Jul 11 2010
Kindle
“The trains are not racing. They’re crumbling—and it’s very frustrating!”
— Lucy, when her toy trains were being uncooperative yesterday morning
When the Amazon Kindle E-Reader was first released in late 2007, I thought it looked interesting. However, at $400 it was never a serious consideration for me. Over the next few years, its price dropped substantilly, but at a price just north of $200 I still wasn’t sufficiently enticed enough to pry open my wallet.
Earlier this year, the Apple iPad was released. This was another gadget with promise, though again at a prohibitive pricepoint. However, the release of the iPad was great in that it coaxed products like the Kindle (and the Barnes & Noble Nook) to reduce their prices. So on June 21, the Kindle dropped to $189—less than half its 2007 price. And it was still too rich for my blood.
Well, last week Amazon bought Woot, an online retailer that has gained notoriety by basically selling one item each day. Woot’s a site I try to visit every day, usually at 10 PM PST, the time their one product for the day goes on sale. And wouldn’t you know it, the day Amazon buys Woot, Woot offers a Kindle 2 for $149.
Well, though it wasn’t a “no-brainer” purchase (I guess $99 would have met this criterion) this was enough to get me to spend about an hour researching the product. And after completing my research I pulled the trigger and finally bought a Kindle. It arrived this past Wednesday, and so far it has been pretty cool. A few pics, observations:
Product box seemed sturdy enough.
The Kindle itself looked compact, sleek and stylish. At a little over 10 ounces, it’s a very appealing package for what’s basically a mobile library.
Selling points for me:
- Holds over 1500 books
- Battery lasts up to two weeks (with wireless off).
- In addition to the Kindle format, supports unprotected epub, pdf, and html via conversion with free Calibre software (this was a big selling point for me)
- Adjustable text-size (my deteriorating eyesight very much appreciates this)
- Built-in dictionary
When I finally decided to get the Kindle, I tried to justify the purchase by thinking, “Now I have a convenient way to access all those free public domain classics I’ve either forgotten about or never read in the first place.”
And I followed through with that pledge by dutifully downloading a bunch of classics at places like Google Books and Project Gutenberg. Yep—and those classics are currently sitting on my Kindle, unread.
Oh, I’m using my Kindle alright. And I am more than pleased with it. However, though I had aspirations of reading more substantial fare, the books I’ve read thus far are truer gauges of my maturity level:
- Sh*t My Dad Says by Justin Halpern (really funny stuff, especially the younger years)
- The Bedwetter: Stories of Courage, Redemption, and Pee by Sarah Silverman (more serious than I thought it’d be)
I suppose one of these days I’ll get to those neglected classics. Who knows, maybe the kid will end up reading them to me. But for now—at least I’m reading, right?