number Name problem, but Amazon does not seem very interested in hearing about their file management issues and fixing them.
Oddly, the Amazon customer support is goggle-eye good. Your eyes will bug out if you use it. I can get someone on the phone within seconds to help me work through a problem, and I’ve had Kindles that were broken or not working right replaced in 24 hours. I’ve had excellent support on both new and refurbished Kindles, and I’ve never had a problem calling and telling them that a book was poorly formatted or just plain ugly on the Kindle and immediately having the book removed from my account for a full refund. It’s a very, very big plus, especially if you are the type of user who is not tech-savvy and does not know, and does not want to know, how to use a device like a Kindle.
The actual reading experience isn’t so different from the K2. The graphite body, I think, highlights the increased contrast, which I loooooove, looooooooooove, LOOOOOOOVE with every one of the points of magnification of my eyeglasses. The eInk contrast is so improved, I have no regrets about upgrading. If you have a Kindle 1, and are thinking of upgrading, I think you will be very happy if you upgrade.
I like the weight of it, the texture of the buttons and the back – not having the slick metal back made me very happy indeed. I do miss the toggle bar, as it was easier to use without looking at it. With the indented square with thin bars that move the cursor up, down, left and right, I’m having to look to make sure I’m pressing the right thing, and not about to accidentally hit the middle of the button, which functions as an enter key.
I also have to look and confirm the locations of “menu,” “home,” and “back,” though I expect I’ll have them memorized soon enough.
The thinner page turn buttons are way, way thin, and I have to check to make sure I’m at the right place when I’m about to start turning pages, sort of like checking the position of your hands before you play the piano. The on/off switch is SO loose, I feel like one good nudge and it’s going to come off. It wiggles like a loose tooth. But I love that there is a light behind it that tells me it is on or off – it glows green when the device is on.
So why, when I load so much content onto the Kindle that ISN’T from Amazon, did I ultimately go back to the Kindle? The multiple venues of loading content wirelessly made it much easier to use, and if I’m attentive I can manage collections, though the method to do so on the device sucks out loud. If the question is File Organization and Shopping Options vs. Ease of Loading, I am going to go with Ease of Loading every time, simply because of what and how much I read. If I find a book I want, one click or one forwarded email, and it’s on the Kindle – I don’t have to think about it.
That said, I am not the same reader you are, and I don’t interact with and manage my books the same as everyone else. When I’ve been asked “What device should I buy?” I almost always start with the reading habits and the tech-savvy of the person asking. If they read frequently and are not tech-savvy, I recommend the Kindle, and to a lesser extent the Nook—and I don’t recommend the Nook at all for anyone who has arthritis in their hands. That bottom LCD would be very painful after a few hours. I don’t have arthritis and it bothered me.
I’m going to continue the Digital Reader Reviews this week (or very soon) with a review of the Kobo, but in the meantime, I want to welcome the Kindle users of any model to share why they like their Kindle, and what works for them.
ETA: Christina Dodd sent me this link on how to set up RSS feeds and online content via Instapaper and Calibre to deliver to the Kindle automatically. VERY cool.
When the Collections feature became available for the K2 this summer, I found it easier to load all my books from “Manage My Kindle” on the computer rather than through Archives (which is, indeed, a pain when you’re loading multiple books at once). It was extra handy because I could check the book’s description quickly. There are 4 of us on our Kindle account, so I didn’t want all the books on my K2.
I have a nook as well, I’d had a Sony but when I found out I could put Sony & Kobo books on a nook, but not B&N books on the Sony, it made sense to make the switch so I could read them all on one e-ink device. I’m now using it for library books too (turns out there are libraries you can use without being in their local area). I haven’t given B&N a dime though – all my B&N books were freebies and I got the nook on eBay. 😉
As a device, I infinitely prefer the Kindle – it’s like nook developers looked at the Kindle and decided to add at least one extra step to any given function.
I have a K2 and love love love it! I’ve read more books in the past 9 months than I’d read in the past 9 years probably, though I’m not entirely certain way. The Buy with 1-click button is like crack tho, I agree!
One thing I did want to point out that I haven’t seen covered: I have the Kindle for PC feature downloaded on my computer at work. When I buy a book it gets downloaded to both my PC and my K2. If I open that book and read on the PC (I sometimes have a lot of downtime at work) when I get home and turn on my K2 it will sync to the furthest page read from my PC. Or vice versa. That’s pretty cool too.
I guess one of the other things I like a lot about Amazon/Kindle is that the seem to LISTEN to their customers wants and they are constantly working to try and improve it. I was over the moon when they came out with the “Collections” feature. Now I can organize by author, favorites, read, unread, freebies, samples, I want!, etc. and one title can go in three different folders if I want.
For my birthday next year I’m getting the K3 and hopefully it will be available in Red!!
Ok- here’s the thing. I don’t buy books. I have, for long involved reasons, lots of books in PDF form. Also, my library system has about 20K e-books. Reading PDF’s on my computer is a pain. Don’t have a smart phone or Ipod. Can’t afford I-pad. So…anyone know if the cheaper ($100 – $130) e-readers that Borders carries are any good? I’m not looking for anything other than something that can read PDFs and library books and maybe the occasional purchased book. I have no computer skills, no idea how I would do all the stuff people are talking about, no interest in doing so! Thanks!!
(expect85 – I really don’t expect 85 answers – but that would be nice!!)
There is definitely a Topaz crack out there. *cough* But it will require significant google-fu to find it.
The trick is that the Topaz crack, when you find it, will give you two things: one which is the embedded text within the format (and this is suboptimal because the text embedded via crappy OCR, for search purposes, and the text would never be displayed on the device itself), and another which is sort of a series of image files of the page.
Basically, the Topaz file format is really more a series of image glyphs that are put together, and not a text file. The resulting decryption of Topaz does not result in something that is a simple e-book, and there’s no way to make it do so: the file format itself is not text, but graphics.
The place where I learned all this has since been razed to the ground by takedown requests, but suffice it to say that there *is* a way to decrypt Topaz, just not into something that is easily read by other e-readers.
to the best of my knowledge, nothing reads pdfs very well, except maybe the Kindle DX and iPad – things with larger screens. This is because of the nature of pdfs – they’re basically snapshots of pages. When people ask me about reading pdfs, I recommend that they convert them with something like Calibre to a better file format.
On Topaz… The only problem with Topaz (besides OCR errors) is that the resulting “cracked” files also are missing any formatting like italics which makes cracking a Topaz file and formatting it into ePub or Mobi no worth the effort even on books with only a few OCR errors.
As far as PDF reading goes… Most readers do them fine when they’re formatted for a small screen. The problem comes in that most are formatted to around the page size of a hardcover or trade paperback or even letter size. I’ve made a few of my own PDF’s with the page size setup properly for a 6” reader and they look great.
@J, the cheaper readers Borders carries will work fine for ePubs from the library, but not so much for PDF because of the reasons I stated above. Some of the smaller readers will try to reflow the PDF and sometimes that makes them somewhat readable on a small 5 or 6” screen. I’m not sure if the Kobo does reflow or not, but you’ll be able to find tons of reviews and discussion on it at Mobile Read.
As far as libraries go, for folks that don’t already know about it… The Free Library of Philadelphia offers non-resident cards (even for non-US folks) for $15 a year and currently has over 3,000 ebooks (and add hundreds each month). A fantastic deal if you don’t have a local library that offers them or if, like mine, your local libraries selection sucks.
I upgraded to the K3 after having the original Kindle for about a year and a half. The K1 wasn’t quite nice enough to convert me to all digital but reading on the K3 is so nice that it has won me over. The e-ink contrast in the K3 is sooo much nicer than the K1. I know the collection format isn’t perfect, but having the folder option is so much nicer than the K1 where I had 29 pages of books that I had to click through. I have the cover with the light that runs off the K3 battery and it’s wonderful – I can read in full darkness with the light and I also like it for my low light living room because it lights up the right side of my K3 while the lamp lights the left side. I also use my iPhone to read so I love having the sync option between my iPhone Kindle app and my K3. I love the one-click buying option, I just use my iPhone to easily search the Kindle store then send it straight to my Kindle.
If you are a K1 owner thinking of upgrading – I recommend it, the increased text contrast is amazing and looks so much better. I bought the graphite version, which looks great. I highly recommend the lighted cover from Amazon, it was well worth the money.
SB said:
Oddly enough, after I wrote my first comment about my new Kindle, its eyes rolled back in its head so I had to call customer support today. And yes, indeed, a new one will be in my hands tomorrow. The CS guy worked with me to try and figure out what had happened and then said, “We’ll just send you another by tomorrow.” Yahoo! What could be better? Obviously, no problems at all would be best, but how great to have such responsive help!
I love my K3. I started with the K2 and loved it, but the promise of a better screen, smaller size, and larger capacity won me over within minutes of going on sale. Literally. Five minutes after it came up, I ordered it. The lighted case for it is amazing (I have it in apple green), but I am actually tend to use an Oberon case that was gifted to me because it’s so darned beautiful. I attach a Mighty Brite lite to it at night. I’ll pull out the lighted case when winter hits and it’s dark all the time.
I’ve played around with the Nook and didn’t like it nearly as well. I found the color strips distracting, didn’t like the page turn time and really hated the touch screen.
I have no experience with Sony ereaders so have no opinion on them other than they’re really, really good looking but have no wireless.
The K3 is far from perfect. As said endlessly, and with good reason, their “collection” system sucks for set up. However, I find that once set up, it beautifully serves my needs, though folder in folder would be a great upgrade. When the new K3 arrived, all I did was go to my Amazon page and download all the books I already owned (and all of which I’d previously put in collections) which is relatively quick and easy when done that way instead of through the device itself. Then, from the actual kindle I just Hit View Archive Items. The top item is Add All Other Device collections. It’ll ask from which device and voila! Done. It’ll drain the battery with all the indexing, which depending on how many books you have (I had around 400) will take a while, but will allow you to read etc as if nothing’s happening, but then everything is done. The only thing I absolutely hate about it is the directional key. I much preferred the joystick.
Also, Amazon’s customer service is amazing. I have never had an issue with any product that wasn’t addressed immediately, and this is going back to when they first started, when the ONLY thing they carried was books.
the PDF capabilities is one of the reasons I just ordered the K3. I am a grad student, and most of my assignments involve reading pdf’s. It should be here on Saturday, and I cannot wait.
I haven’t read all of the comments yet, so i’m sorry if this was already addressed. Does the K3 have an airplane mode? I’ll be hopping a 6 hour flight from Boston to San Francisco in November (my 1st academic conference), and it would be so great if i could read on my K3.
@Liz, you can turn off the Kindle’s wireless which I guess would be an airplane mode. When I flew down to Disney World in April I brought my K2 and used it without problem on the plane.
@Brian, thanks. this was one of my main issues with buying an e-reader.
Read all the comments and basically nodded my way through. I’ve had my K2 about a year. And I’ve bought more and read more in that year than previously. And I read a lot anyway.
I love the portability, and the immediacy. I also love that I don’t have to pack tons of books when I travel.
Sarah: On the subject of managing Kindle collections; you’re not the only one to be disappointed. One of those disappointed decided to do something about it. You might want to check this out:
http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=94261
If you’re in the mood to try other ePub-based readers, take a look at the Pocketbook 360. It is a very fun reader to own and excels at letting you customize it and make it your own. No wireless, no touchscreen, no audio; nothing but great ergonomics and very good reading software. I actually use it more than my K2. Oh, it comes in Opalescent “white” and dark chocolate “Black”. I went with black.
I was really into the idea of getting one of these, but lately I’ve been let down by all my new technology gadgets – TV, laptop, surround sound – and all have broken in some way. Makes me think a nice paperback book will make a refreshing change.
THANK YOU for mentioning the issue of available content outside the US. Just got a Kindle 3 and am already jaded, and have hardly bought anything. The range of stuff available to Australia is approx 450,000 vs 600,000+ to the US – and I’m telling you, what you want to read is more than likely in the missing 150,000 (which is quite a big number, isn’t it?).
I don’t know if it’s authors who aren’t chivvying, agents who aren’t looking after their clients’ interests, publishers dragging the chain, or what. Either way, there are sales of Kindle-formatted books which aren’t happening because the paperwork isn’t in place.
If you look at the Kindle store’s Australia bestseller list, it’s by and large Stieg Larsson x 3 and free stuff. It’s all very nice to be able to toddle through Pride and Prejudice or Alice in Wonderland free and download them in a very short time: but I bought the Kindle to buy and read current books I didn’t want to buy in physical form, not just download freebies of out of copyright classics. I’d already bought the Larssons as print novels, and you have to scroll for ages down the bestseller list to find much more current stuff. I want to be able to read a review or find a book that sounds good, and be able to buy it.
When something I am happy to buy again is there – eg. I thought I’d buy all the Gabaldon Outlander series – hey presto, you can buy two novels from later in the series, and not sequential ones (Fiery Cross and Echo in the Bone). Which is daft.
The issue of rights and content availability for non-US residents is a huge drawback. And a dealbreaker: I wouldn’t be recommending any e-reader to Australians, unless they have a passion for out of print classics…
Note: much the same as the limited range of audiobooks available to Australian buyers. Authors, agents and publishers need to get with the program and catch up!!
rooruu: absolutely! I am from Germany and we have the same problems regarding ebooks and audiobooks. This is the reason that I am not going to get a Kindle – except maybe if I got one really cheap on ebay. But I did download the Kindle4PC because this way I can at least get the free books that are available on amazon and that I CAN download – I was going to get Outlander while it was available for free but…
I just don’t understand why they don’t have/seek worldwide distribution rights for all e- and audiobooks. I mean I can get the paperbacks etc here just fine, so why not give us the e/audioversion, too??
If it weren’t for this problem, I would consider getting a Kindle, esp with the price now.
rooruu: I’m in Australia and agree! Amazon won’t let me buy any more kindle books that I want. I tried the trick of using a US address, but now they want to see a US passport or something to verify my geographic location. If I want to read certain ebooks, it seems my only option is to illegally download them. I think they should make all ebook rights international not geographical, and fix this whole mess. At the moment I have to trick stores into taking my money, the whole situation is just plain crazy.