Amazon's Amazing New Electronic Book Reader

Forget everything you've read or heard about electronic books. After dozens of companies have tried and failed, Amazon's Kindle has succeeded big time. I've been using one actively for several days and it's life changing.

Amazon has re-thought the entire process and has come up with the best implementation yet. They not only developed an excellent device, but created a seamless and simple process for selecting, retrieving and reading books.

The Kindle store, accessed from the device, offers more than 90,000 books including best-sellers, newspapers, magazines and blogs (including the Huffington Post). Kindle's books are heavily discounted: current best-seller hardcover books, which cost $25-$35 cost just $9.99 as a Kindle book.

Once you choose a book, it's delivered to you seamlessly over Sprint's high-speed wireless network. The book's title is automatically added to your personal table of contents and you can start reading the book seconds later. It's the closest thing to magically transporting the book from Amazon's warehouse to you.

The Kindle store is simple to use and is rich with extras. You can preview a book before buying, read reviews, and search by category.

It's comparable to Apple's iTunes store, but is better in some ways because you can access it from almost anywhere without needing a computer. And unlike iTunes, all your purchases are remembered and can be downloaded to your Kindle again and again at no cost in case you lose or delete them. The Kindle holds about 200 books.

The Kindle device is a pleasure to hold and to use. It's just 10 ounces, is easy to cradle in your hand and doesn't intrude on the reading process. It seems to almost disappear when you're immersed in your book.

Its shape is unlike anything I've seen and it's impossible to accurately describe (and photograph). It's angular, with soft edges like a book, yet wedge-shaped like a three-ring notebook. It's much thinner than you'd expect from the photos.

The controls and menus are easy to learn and use. The low-power, black-and-white, matte display is crisp and easy to read, looking like print on paper. Instead of backlighting, the screen uses ambient light from the room or a lamp, just like a normal book. I could read for hours without the strain I normally get from using a backlit display. The six-inch screen displays graphics in four shades of gray, but it's designed primarily for text. There's one font available in several sizes. The removable battery lasts for several days and is recharged in about two hours. It has plenty of power for a long transcontinental flight.

The Kindle system is revolutionary and is something perhaps only Amazon could have accomplished because of its vast online store and its relationships with publishers.

The Kindle costs $399. While not inexpensive, that includes unlimited access to the high-speed network and free Internet access. If you read a book or two a month, the cost savings pays for the device in a year or two.

If my experience is typical, you'll be doing a lot more reading with the Kindle. It's something that you'll likely bring with you everywhere and use to fill those spare moments.

Amazon has succeeded in becoming the first company to deliver on the promise of electronic books.

Comments

[protundo]

Wow, what an innovation­...but I still prefer the normal, wonderful, paper book...

Pierluigi Rotundo

[RobertaInCT]

To pay $399 for the Kindle and still have pay for books I don't think so, unless it comes with all the great books of the world.

[HeevenSteven]

Can I highlight text? Can I make notes in the margins? Can I lend a book to a friend when I'm finished? Can I stuff it in my backpack and not work about it breaking?

There's nothing like a real book.

[Sundialsvc4]

I don't know if I would go to sleep at night after turning-off my Kindle ... actually, the screen might hurt when it bumps into my forehead ;-) ... but there's no doubt that this kind of a device will be prominent in the future. Especially, I think, for the more-technical reading material, product manuals and so-forth.

The -distribution- and -warehousing- of media is an amazingly unnecessary expense.

[lm945]

I've gone through three copies (so far) of my favorite book, the spines broken beyond recognition. I can pick one up, and start reading wherever it happens to fall open, knowing precisely where I am in the story. Something you can't do with an e-book.

It's also not available for Kindle (I checked).

The one advantage I can see to any kind of e-book is eliminating the need for overflowing, wall-to-wall, floor to ceiling bookcases. (They make one hell of a mess to clean up after an earthquake­.)

[CollateralDamage]

It doesn’t matter to me how nice the reader is, Amazon is asking me to pay 399.00 for the privilege of locking me into their store. This kind of marketing model is just another power grab by a greedy corporation. Buy this product and Amazon takes away from you many of the rights you have when you buy a paper book. The user of this system no longer owns the book. Why is that?

The only device I would buy would allow me to purchase or borrow books from any store (or library) I choose and to store and display the book on any device I choose, including one that I may like better at a later time. With a paper book, you can sell or give it to someone else when you are finished with it. If you tried that with this Amazon system the corporate masters might well send you to prison. I am not interested in becoming a surf of the Amazon corporation nor am I interested in buying an expensive, special purpose computer for phone service, another for reading books, another for listening to mucic, just because this is more profitable for a monopoly telecom or retailer.

Why isn’t this system available on any personal computer or mobile device and without the DRM? Amazon and the publishers would make a nice profit downloading the book to your hard drive for 9.99. Once there, you could read it on any device you chose. So why won’t they?

The companies marketing these devices own our government. If we owned it, we would have lots of options already available that were a lot nicer and more flexible. If the politicians were not paid huge bribes by companies like Sprint and Amazon, school text books would already be online at reasonable prices. If we had elections that were publicly financed and honestly conducted you would be amazed at how many more choices we would have and how much better these products would be.

[drkazmd65]

Call me a Luddite,..­.

But I just can't get into reading for pleasure from a hand-held device.

Books are best enjoyed as books, rustling pages, dog-eared corners, and while propped up against a tree on a lazy, sunny afternoon sipping a nice cold beverage.

Advances in technology are not always advances.

[zjr909]

I, too, like the look and feel of a paper book. What I don't like are the "paper fleas" that inevitably develop over time (and, after all, the whole idea of having a book is to be able to go back to it again and again long after having read it). Consequently, I have books now stored away in plastic containers to prevent these "paper fleas" from infecting newer books (I suppose they're actually dust mites or else just the paper itself disintegrating over time; all I know is that they itch). So, even though I don't particularly relish the idea of reading books via an electronic medium, I'd be more than willing to give this Kindle a try.

[InofTouch]

Sorry but my heart go with Sony's Reader is much better looking and easy to handle then this junk

[cc]

And how will those of us living in rural America raising steaks and veggies for hapless and helpless grocery-store dependent city folk (and for ourselves too of course) get OUR hands on Kindles' electronic "books"? How will someone on dial-up download huge tomes? Will Amazon offer them on CDs and send them by snail-mail so we can have them pronto? or do we leave our computers online tying up our telephones lines for days downloading them?

You know, I've been told that not acquiescing to Microsoft's illegal "activation" and upgrading to Windows XP would soon put me out of the high-tech loop. But in truth Windows Millennium is hanging in there just fine--it's my dial-up that's left me gagging on dust. Nothing "streams", everything hiccups--downloads at a slug's pace--so I have no video, no music, no audio--no youtube, no itunes, no radio (but I DO have plenty of food ;). Thanks AT&T, Verizon, etc. for keeping the promise of high-speed Internet for all of America you made years ago in exchange for those immensely profitable tax breaks you're still receiving. Way to go corporate greedheads--screw The People. Only in America.

It's a no-brainer anyway: even if it were possible for me to buy into "Kindle" what would I put on my bookshelve­s--knickkn­acks and bric-a-brac? and I can't even imagine reading myself to sleep over a stinking plastic box! I agree wholeheartedly with those who posted before me: books have personalit­y--ambienc­e--singula­rity of look, feel, and aroma as well as content! Electronic "books"?? Phooey.

[totalliberal]

Trees everywhere:

"Whew! Thank you".

[ChiGuy]

I like the idea over all, and I have no problem with the concept of not actually holding a real honest-to-goodness book in my hands while reading.

What I'd be concerned about is just how long it will be before Kindle becomes out-dated and you're forced to spend perhaps $499 (Or even more) just a few years down the line for the NEXT version, because the old one has been rendered incompatible, and thus obsolete.

Thanks, but I think I'll stick with the "real" thing for now.

[BearsGrl8]

Textbooks.

Please.

I love the tradition of books- the binding, the way they smell, the crack of the spine the first time you open them- with the exception of huge, expensive, bulky textbooks that weigh a TON!

There is no way I'd pay $399 to read "regular" books I can get at the library, but a semester of books can be $500+ and are painful to carry around campus. If textbooks are made available, it would make life so much easier. Of course, a "highlight" function on the Kindle would be nice, if we're talking textbooks.­..

[charon]

Sounds like a back light option would be nice. Color graphics would be good also, as it would make many college texts available to users, given the cost of college texts these days. The things would pay for themselves quickly if steep discounts could be had on the texts. Color graphics would mainly be useful in college texts for the many charts, graphs, and pictures they put in them.

[darthmaul]

I have always been bothered about the high cost of textbooks for students. Could the Kindle be a low cost replacement for these books? I know the current selling of textbooks is probably a racket for the colleges and professors to gouge money from the students, so it may be a hopeless dream….