Kindle DX
So I got a Kindle DX last week. I wasn’t sure if I would regret paying the hefty price tag for this slim piece of digital equipment, but I think it was worth it. This thing is awesome. I believe I have a new favorite tech toy.
I waited for what seemed like forever to get this thing. I purchased it back in June, but due to high demand, I was forced to wait until August for it to arrive. I’ve never owned an e-book reader before, and I seriously considered getting a cheaper one. The Kindle is obviously the most popular choice, but it’s also the most expensive. However, Sony’s offerings didn’t impress me, and neither did anyone else’s. Plus, having an affinity towards Amazon made me want to give this device a shot.
The Cool Stuff
Free Internet. Can’t argue with that. This was one of the big reasons for my wanting the Kindle. No other e-book reader I found offered free Internet access, and the idea of on-demand Wikipedia without having to pay for a monthly data plan just sounds too sweet to pass up. (Looks like xkcd had the same idea, hehe.) I admit that cellular web access isn’t that fast (Kindle’s Whispernet service uses the Sprint network), but if you stick to smaller, more text-centric websites, it works well enough.
Compact. I’m usually reading five or six books at a time. Rather than choosing which books to lug around, if they’re all on my Kindle, I no longer have to worry about it. Granted, all e-book readers have this trait, but I’ve never owned one before, so I say this is still a plus for the Kindle. The Kindle itself is very slim—it’s thinner than a pencil—and its huge screen hogs most of its surface area, which makes the reading experience very nice.
Podcasting. If you don’t already own an iPod, you can use the Kindle to listen to podcasts and other MP3s. You can also use its text-to-speech feature to listen to your e-books, but unless you have a thing for jagged robotic voices, you won’t be very impressed with that part. My new favorite hobby is downloading HowStuffWorks podcasts to my Kindle and listening to them on the way to work (because I’m a dork and all).
Free samples. I love being able to read the first chapter of books before I decide to purchase them. It’s like those free cheese-on-a-stick samples you get at the grocery store, only better. Oh, and $9.99 for a book is quite a comfy price range. I just bought Wicked for $6. E-books are so awesomely cheap.
Reading. Reading on the Kindle is a more relaxing experience for me than using a book. With a good-sized book, I’m forced to wield it with two hands, endure the frustration of pages sticking together, avoid paper cuts, Google big words I don’t understand, and lose my place if I don’t update my bookmark or don’t properly snug it between the pages. I can hold the Kindle single-handed, and I never worry about pages sticking together. There’s a built-in dictionary for those times I need to translate the author’s vocabulary, and the Kindle bookmarks my spot for me, so I never lose my place. It’s a win-win-win.
The Not-So-Cool Stuff
While overall, I love the Kindle, here are some of my gripes.
Slow Internet. Okay, so I love the free Internet, but when I want to test its limits, I’m usually disappointed. Large Wikipedia pages take a while to load (especially if it’s image-ridden), and you’re better off transferring large files to the Kindle using your computer and a USB cable, rather than trying to make the Kindle download it directly off some website.
PDFs make it crash sometimes. The PDF support is nice, but I don’t like sifting through a large PDF file and watching my Kindle crash and reset itself. It’s a minor annoyance, but if I want to start using the device regularly as a PDF reader, I’m learning that I shouldn’t feed it big PDF files.
Fonts could be darker. I have one book I’m reading on the Kindle, and another I’m reading in physical form. When switching back and forth, I’m noticing just how much darker and more crisp the text is on the physical book. While the Kindle’s e-ink is very readable, I wish it shared the same sharpness and contrast that a real book provides.
Expensive newspapers. For a monthly fee, you can have a newspaper digitally sent to you every day. The problem is, most of the newspapers are $12 or more, and they’re certainly not as equal as their printed counterparts. Why pay that much for inferior content when you can just as easily read the news online or elsewhere? Now, for something like $5 a month, I would pay for the convenience of news wirelessly delivered to my Kindle. At $12 a month, I can pay for a cheap shared webhost. An e-newspaper with limited content is not as valuable as a cheap website. Digital newspaper subscriptions is a nice idea, but the pricing isn’t quite there yet.
Being the software techie that I am, I found a neat alternative to subscribing to a newspaper. There’s this site called Feedbooks.com, which lets you combine RSS feeds into a Kindle-friendly format. You can download the content to your Kindle and read it like a newspaper. And even better, you can click an “update” link in the file, which downloads the latest version for you, with all the latest RSS feeds. I should also mention that Feedbooks provides Kindle-friendly versions of many books in the public domain. Frankenstein, anyone?
Conclusions
The Kindle DX isn’t perfect, and it cost a pretty penny, but it’s certainly given me a new and fun way of reading digital content. Books and podcasts and free Internet—the Kindle DX has a lot to offer, and for those who are willing to pay the price, it’s well worth it.
Photo by mhuang.
