Comments on: First Look: Amazon’s Kindle Reader: The Gap Between Description and The Device

By: Richard Tholen

Richard Tholen — Sun, 23 Dec 2007 12:33:18 +0000

Too many reviewers take the negative (like so many movie reviewers) aspects of a "new" device and beat it up rather than looking for balance, pros, and cons. (And like some movie censors who condemn without having even seen the movie, I suspect that many or most of these detractors haven't used the Kindle yet.)
Well, I have a Kindle, and the first thing that struck me as I opened the box is the Apple-like packaging–very slick; actually quite well done! Then the device: it's not a dog in appearance at all; I rather like it better than the Sony eReader. Since there are next page and prev page bars on each side for lefties and righties, you do have to hold it somewhat carefully to avoid an inadvertant page turn, but the momentary electrophoretic ink "flash" is truly no worse than a physical page turn. I ignore it easily. Downloads are fast; prices are $6.79 to $9.99 for NYTimes A-list books, $1.99 for a month of many magazines, and it all works without a computer hook-up. Wirelessly, from wherever your cellphone works, and fast. Since I often read several books at once, having them at my fingertips in one unit is truly a paradigm shift (of the good kind)!

My vote is: don't knock it until you've tried it; this is one of the best 1st-gen units I've purchased in a long time. And I suffer from being a dread early adopter of tech.

By: Kindleized

Kindleized — Sun, 02 Dec 2007 13:34:48 +0000

"You will have to buy the book AGAIN to read it on the Kindle.”

No, it remains associated with your Amazon customer account, so if you Kindle is ever lost or damaged, you won't lose the downloaded Kindle books you have paid for.

By: mockmook

mockmook — Sat, 01 Dec 2007 09:56:56 +0000

"You will have to buy the book AGAIN to read it on the Kindle."

That depends. If your book is in a file format acceptable to the Kindle, then you are home free; also, some non-compatible e-books can be converted to acceptable formats (if I correctly understand what I have read elsewhere).

By: Dennis Lord

Dennis Lord — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 01:20:44 +0000

I'm surprised that critics want the Kindle to act like a book and yet want it to do things that are totally unlike a book. How many books allow you to scroll the page. And the page change flicker, has the turning of a page in a book never caused frustration when more than one page turns at a time, etc
Just take a long blink when you go to the next page with the Kindle. We seem to want the first generation to work like the 10th generation. What a difference I see between my first generation ipod and my ipod touch. No comparison, yet I still appreciated the original ipod realizing Apple would like me to continue to purchase upgrades. I think that will occur in regard to the browser on the Kindle. I think the need to beat the Christmas market caused some things to need to wait for an update. According to Amazon, the Kindle can be updated from the Amazon site as the software is improved.
Amazon is covering a lot of costs with the Kindle so let's be patient and still expect changes and improvements.

By: GSlusher

GSlusher — Sun, 25 Nov 2007 16:19:44 +0000

Something no one has commented on, as far as I've found, is that there is a huge difference between the Kindle and the iPod (besides the design): you cannot "rip" a book you already own to the Kindle, as you can CDs (and videos, tapes, LPs, etc.) for the iPod. You will have to buy the book AGAIN to read it on the Kindle. Amazon should charge less–say $2–for the Kindle version of a book you've previously bought from them, but I don't expect them to do that.

Another thing that bothers me is the disingenuous way that Amazon compares the price of a Kindle book to the FULL retail price. They should compare it to the price THEY charge for the physical book. I checked the first 10 $9.99 Kindle books listed on the page when the Kindle was announced. The average "savings" was $6.05, if I recall correctly. That means it would take 65+ books to "pay" for the Kindle.

By: Jim Frost

Jim Frost — Thu, 22 Nov 2007 04:12:26 +0000

"It's not color! It sucks!"

Geez, you'd think that all their paper books are brilliant color. Last I checked color books are the exception, not the rule. If that works ok most of the time, why should this not?

There are definitely some ergonomics that I am not sure of yet (especially the page-turn flicker) but there are ergonomic limitations in everything, even traditional books. Will it outweigh the device's advantages? Only living with one for awhile will tell.

We saw almost exactly the same kind of negativity when content started moving to the web. I don't think the Kindle is the be-all-to-end-all of books, although I think that it is the first to provide the overall format that will win in the market. The advantages — and they are numerous — will outweigh the disadvantages for an awful lot of content.

By: apetra

apetra — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 20:08:06 +0000

When they are serious about this, they'll offer me free access to every book I've ever purchased at Amazon. For that, I'd be willing to pay the premium cost of such a device.

By: Csurgay Péter

Csurgay Péter — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 17:55:19 +0000

Small screens make certain kinds of applications completely useless in my opinion.

By: Scott Lawton (Blogcosm)

Scott Lawton (Blogcosm) — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 10:56:29 +0000

"there’s a very annoying screen flash every time you flip the page"

If "ordinary readers" have the same reaction, the device is DOA.

The only thing really new here is Whispernet, and I doubt that's the key ingredient that's been holding dedicated eBook reading devices back.

"iPhone users may have to resist the urge to touch the screen to zoom in and out"

My hunch: ePaper / eInk technology still isn't ready for prime time. Is it really only 800×600? That was fine years ago, but touch screens have caught up. 4 shades of gray? No; people like color. Scroll wheel? A clumsy workaround — and a step back even from ancient "Palm Pilot" technology.

My longshot bet: there's a market for iPhone / iTouch like devices with a 6" or even larger screen. Full Web browsing, real PDF … and eBook reading too. i.e. PDA meets UMPC — and there's no reason it has to come from Apple.

By: James Lewin

James Lewin — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 09:56:55 +0000

How much of a cut does paidcontent get if I subscribe to it with the Kindle service?

It seems like this is something that bloggers should discuss if they are going to take Amazon's money and also cover Amazon's products as news items.