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Kindle: Amazon's New Wireless Reading Device | 
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| Brand: Amazon
Category: Amazon Devices
Buy New: $359.00
Rating:  3427 reviews
Sales Rank: 1
Color: Bisque
Media: Electronics
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 7.5 x 5.3 x 0.7
UPC: 892685001003
EAN: 0892685001003
ASIN: B000FI73MA
Shipping: Eligible for Super Saver Shipping
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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| Features:
| • | Revolutionary electronic-paper display provides a sharp, high-resolution screen that looks and reads like real paper. | | • | Simple to use: no computer, no cables, no syncing. | | • | Wireless connectivity enables you to find, buy, and read instantly—whether you’re in the back of a taxi, at the airport, or in bed. | | • | Shop the Kindle Store directly from your Kindle. | | • | Buy a book and it is auto-delivered wirelessly in less than one minute. |
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| Customer Reviews: Read 3422 more reviews...
 I love my Kindle July 5, 2008
Barbara in North Carolina
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
I absolutely love my Kindle. I have long ago run out of space for books and hate to get rid of them. With kindle I can keep my books and take up no space at all. The book and subscription availability is great and I always have something new to read (and choices of what to read next) when I finish my current book. Books are generally cheaper and more readily available and going paperless is great for the environment! I also think Amazon's customer service and tech support is outstanding. It's well worth the price. This is one of my best purchases ever and I recommend it to all who love to read.
Two Librarians Love the Kindle July 5, 2008
M. McCluski (Teaneck, NJ USA)
8 out of 8 found this review helpful
My wife and I are librarians, so we give each other book gifts often. She finds she reads more books more quickly with her new Kindle ( and I thought she read fast before!). She usually has several books going at once , and with the Kindle she always has them all with her. She never loses time looking for where she last left off in any of them.
The screen is very readable: she forgets she's reading on a device. The weight is manageable for the heaviest book (think McCullough's "John Adams"). Adjustable font size makes large print reading possible. Built in dictionary makes it easy to look up unfamiliar words (though guessing from context is always kind of fun).
Having access to new titles via Whispernet has been neat. She loved being able to download a new book on the bus ride home from the city.
Downsides? The bar to advance to the next screen is easy to hit by mistake. And she finds that hitting that bar is giving her "Kindle thumb". As librarians we balk a bit at having to buy everything to read on it. Sure does make reading easy though.
New way of reading July 5, 2008
Michael Mullally
8 out of 8 found this review helpful
To tell you the truth I was very doubtful that I would ever want to hold, let alone read an electronic book. There was something tactile about turning pages and also at the end of the day you still owned a book - one that you could put on your shelf. But I was at a point in life where I was reading less and my bookshelves were full. I tried the Kindle and the first thing I did was change the print size to a larger font. This resulted in my "seeing" about a third to half a page at a time. That new view of a page made it so much easier and faster. I was able to read more comfortably and considerably faster. That combined with being able to take several books on the road, and send files from my PC including a calendar and some word documents clinched it. I am hooked, and prefer to read on the kindle than to hold a regular book now. Although it takes a little getting used to turning the pages -- you can easily turn one accidentally by holding the edge of the kindle too tightly. In addition, the highlight tool is excellent and could be a great assist for students, as the kindle stores all your highlights in one place and therefore you can transfer all your notes back to a PC for a convenient summary of a book's most important sections. Wish they offered more books, even technical books, but I am sure it is only a question of time.
A great device! July 5, 2008
Steven C. West (Tucson, AZ USA)
7 out of 7 found this review helpful
Now that the yearly cost of the print version of the Wall Street Journal
jumped to almost the price of a Kindle, I thought the time was right to try
this device. It's been delightful. Since I always read the paper outside,
the Kindle's display is perfect, and no more anchoring the meter-squared
newspaper sail against the wind! No more piles of paper laying around
cluttering up the place.
So I ventured an ebook. It was the best reading experience I've had in a
long long time. I fight with paper books unless they have a spiral binding
or very expensive hardcover backs. The book never stays open to the page,
and by the time I'm finished with it, I've busted the binding up bigtime. No
more! And, when I forget my reading glasses I bump the font size up!
Finally, a display that loves sunlight! Unlike the laptop, reading is a
pleasure on the Kindle.
The EVDO wireless connection is great and makes adding new books and
receiving the e-newspaper effective. The Kindle is not enslaved to my
computer--hooray. I downloaded two books on the plane before takeoff on
my last business trip. I would not have been able to download at all on this
trip if I was dependent on WiFi or my computer.
The pop-up dictionary is effective, convenient, and easily dismissed to
continue reading.
So I got bolder and sent a few DOC and PDF files to my kindle email address.
In a minute or two, they were converted and wirelessly transferred to my
device, and they looked pretty decent.
I'm totally impressed with this device. After reading many of the reviews
here prior to actually buying it, I was certain that the best grade I could
give it would be 4, but I'm going to give it a solid 5. Sure there are
quibbles about the too-big buttons, the next-gen e-ink display will even be
better, and there is room for improvement and added functionality here and
there. But for a version 1.0 of a device this innovative, it's truly
impressive. I'm completely sold on the concept.
I do hope that many "problems" people point out will be corrected in new
firmware versions for this device rather than making us upgrade to new
hardware.
So here are my quibbles:
1. I would like if the dictionary worked like the Oxford MSDICT version on
my Palm so that every word in a definition is itself linked to its definition.
It would also be nice if the dictionary respected the user's font choice.
2. Equations are mostly unreadable in the ebooks and WORD documents. The
Kindle display has plenty of resolution to render equations, but the problem
seems to be that equations are converted to images, and all images are
downsized and enormously compressed. The huge compression is OK
for most images, but it's a disaster for text and graphs. Why can't these
images have less compression so they are readable on the device?
Unfortunately, reading of technical books and papers is needlessly
compromised, but the problem looks easily fixed at the expense of removing
most of the compression for equations and charts. Since there is no user
control of this, it has to happen on Amazon's end.
3. So long as mp3 playing is supported, how about a smarter interface for
playing music and podcasts?
4. A couple of times while reading, the device headed for the home page on
its own. I don't know why, but fortunately it has been rare.
So nearly there July 5, 2008
David Blakey (New Jersey, USA)
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
I never write reviews for products, however, due to Kindle's extraordinary market positioning, and my surprising affinity to the device in such a short space of time, I feel compelled to offer some feedback. When it was first announced, I was one of those people that thought, how awful is that , the design is horrible, and it will never fly, well, I'm not completely sold on the design, as I will explain, but, it's won me over in terms of it's usage.
I purchased a Kindle and it arrived 2 days ago, and I have barely been able to put it down. I would not say that I am an avid reader, however, having this device has given me a whole new freedom to enjoy books again.
I love the idea of having all my books in one place, be it computer technical books, reading books or even newspapers, it's like a one stop shop device, especially when I'm travelling. I used to carry 2 or three technical books and a reading book with me whenever i travelled, now, I just have to carry the kindle, that's a huge weight lifted.
I also love the fact that I can browse the kindle store right on the device, the samples are a bit hit and miss, but generally give you an idea of what you are getting, however, the fact that I can order a book, and it is delivered in a matter of minutes for me to start working with, is a huge plus.
However, as much as I love the concept of the device, and some of it's implementation, there are some things that I really don't like and think could be improved.
Basically there are several improvements I would like to see to the software, but the biggest problem I found is with the hardware. I think they missed an amazing opportunity here to sell millions of these units if they had only had a better designer.
I think the unit is too angular, the keyboard is horrible to use and the unit is just awkward and uncomfortable to hold in one hand while reading. The scroll wheel, while useful on many occasions, can get tricky to use if your hands are at all slightly damp and the next and previous page buttons are just setup wrong, if you are holding it in one hand, you cannot place your thumb anywhere other than underneath the screen, which after a while is just uncomfortable on my hand. I can see me getting some RSI injuries from using this device over a long period of time.
You may feel it's a picky thing, but when reading a book, I tend to stay in one place for several hours, so the comfort of using the device is extremely important, and I think it's just an uncomfortable device to use.
Having said all that, it's not enough to put me off the device or send it back, because the pros for me, do outweigh the cons, however the price could be a little more amenable (say $100 cheaper). I think the success of this device will ultimately depend on the amount of content available for it, and the price of that content, some technical manuals, in my opinion, are still priced a little high for an electronic version.
In fact, the number of titles already available for the kindle is what attracted me to this device, and the fact that it's tied directly into a marketplace so I can easily update it with new content, is what caused me to purchase the product in the first place.
Also, being able to download and read PDF files is going to be a definite must, so I hope that the amazon team get their act together and update the software to be able to read them.
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