Still loving it!
A few updates…
First, some personal background info. To get to work each day, I take a train and a bus. Now that the weather is half decent, I walk to the train station in the morning. It’s just about 1 mile. When I was younger and used to read a lot more, I’d get so into a book that I’d read while walking. Geeky, I know. But the Kindle is perfect for this. One of the tough parts of reading while walking is … well, reading while the book is bouncing up and down in your hand. With the Kindle, you just bump up the font size to say the second largest, and no problem. Hell, if I went to the largest size, I could probably read while jogging. Hmm….
The other thing I’ve been testing out is the battery life. The last time I charged my Kindle was Monday morning. I’ve been using it daily on my commute and at home at night. I turn off the 3G wireless except when I actually need it for something, which isn’t often, maybe a couple minutes per day. So far after 5 days use… 50% charge left! Impressive.
I’m also getting into the Kindle community and finding out all kinds of neat tips and tricks. For instance, I didn’t know that Instapaper has a Kindle service. I’ve already been using Instapaper to read web pages later on my iPhone. The Kindle service takes all your saved pages and sends them to your Kindle once a week, or whatever schedule you want, nicely indexed and formatted. Cool! There’s also KindleFeeder which sends RSS feeds to your Kindle. Note that these services send documents to your device via the Amazon conversion service, which supposedly costs 10 cents each time you use it. But from what I’ve heard, nobody has ever actually been charged for this as of yet. I’ve used it a couple of times and have not been charged.
Another cool service is Mysteria. This lets you enter any book and it will search for an ebook version of it. Not just then, but it will keep you on file, so when an ebook version finally does come out, next week, next month, or next year, it will email you and let you know. It also checks out your Amazon wish list and looks for ebook versions of anything there, so your wish list becomes a “I wish this was on my Kindle” list.
So yeah, overall, I love it. About the only bad thing I can say is that I have to restrain myself from buying too many books. I’ve been making use of the sample feature a lot. For any Kindle book on Amazon, you can click “send me a sample” and you’ll get the first chapter or two sent to you. I have a lot of samples stored. I figure I’ll used them like bookmarks or to-read lists. They are things I might want to read someday, but I already have a few purchased ones to ge through. So the samples sit there in my Kindle. Later, one might look interesting and I can read a chapter and if I like it, buy it then and there and continue reading. Saves you from dishing out a lot of money for books you might never even get to.
OK, now here’s the pitch. A lot of people have been asking me for feedback on the Kindle because they are thinking of getting one. I’ve told you what I think in this and my last post. If this pushes you over the edge toward buying one, click below and I’ll get a little commission on it.
Note, that I did the same. Tom Ortega’s post is what convinced me, so he got my commission. 🙂
I thought I was the only one that read while walking!
When Tom and I worked together in SoCal. I walked to the train station after work, about 3 miles if I recall correctly. Loved reading while walking. Probably freaked people out that I’d walk in front of them, but it was great!
I haven’t tried it on the Kindle but I do take mine to the gym and read while on the elliptical machine, which is like walking, with no destination 🙂 Works awesome!
I’m having the same problem, not buying new books for it, I’ve bought two, and use Kindlefeeder. At least I won’t have the space issue in the house now.
From everything you’ve written and that I’ve read elsewhere, it sounds great. I just can’t believe it still costs so much.
Erik, I agree with you on the price point. I was in a position where I could afford it so I closed my eyes to the price and got it, but it is overpriced I think. Then again, I heard Bezos say they have sold more than they anticipated, even in this economy. So it looks like the market will bear it.
John, yeah, I took two bags of books to the recycling center today (they have a book area where you can drop off books you don’t want, and take what you want for free). This made room in my shelves for the two piles of books that I had nowhere to put (mostly new iPhone/Cocoa books). But I’m thinking of even replacing some of my more used technical / coding books with Kindle versions.
I really really want one. But I am in Europe 🙂 And I don’t think the service will be available in Switzerland soon. Might still buy and pass all my PDFs into. I don’t really like Stanza or FileMagnet (iPhone).
How does it work with books from the public library?
I hope you don’t have to cross any railroad tracks….
kindle 2 sounds amazing, but it isn’t available in the UK or europe yet. argh! i can’t help but think that its integrated mobile phone connection thingy has complicated rolling it out to international markets. i would be more than happy if just connected with plain old wifi .
Thank you for the in depth review (both of them), I am almost positive I will be making a purchase soon.
However in looking at the Kindle account I noticed this disclaimer on the doc conversion charges:
O’Reilly has started publishing (without DRM!) on the Kindle:
http://toc.oreilly.com/2009/04/over-160-oreilly-books-now-in-kindle-store-without-drm-more-on-the-way.html
Amazon just released the kindle dx.
it has a bigger screen!
but its also more expensive