Principled Innovation LLC

My Amazon Kindle is hot!

April 20th, 2008

Here is a picture of the Amazon Kindle that Meg bought me for my birthday. I have to say that I was a bit skeptical of the Kindle when I first heard about it, both because of its hefty price tag and its proprietary format, but now that I have one, I love it!

It arrived this past Thursday, about four weeks after Meg ordered it for me. It is actually very easy to use and is more interesting in person than this image suggests. Reading the screen is a pleasure, the controls are a breeze and the simplicity and speed of buying and downloading books either online or directly from the device is very cool. Even the PDF article I e-mailed to the Kindle (at a cost of 10 cents for conversation to Amazon’s format) came through in a very readable form. It’s not perfect by any means, but neither is it as bad as some have suggested.

As a subscriber to the New York Times in DTF (dead-tree format), it is nice to be able to receive the paper on the Kindle each day, although I wish it would update throughout the day. I am considering dumping all but my weekend papers, but I’m not quite ready to make that commitment. Let’s see how this first full week of my subscription goes.

There was one glitch this morning that I am going to watch closely. After downloading the Sunday New York Times, the Kindle froze up. I had to remove the back cover and reset the device. The reset worked just fine, but I will definitely pay attention to whether this happens again.

The acid test will be my experience on airplanes this week. It will be nice to have a number of e-books to read while traveling, although I won’t be able to avoid bringing at least one traditional book I am using in my client work and that isn’t yet available in Kindle format. Still, I expect some curious and interested staring from my fellow passengers when I start using the device, and it will be fun to talk about my new gadget with them.

All in all, I am excited about my Amazon Kindle. It isn’t a perfect device, but it is very good and I am hopeful that it will get better with future software updates. If you’re considering a Kindle for yourself or as a gift, I encourage you to go for it. It’s definitely hot!

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