Review of the Kindle 3G + Wi-Fi Wireless Reading Device

I’ve always favored reading actual books versus reading books on a computer. I have resisted e-readers in general, because I don’t buy very many books, but rather trade them, usually on paperbackswap.com. But in my current quest to reduce clutter, I thought I would try reading books in Kindle format.


Kindle software for non-Kindle devices

To test if I would even like reading digital books, I first installed the Kindle readers on my Mac and on my Android phone. I bought one book via the web, and tested out reading on each platform.

Despite the small size, reading Kindle on the Android is not that bad for short amounts of time. If I have a few minutes to wait for something, I’ll often take my phone out and read a few pages from my phone. It was very convenient for me to capture small slices of time I would normally be doing nothing.

When you close the book, Kindle will save your place to synchronize with other devices with the same book. Amazon calls this WhisperSync. This feature is really nice, in that, later in the day, I can read the same book on a different device, and it will synchronize and ask if I want to continue in the new location.

The actual Kindle reader

Being thrilled with this new way of reading books, I decided to bite the bullet and buy the latest Kindle. I went with the 3G + Wifi version of the Kindle (affiliate link). For $50 more than the WiFi-only version, I get free 3G access anywhere and anytime. I thought that this was a good bargain.

When the Kindle arrived, I was amazed at the e-Ink technology. It doesn’t really look like the device is on because the display does not have any glare or glow. The screen really does resemble a printed page more than a computer display. Since there is no backlight or glow, you do need to have a light source to read the Kindle.

The page turning on the Kindle reader seemed a little slow, and the placement of the buttons is a little awkward at first. In the beginning, I would accidentally turn the page while just shifting the reader in my hands. I’m getting better at holding the Kindle so as not to accidentally turn the page. And I’ve ordered a book-like cover for it, which I imagine will help with this awkwardness.

After downloading a few more books (mostly free), I noticed that I could categorize my books into folders within the Kindle. After I get more books loaded onto it, I think this will be more helpful in locating a particular book. It would be nice, however, to create sub-folders, but I can live with only one level of folders for now.

The web browser

I checked out the Kindle’s experimental web browser. It is also a bit awkward at first to move the cursor with the arrow keys. I was able to view Google, as well as my Google Mail account, though. I think if you needed to check your mail quickly without having to wait to boot up a computer, this method would suffice quite well.

Importing PDFs

Recently, I’ve purchased a few e-books that are only in PDF. The Kindle uses it’s own format, though. Books you purchase from the Kindle Store are in AWZ format. The Kindle can also read MOBI format as well.

One way to convert PDF to MOBI is to use Amazon’s conversion service. You email the PDF document to a Kindle email account you set up on Amazon.com. I’ve tried this out on a few documents myself with mixed results. Usually the PDFs that I have downloaded are formatted with text and graphics meant to be read in landscape mode. The books that I converted and sent to my Kindle lost the formatting (of course) with some books even containing blank pages. But the content was still there, and for me, this was acceptable. Of the 4 PDF books I tried to convert, I had one book that did not convert well. There were sentences or paragraphs missing. This is not acceptable to me.

The conversion method I have yet to try is outlined by Benny Lewis in his article How to convert PDFs/daily news/anything to ePUB/mobi for your eReader/Kindle.

Summary

Overall, I’ve been thrilled with the Kindle. I find that I am actually reading a lot more now, and am reading several books at a time. It is nice to flip back and forth between various books to suit my mood. And it is great to be able to save a few trees. Even though I’m a bit late to the party, I’m now finding that reading regular books is so last century and the Kindle is the way to go.