I normally try not to write about tech devices which I do not own. I am a fairly firm believer that it is hard to truly come to grips with a device that you do not fork over the money for yourself. Granted this makes it hard to compare devices, but the simple act of choosing one over the other in the end says alot about the device. However, in the case of the Kindle I think the issue is not the device itself. It is the decision to buy one that is at stake. This is not just another hand held whiz bang. It is a device which has the basic premise of replacing the single most important technology development of the last few thousand years, the printed book. Despite the profound impact of computers, they have not made a real dent on the physical publication media with the sole exception of ephemeral current affairs discourse (the news). Computers have been long on the promise of leaving paper behind... but short on actually delivering.
Enter e-ink technology. To date this incredible technology has been largely stillborn due to DRM strangulation, publisher greed and an inability to cut the desktop/laptop tether. But the Kindle is doing a lot to change that. Its EVDO connection cuts the umbilical and gives you access to new materials in most places through the device itself. Imagine if when you finished your current book you could just select the next book you want to read, you got charged for the new book and the pages re-loaded to the new book (you get to keep the old ones of course) and you could do it anywhere. IE you didn't have to go home to your computer, you didn't have to go to the store. You could do it anywhere you had a cellphone connection. That is what the Kindle has done. A paid for wireless connection to the book store.
That connection is the true power of the kindle. In a stroke Amazon has joined a reflective display on par with the printed word with wireless access to the published world. It is the first real honest to god step on the way to a paperless world.
So if I think it is so great then why haven't I taken the plunge? Because by and large it is the first step. The first real step... but the first step none the less. Granted I may still take the plunge on the kindle. I travel enough that the idea of having a highly portable device with multiple books on it is very seductive. But the Kindle still suffers from the same ultimate problem of previous attempts at e-book systems... the fact that they are trying to be the only answer is Amazon's most grievous error. paper doesn't care who or what is printed on it. The Kindle only works (largely) through the Amazon store. When you start talking about its ability to work in other ways you encounter all the old intractable problems of previous efforts. Conversion, tied to a computer etc... Had Amazon managed to unite all e-book publishers, or at least made the kindle work wirelessly with all existing e-book outlets (including their own) then I would have been on it to begin with... because then they would have been going down the path of making e-books what they should be. A tool for accessing ANY book. Not just the particular library of a given set of agreements.
You see.... Amazon's solution is 'good enough' for a good bit of popular pleasure reading. But it does not currently nor will it ever (based on the current system) have the simple freedom I have now just in ordering books from their site. IE if a book exists to be bought I can probably buy it through Amazon. This simple amazing feat that they accomplished is what built them. But this e-book technology has no such freedom. I cannot purchase any book available through amazon and request it be delivered in electronic format for the Kindle. If I could I would own one because I could make the eventual swap to an entirely electronic library. No, I can only order what is specifically available in electronic format and that is a very small subset of what is available. Amazon has not really broken the design of prior e-book publishing schemes... they just broke new ground on the method of delivery. It is impressive but ultimately limited.
If Amazon announced that ANY book available for purchase on their site would be provided for the kindle, and that any book I had purchased through them in the past would be available free of charge for the kindle I would order one right now at double the cost. And I think a large number of other people would as well. The ability to transfer my previous amazon purchases to a new electronic storage format and the ability to have the complete amazon library as the basis for future purchases would be enough for me to swallow the still ultimate limitation of one company trying to own the 'new' paper. Because you see... Amazon is perhaps the greatest distributor ever of published material. And limiting to only what they have available means having access to the vast majority of what is available for sale in the printed world.
The issue of books aside... if you are a blog reader, read a lot of best sellers etc... then the kindle is probably for you whether your realize it or not. Access to online material does not have the same issues as the existing printed world and most newspapers are waking up and smelling the coffee on this one. As a periodical distribution technology the Kindle is going to shine and it may well be what keeps it going long enough to make a dent in the book world.
Specifically regarding the device itself... without having held it in my hands and used it myself I can't really speak to its quality, usefullness etc... but based on the numerous reviews I have read and videos I have watched I can tell you this thing is good enough if you want it to be. If you are as yet unfamiliar with e-ink displays all I can tell you is to go see it for yourself. If you have never seen it in person you are likely still thinking of it in terms of what you are used to with computer displays and that just isn't a good comparison. e-ink has more in common with printed paper than it does an LCD. It is that good. So go check it out. Sure there is a refresh delay when changing pages... but there is when you flip a page as well. Harsh criticism of the refresh rate is rooted in computer display tech... not reading tech. An e-ink device is not a computer that lets you read a book. It is a book that has some aspects of a computer. Its abilities are miraculous if you think of them in comparison with a static book. They are inconsequential and largely insurmountable flaws when compared to even a PDA in computer comparisons.
The kindle is a good electronic book... in many ways it is the first electronic book. But it is also trying to be a computer with an e-ink display. On that front the verdict is not nearly so kind... and for me what I want is most certainly a computer with an e-ink display. Perhaps in the not to distant future I will be writing about the device itself rather than the idea of it. However I think that is not likely until at least Kindle 2.0 (e-ink is a rapidly developing tech)... or as I mentioned, a change in how Amazon approaches providing material for the Kindle.
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