Kindle 2: Hands On

The Good

1) Backed by a proven innovator
2) Instant Gratification
3) Readable technology
4) Large Library
5) Long battery life
6) Decent Form Factor
7) Multiple sources of material
8) Power by usb standard with provided wall adapter... micro is growing more common

It is easy to forget just how innovative a company Amazon is. They revolutionized the print industry and were pathfinders to internet business success. Once they established themselves as the pre-immanent supplier of books they then expanded to the point many people find it easy to forget it was their original reason for existence. They were one of the first to seize on the fact the core of internet business was not so much what you sold but how you garnered trust and managed the logistics. if you solved those two issues then you could sell pretty much anything. In retrospect it was little more than replicating what Sears Roebuck managed in the previous century with mail order business. Massive selection and trusted transactions. Simple in concept and insanely hard in reality but they have not only managed it... they are all but defining how you do it. They paved the way for internet success with selling tangible objects... making the jump to intangible should not be a huge leap. And in this case Apple has already paved the way with the success of Itunes.

E-books, particularly combined with the Kindle Cellular capability allows Amazon to remove the middle man as it were when it comes to the trusted transaction side of the equation. They no longer have to rely on UPS to deliver. They no longer have to contend with delaying the customers instant gratification desire. Want a book? Then download it. Instant Gratification is provided wherever you can make a Sprint phone call. You can browse for free, and purchase what you want when you want without having to go to the store. All you lack is the physical printed out form of the book. And while people do love to have their books it is important to remember that what readers are addicted to is reading... not stacks of bound paper.

Which brings us to the reading experience of e-ink. First off I have read many many many forum posts and even some professional reviews that dismiss e-ink in favor of PDA/Laptop/Computer screens. Based on my experience with e-ink I can only conclude they are not people who read. E-ink is 90% of the paper reading experience. Transmissive display technology such as CRT and LCD are simply not even in the same realm. I'd say 10% of the paper reading experience tops. They are something to be endured out of necessity because they provide invaluable capability. However, If they were as good as e-ink then the paperless office would be a reality and e-books would have long since replaced print. Instead when folks have to actually read they almost always resort to a print out or book. Many would counter that there are numerous people that 'read' all day long in front of a computer. I don't agree. True enough people use computers for long durations but rarely to 'read'. By 'read' I mean sit down to immerse yourself in a story. Dealing with E-mail, presentation building, web surfing and document review is NOT 'reading'. I am a Net junky and rarely go long periods without staring at some type of screen or other except when I actually 'read'. I have tried numerous times to read books on computers of all stripes and while I have succeeded I have NEVER found a solution that could replace lugging around books despite much money spent in search of it. I tried on old CRT monitors, Laptops, I tried early Palm Pilot PDA's I have tried snazzy windows mobile phones, the Nokia N810 MID and an Iphone. They all tragically fail at a basic capability books posses. The ability to disappear in ones hands. The Kindle 2 disappears and by most accounts so did the first generation device with the exception of accidental page turns. This capability is primarily due to E-ink. E-ink sucks at many things due to its unwieldy re-fresh process. But for reading a book it excels at a level unmatched by anything and I mean anything including print books.... at least at paperback level. Technical manuals are a different matter but I will get to that.

There has been a long standing Chicken and Egg problem with e-books. Technology capable of reading book length material on, and a selection large enough that you would not constantly be having to swap between types of books. While Amazon has not entirely solved this problem they have gone a long long LONG way down the right path. If they succeed in making their entire selection of books available for Kindle then they will have solved the supply of book side of the problem. Their current availability of 250,000 titles is a fantastic start. In fact they have larger selections in individual genre's than most other e-book retailers have been able to provide in their entire catalogues. The Sony Library and Fictionwise house the the only comparable scale libraries and only comes in at around 50,000 titles each. I personally think they have reached critical mass. As long as Amazon remains committed I will bet on them to make e-book availability a given for pretty much anything available in less than 10 years... and probably in less than 5.

So the second part of the problem is the technology. Kindle has solved the two biggest hurdles to e-book technology. The first was a screen that was as easy to read as paper. The second was to produce a reasonable battery life with an acceptable weight profile. You could make a PDA that could run for days or weeks if you would be willing to carry around several pounds of battery... but few want to carry around such a dead weight. The double break through of e-ink was the static display of information without power. In effect the device literally prints a document on the screen. Power is then not needed until you need to print another page. You can think of it to some extent as an etc-a-sketch. What is drawn on the screen stays there until it is shaken/refreshed. With the wireless on the Kindle has an effective life of greater than 1 day which is the minimum I considered needed to be successful. While my early use suggests the quoted 4 day capability is a bit optimistic I think it is safe to say 2-3 days is pretty safe barring constant downloads via shopping or net browsing. If you turn off the wireless then the battery life is truly impressive for an electronic gizmo at greater than a week (2 weeks advertised).

The next element of the technology they have done well on is the form factor. The original kindle was ugly however by most marks it was functional. Kindle 2 is bland but in a good way. Where the Kindle 1 was jarring and distinctive the Kindle 2 is a study in subdued. It fits the hand well and while at first blush the large amount of non-screen space seems a waste it does not take long in handling it to understand that space serves a very important function in helping the device to vanish in your hands. Due to the design/size and placement of the screen it is all but impossible to obscure it while in any position that you find comfortable to read in. The keyboard is necessary for the device to exist on its own without a computer symbiosis like the Sony Reader requires. Whether or not that is an issue is pretty much one up to individual taste. I personally think the devices ability to operate entirely on its own is one of its strongest features. I imagine in the future you will see a symbiotic device design from Amazon but not until the market matures a little further and experiences a higher level of competition.

One thing many people seem to misunderstand about the Kindle is the idea that you can ONLY get material from Amazon. This is not true. I have books from Tor.com, Fictionwise and Baen books on my Kindle 2. You can even download from these sources via the web browser if you are truly patient... but ultimately I would say this capability is largely reliant connecting the Kindle to a computer and dragging the files across. I wish Amazon had licensed all of the major e-book formats instead of just the open Mobi format. But mobi is one of the most widely available from other e-book purveyors. About the only store that does not have titles available for the kindle at this point is the Sony connect library. Don't get me wrong... the Kindle is still largely in vendor lock in simply due to the fact the Amazon library is effectively the only major source of e-book material in multiple genre's. However... the device can use other formats than Amazon's. The Amazon only translation of some formats however is a sticking point I will get to in a bit.

The last good element of the technology I want to talk about is a small one but still important in my eyes. They are utilizing USB micro standard. This means that Amazon is not the only provider of compatible data/power cables for this device. Proprietary cables are a serious pet peeve of mine and I am glad Amazon went this way. I would be happier if they had gone with mini rather than micro. However Micro is finally a standard with a growing market share.


The So-So

There really is not a lot of middle ground where the Kindle is concerned. This device is polarizing device for a combination of reasons. The e-book market is very much in the early adopter phase though it finally looks to be on the road to becoming mainstream. But here are some minor niggles

There is a silly power save feature that puts a 'screen saver' up on the device if a page is not turned for 10 minutes. If the re-start were as quick as a typical page change I would probably not have an issue... but it often takes several second for the device to return to your last page. There should at least have been an option to tell the device to simply continue displaying your last page when entering power save mode and the ability to select what you want to display if it showed something else. The choice of various classic authors of note and other literary themes is pretty neutral but still can be irksome. For example I would love to be able to select or provide images for my favorites and ban others. Again this is a minor nit.

The text to speech function. It works. It doesn't sound as bad as some computer synthesized voices but it certainly is NOT something I would want to rely on. However, For folks with disabilities this in conjunction with the growing amazon library could be a killer app. As for the authors guild suit against amazon I hope it goes nowhere if for no other reason than keeping this capability for those that would find it indispensable without having to pay extra for it.

Wiki access and web access in general is a hard to judge value. Browsing is very limited by the e-ink refresh rate and the process is generally pretty slow going. Access to wiki in an easily readable format could be very useful when doing research. I think some of the more important implications of e-ink technology is going to be when its refresh rates improve... but for now the device is seriously out of its element when trying to surf the web. Wiki works relatively well because many of the articles are like downloading mini books.... complete with a table of contents.

I imagine it was no trouble putting the MP3 function on the device but frankly in having this they should have had the sense to leave a slot for sd cards or something to augment the memory. 2gb is plenty for text information but pretty paltry when talking audible formats.


The Bad

1) Price
2) Price
3) Document Format Compatibility
4) Gift purchases
5) Lack of a card slot
6) Lack of a cover

So lets get the first two out of the way. 350 smackers for the privilege of paying dead tree prices for actual reading material. Granted I understand that part of the steepness of the entry cost here is an up front cellular access cost. But I still think it is nuts. At least unbundle the cellular capability and allow folks that want to buy the device with whisper-net disabled and require the use of a computer to load content. I pretty sure both options would be better than a subscription plan. But it takes a pretty select group of people to look at that price and see it as a worth while investment. It just so happens that those who do are also most likely to be extremely heavy book customers. This combination of instant gratification at or below current print cost in such a mobile package is insanely attractive to those who read, read some more and then continue reading, especially if they are on the go folks who often travel. I would be curious to know what percentage of books sales the top 5-10% of book readers are responsible for. I can only surmise it is significant and that is what Amazon has aimed for. IE they are trying to get the big fish to make the transition in hopes that the rest of the market will inevitably follow.

The 350 is a lot to bite off... but it is only exacerbated by the added insult that you end up paying an almost equal amount for a digital copy as you do for a print edition. Supposedly most of the cost of printing books is actually wrapped up in printing and distribution. Why then does the cost to the consumer of a digital book not reflect the dramatically lower cost of producing and distributing digital content? That is a problem for many with the Kindle and in my eyes is a very legitimate beef. The insult to injury here is that I lose many capabilities I have with a print edition... such as loaning it out. If we are to be subject to DRM on our purchased materials then at the least Amazon should provide for the ability to transfer the rights of the files we purchase from them. I should be able to loan my books to friends as well without having to loan them my device. This notion that an individuals rights are different for some reason when the format of the book is digital vrs when it is a physical print out is absurd and technological impediments subverting those rights should not be allowed. If Amazon really wants this market to explode they need to lower the cost to reflect the lack of physical mass production and distribution. They also need to either provide for a 'loaning' capability OR further reduce the price to reflect the loss of value... perhaps it is possible that the gained value of mobility can offset the loss of loaning. But I doubt it. Ultimately a lack of an ability to loan purchased materials easily will drive piracy and lead to folks finding ways to freely exchange their files.

In the save vein is the lack of direct document format capability. Word/PDF etc translations should have been provided via software a user could run on their own in addition to the pay per cost service of sending it to Amazon. I imagine this limitation is largely driven by copy right concerns. IE if I can convert PDF's locally then there is no check on what PDF documents I convert. Same for word docs, etc... there is a crap load of copyrighted material out there available to those not so concerned with it. By forcing people to go through their servers Amazon can at least pay lip service to preventing unlicensed conversions for use on the Kindle. I just wish the emerging e-book market would learn from the music industries mistakes. The push is on for compatibility which means open formats. Piracy just is not the problem people make it out to be. Folks that pirate material are generally not people that would have bought the material in the first place. The more material people can sample the more they are likely to purchase because they are confident in what they are getting. Another issue here is one of protecting information from Amazon... Ie if I have proprietary information I want on the Kindle in word document formating I probably do not want to send it to Amazon, and simply converting to .txt may lose important formating information.

A really stupid oversight by Amazon that began with the Kindle 1 and has extended to present date is the lack of ability for someone to purchase a kindle file for someone with a kindle. For example if I put a book in my wish list for someone to see when they want to buy something for me they should be able to purchase the kindle version. Right now all Amazon says regarding the issue is buy a gift certificate instead. This is absurd and really silly considering Kindle sales are already up to 1/10th. I plunked down for a digital book reader and as a result I will primarily want to receive books I can read on it. This is a stupid problem and one I hope Amazon addresses sooner rather than later.

They should have left some form of expandable memory slot. I don't care how much material 2gb can hold. Removing this was silly. Sure Amazon is keeping my library intact but will that be the case 50 years from now. At least you can download the files to a computer as well. I might have forgiven them this if they had provided for a way to set up your own kindle server for your material.

Lack of a cover is I think in-excusable. Paying 350 bucks for a device that is based around the concept of staring at its screen for hours on end should have come with an included solution for protecting that screen from scratches.

Conclusion:

The device itself is fantastic. The library is plenty big and complete for most appetites. Mobi compatibility provides access to most other available material out there. The drawback is that it is not yet really an economical option compared to print books.

If you are looking for reasons to economically justify the purchase of a Kindle the only one that has a chance of paying off in short order is if you are a retail hard back junky. At ~15 bucks a pop in savings you can get even in 25 books or so. With paper back you had better be a serious junky as you rarely save more than a buck or two a shot if you save anything at all. For the most part the reason to buy a kindle is to have a portable library and the ability to add to it on the go. Personally I will probably recoup a fair chunk of the cost through new release price breaks... but ultimately I bought it because I travel a lot and often cary multiple books with me when I do. Since the cost per book was as good and sometimes better I considered the ability to travel lighter enough justification in and of itself. My reason and the lower clutter of books around the house are probably the two most common justifications I have encountered in reading about Kindle owners.

One thing Amazon should have done was partnered with Project Gutenburg for access to public domain material in an easily browsable form from the Kindle. As is you can still access it via .txt format downloads.

In the world of e-books the Kindle stands tall with two major advantages. Instant gratification through whisper net downloads, and access to the largest retail e-book library in existence. For those familiar with the Sony products the clarity of this device is better than the most recent iteration and on par with the older 500 series. Page transitions are notably faster. Menu navigation about the same. Search ability far superior.