Two thumbs up on the Amazon Kindle 2 after two weeks

For my birthday two weeks ago, my wonderful wife got me the new Amazon Kindle 2. After two weeks, I absolutely love it… more than I expected. I didn’t load it up with a ton of stuff… so far I’ve only bought a few things: subscriptions to the Wall Street Journal & USA Today, The Da Vinci Code (yes, I am the last one who hadn’t read it), my Pro MOSS 2007 WCM Development book (I just had to!) and copied a few papers over. I find it very easy to use and thought I’d post a few comments about the device. This is not a “here’s what it is” post… there are plenty of posts & articles about it.

Why the Kindle 2?
Great question I get a lot. First, I wanted an ebook reader as I’m sick of carrying a ton of papers & magazines when I travel. I also hate not having my newspapers in the morning when on the road. With the Kindle, they automatically show up via the built in cellular modem when I wake up…love that.

So why not the Sony reader that Spence got? Honestly, I like the cellular bit I mention above for the newspaper delivery. I also am not a Sony fan, but I am a huge Amazon fan. It’s that simple. After seeing Spence’s, I am happy I got the Kindle. It isn’t that the Sony sucks or that I don’t like them (ok, maybe they do and I don’t, but I’m not talking about the Sony Reader specifically), it’s just the Kindle is right for me. I don’t think you can go wrong either way.

General Controls
I really like the smaller buttons on this version compared to the last one… but I find myself constantly hitting the HOME button when I want to go back because it’s in the same spot as the PREVIOUS button on the other side. I also wish it had a dedicated wireless on/off button. The directional button is ok… could be a bit bigger or protrude more…

Content
So far I’m moderately pleased with the content, but I wish I could subscribe to blogs for free… even if it was just a limited number. Wish more magazines were on it (The Economist, Playboy… I’m KIDDING!). Some don’t make sense like Sports Illustrated (pictures won’t be nearly as good)… but I’d still like them as an option.

I do like having the ability to copy papers over to it… I just wish it was more OOTB to get one on there. I mean, you’ve got the ability to send Amazon an email with a PDF/DOC/etc attachment and they will send it to your Kindle (each has a unique email address), or you can send to an alternate one and have the file resent back to you for manual copy. But I’m not sure some of my clients would be cool with me emailing an NDA document to Amazon… there are other alternatives… but they aren’t OOTB so much (need to explore them too).

Battery life & Wireless
The battery lasts forever… UNLESS you leave the cellular modem on during a flight. Like a phone, it will keep trying to pull a connection and thus, drain the battery as I found out on a recent flight.

Usability
There are a few things that Amazon should address. For instance, when reading a book, it isn’t clear what the numbers at the bottom mean. There’s something like “content 601-650” … and a four-digit number. What’s up with that? There are a few other things that Jakob Nielson found… I agree with most of what he said. Thankfully most is software so I hope Amazon ships an update down the road.

Tips
I did have one weird thing happen to me. When I tried to turn the wireless off, the device locked up. Since the battery is sealed, the reboot process wasn’t obvious. What ended up working was holding the power button down for 14s, then holding the NEXT button down. It finally started to boot up. Tricky to figure out when you’re on a flight (thankfully before we took off, I found someone talking about this on a blog… thank goodness for a phone with a full browser!).

Conclusion
I’d recommend the Amazon Kindle 2 hands down. It’s easy on the eyes, significantly lightens the load in my backpack, and much easier to use than reading on a laptop. I love this device! Two thumbs up!

Technorati Tags: amazon kindle 2,kindle2,kindle

posted on Sunday, March 15, 2009 9:16 PM

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# re: Two thumbs up on the Amazon Kindle 2 after two weeks 3/15/2009 9:57 PM Bob Fox

So i bought mine the week i got back from Summit after seeing yours and also playing with Spences.... I liked the Sony alot but the new Sony price was a bit more than i wanted to pay and liked the Amazon Subscriptions like NYTimes and Irish Times which get delivered each morning... What i dont like is the fact that the books have no table of contents to use.. at least i have not found this in any of the books i purchased but that is a minor detail. I wish it had a backlight on it... that is key and hopefully the next ver comes out with that.

i have also cracked my case already somehow so I just purchased the warrenty and will be getting a replacement as the crack causes the forward and back button to be a little louder than i like.

All in all im happy with this.

# re: Two thumbs up on the Amazon Kindle 2 after two weeks 3/16/2009 3:58 AM Joannah

I recently came across your blog and have been reading along. I thought I would leave my first comment. I don't know what to say except that I have enjoyed reading. Nice blog. I will keep visiting this blog very often.

Joannah

http://2gbmemory.net

# re: Two thumbs up on the Amazon Kindle 2 after two weeks 3/16/2009 6:20 AM Lee Dale

The Kindle looks cool, but I much preferred the Sony Reader, it's just smaller, takes my 8GB SD card, and allows me to read more formats.

I did buy your book too, haven't got round to reading it yet though :)

# re: Two thumbs up on the Amazon Kindle 2 after two weeks 3/16/2009 11:09 AM Tom Resing

Great review. I've been curious about this device, and you may have pushed me over the hump. Any chance you can publish some screenshots of how your book looks on the Kindle 2? I'm especially curious about pages with screenshots or code examples.

# re: Two thumbs up on the Amazon Kindle 2 after two weeks 3/16/2009 11:43 AM AC [MVP MOSS]

Tom-
Cool idea! I'll do that. I'm on the road this week without my camera and would much prefer to take pictures with that instead of my phone... will do that and put another blog post up. I'll do pictures of the WSJ, Da Vinci Code and my book.

# re: Two thumbs up on the Amazon Kindle 2 after two weeks 3/16/2009 5:28 PM Chris

How do the fonts render? I heard that code examples don't look so good because of the lack or fonts.

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