Photo by Richard Masoner
Right now it is impossible to talk about e-books without mentioning the 800lb e-gorilla in the room, Amazon's Kindle. Well, it's possible, but people look at you funny.
The Kindle is a relative late-comer to the e-book world, but it hit with the full force of Amazon's massive marketplace muscle and has dragged e-books from the arms of the tiny, early-adapter e-book devotees into the wider world of readers who previously would never have considered reading a book on a screen. And Amazon augmented this already decent e-reader device with always-on access to the Internet and Amazon's Kindle store, where you can quickly and easily purchase new books to begin reading immediately.
The pros:
The size. It's lighter than a paperback book, about the size of a hardcover, thinner than a magazine (especially the new Kindle 2,
shown above) and can hold over 1,500 books, which will probably get you
through your weekend.
The convenience. The Kindle comes with 3G Internet access through Sprint, which means you can download books instantly from wherever you are, handy when you finish a book and desperately need another (it happens). You can also surf the Web, although you'll need to stick to text-friendly, low graphics, Flashless sites.
The experience. It fits nicely in your hand, ready for you to curl up in a chair and lose yourself. The E-Ink display is fairly easy to read, even outside, and uses no power so battery life is amazing (up to 2 weeks if you turn off the wireless connection). It doesn't get warm the way some other readers do. The buttons to turn pages are ergonomically placed so you can easily forget the mechanics and just read. There's a built-in dictionary, you can adjust the font to meet your needs as well as make bookmarks or notes, and you always come back to where you left off. You cna subscribe to newspapers and blogs. You can even listen to MP3s while you read.
The content. The Kindle store has the largest retail e-book collection around and they're constantly adding more. And prices are excellent: New York Times bestsellers and most new releases are $9.99, even when the hardback is going for over $25. You can also subscribe to many newspapers and blogs for a monthly fee.
The cons:
The price. That's the big one. The Kindle 2 will run you $359, more than most other e-book reading devices (although the cheaper prices on many of the e-books helps here). Subscription prices for the newspapers and blogs also seem a little steep -- they average $9.99 for papers, a couple bucks for magazines, a buck a month for blogs -- especially when most of that content is free online. I believe this is how Amazon covers the wireless costs so I can't blame them for it, but still.
The size. Yeah, it's great for curling up with, or tossing in your backpack, purse or luggage. But if you want a device that fits neatly in a pocket you'll want to look elsewhere.
The experience. Reading is easy on a Kindle but keep in mind the page size is smaller than a book so you'll be turning pages more often, especially if you bump up the font size. And there is no color available on the Kindle (yet).
The content. I love the Kindle store, but what about all the e-books I bought in the last ten years? You can put your own content on your Kindle, but there are a number of hoops to jump through first. You e-mail your unrestricted Word docs, PDFs, HTML files, text files, and Mobipocket books to a specific address assigned to you and then either have them wirelessly sent to your Kindle (at 10 cents a pop) or sent to your computer so you can move them over with your USB cable. No support for other popular e-book formats such as the thousands of ePub and PDB files I already own.
The functionality. Combined with the price and content, this was a deal breaker for me. The Kindle doesn't do anything but display e-books, really, and if I pay that much for something it also had better play my music, my videos, my games, manage my photos, contact list and calendar, connect me to Facebook and Twitter, and generally run my life. $359 is too much for me to pay for a dedicated device. Especially when all of its content comes loaded with:
The DRM. Even though Amazon now sells music without restrictions, their books are a very different story. Kindle books are heavily protected with Digital Rights Management so that you cannot copy them, give them away or convert them to other formats, which means that you do not truly own the books you've paid for. You merely license them for a while. I tend to avoid proprietary systems that seek to penalize me without really slowing down the actual rule breakers at all.
I did find my way around a lot of those problems by simply putting the Kindle functionality (and Kindle store access) on my iPod Touch, thanks to Amazon's new free Kindle app released last week.
Download your Kindle books to your iPhone or iPod Touch and read them there. You lose the larger reading area and longer battery life, but don't have to shell out for a Kindle to get the Kindle book prices. Still the same problems with getting your own content in, but there are plenty more e-reader apps to handle that for you. And the DRM is still an issue, but hopefully one that will eventually be addressed as more people begin reading e-books.
But for a growing number of readers, the Kindle is the way to go and it's certainly brought e-books out into the sunlight, which helps everyone else in the e-book world.
Do you have a Kindle? What do you think of it? Add your comments below.
The size. It's lighter than a paperback book, about the size of a hardcover, thinner than a magazine (especially the new Kindle 2,
shown above) and can hold over 1,500 books, which will probably get you
through your weekend. The convenience. The Kindle comes with 3G Internet access through Sprint, which means you can download books instantly from wherever you are, handy when you finish a book and desperately need another (it happens). You can also surf the Web, although you'll need to stick to text-friendly, low graphics, Flashless sites.
The experience. It fits nicely in your hand, ready for you to curl up in a chair and lose yourself. The E-Ink display is fairly easy to read, even outside, and uses no power so battery life is amazing (up to 2 weeks if you turn off the wireless connection). It doesn't get warm the way some other readers do. The buttons to turn pages are ergonomically placed so you can easily forget the mechanics and just read. There's a built-in dictionary, you can adjust the font to meet your needs as well as make bookmarks or notes, and you always come back to where you left off. You cna subscribe to newspapers and blogs. You can even listen to MP3s while you read.
The content. The Kindle store has the largest retail e-book collection around and they're constantly adding more. And prices are excellent: New York Times bestsellers and most new releases are $9.99, even when the hardback is going for over $25. You can also subscribe to many newspapers and blogs for a monthly fee.
The cons:
The price. That's the big one. The Kindle 2 will run you $359, more than most other e-book reading devices (although the cheaper prices on many of the e-books helps here). Subscription prices for the newspapers and blogs also seem a little steep -- they average $9.99 for papers, a couple bucks for magazines, a buck a month for blogs -- especially when most of that content is free online. I believe this is how Amazon covers the wireless costs so I can't blame them for it, but still.
The size. Yeah, it's great for curling up with, or tossing in your backpack, purse or luggage. But if you want a device that fits neatly in a pocket you'll want to look elsewhere.
The experience. Reading is easy on a Kindle but keep in mind the page size is smaller than a book so you'll be turning pages more often, especially if you bump up the font size. And there is no color available on the Kindle (yet).
The content. I love the Kindle store, but what about all the e-books I bought in the last ten years? You can put your own content on your Kindle, but there are a number of hoops to jump through first. You e-mail your unrestricted Word docs, PDFs, HTML files, text files, and Mobipocket books to a specific address assigned to you and then either have them wirelessly sent to your Kindle (at 10 cents a pop) or sent to your computer so you can move them over with your USB cable. No support for other popular e-book formats such as the thousands of ePub and PDB files I already own.
The functionality. Combined with the price and content, this was a deal breaker for me. The Kindle doesn't do anything but display e-books, really, and if I pay that much for something it also had better play my music, my videos, my games, manage my photos, contact list and calendar, connect me to Facebook and Twitter, and generally run my life. $359 is too much for me to pay for a dedicated device. Especially when all of its content comes loaded with:
The DRM. Even though Amazon now sells music without restrictions, their books are a very different story. Kindle books are heavily protected with Digital Rights Management so that you cannot copy them, give them away or convert them to other formats, which means that you do not truly own the books you've paid for. You merely license them for a while. I tend to avoid proprietary systems that seek to penalize me without really slowing down the actual rule breakers at all.I did find my way around a lot of those problems by simply putting the Kindle functionality (and Kindle store access) on my iPod Touch, thanks to Amazon's new free Kindle app released last week.
Download your Kindle books to your iPhone or iPod Touch and read them there. You lose the larger reading area and longer battery life, but don't have to shell out for a Kindle to get the Kindle book prices. Still the same problems with getting your own content in, but there are plenty more e-reader apps to handle that for you. And the DRM is still an issue, but hopefully one that will eventually be addressed as more people begin reading e-books.
But for a growing number of readers, the Kindle is the way to go and it's certainly brought e-books out into the sunlight, which helps everyone else in the e-book world.
Do you have a Kindle? What do you think of it? Add your comments below.
