Kindling
Unless you’re one of those people who doesn’t really pay attention to technology, and if you are, you probably aren’t going to be reading this, you’re aware that Amazon has an electronic book reading device called the Kindle. If you happen to be living north of the 49th parallel (give-or-take) and within a particular band of longitude, you will also be aware that this device is now available in Canada. We got ours last week.
For this review, I’m not going to post any pictures. I’m giving the word full reign in honor of what the Kindle is supposed to stand for. It’s a “Book Reading Device” on which, the printed word is supposed to be conveyed to the reader. As an electronic device, there are a few logistical hurdles that must be overcome. Amazon have provided a couple of means of doing that as well as what must be a bunch of resources to actually convert these books into an easily-digestible format for you to enjoy.
The first of these delivery mechanisms is wireless. This is no mere wifi, but a 3G cellular radio that should operate just about everywhere in the western world. Amazon has gone to some mysterious lengths to forge deals with the owners of these airwaves so you can buy and download books wherever you happen to be. This is a powerful concept and fairly unique. As far as I know, they are the only company to have forged these blood-pacts with otherwise unapproachable broadcast entities to create something they’ve called “Whispernet”. You don’t even get to know which wireless provider you’re piggybacking on. It just connects when you activate the wireless function on the device.
I’ve purchased a few books through Amazon now and it’s a seamless mechanism. You can browse online on kindle.com from your computer or on the Kindle itself. When you buy a book on your computer, you can select a “send to this device” option and the book magically appears in your list the next time you connect to Whispernet on your Kindle. Magical.
The other, more pedestrian means of getting content onto your Kindle is via good ol’ USB cable. Or USB cable to proprietary Amazon pluglet. Why they chose to create yet another incompatible device connector I cannot fathom. If the white cable is any indication, it’s because they wanted to be somewhat “Apple-ey”. They certainly nailed the packaging and unpacking experience, though it certainly has a distinctive “Amazon feel” to it with the pull-tabs on the cardboard boxes. In any case, USB transfer is pretty straightforward. Just dump your mobi-formatted (and now, as of version 2.3 of the Kindle OS, PDFs!) eBooks into the Documents directory on the Kindle and they’ll show up in your list.
But you may not like what you see there. And now I have to get to the dark part of this review. Not all ebooks are made equal. If you’re downloading books from various sources online and they deliver them as a mobi book it may not be formatted optimally for the Kindle and may look funny, have poor metadata or no table of contents. Worse, if you’re unlucky enough to get something in an HTML, RTF, or plain-text document, you’ll have to convert it to mobi format yourself. There are several tools to help you do this, Calibre being the one I’ve used most so far, but it is a fiddly process, often with several iterations of conversion and checking, usually with mediocre results. If the book you’re trying to get into your Kindle is available on the Kindle store, you might want to save yourself the possible bad experience of messing around with document converters and buy the thing on their site. It’ll look good and be optimally-formatted. [ed. Gutenberg books are good]
Which brings me to the important part of this review. What is it like to read a book on this thing? After a week of carrying the Kindle around with me and reading my first purchased book (the mediocre, The Professional by Robert B. Parker) I can say that it is a very pleasant experience. The Kindle feels nice to hold, even in the leather book-like cover available as an optional extra. It has a heft to it that is somewhat more than a paperback, but it feels more comfortable than reading a hard-cover. Text is very legible on the reflective screen and you have the option of several font sizes to choose from.
My only real complaint is that there isn’t enough space for your thumbs to rest. The keyboard area at the bottom of the Kindle is easy to press buttons on. The 5-way navigation button on the right eats up further real-state your thumb could be coasting on. The large Next page buttons right in the middle of the device are comfortable resting places, but you might accidentally skip ahead. This is a fairly minor complaint though and for the most part, you don’t have to think about it.
Ok, I’ve thought of another complaint. There are nearly 70,000 missing books from the Canadian Kindle catalog. I’m not sure why they’re missing. If it’s some publishing agreements the apparently quite powerful Canadian publishing houses have or if it’s a matter of language. Looking up Iain M. Banks’ Matter I see it’s not available in Canada. I wonder if it’s because the Canadian edition used the UK text and it was “translated” for U.S. readers? In any case, I am confident it will get here and in the mean-time, there are plenty of other books to choose from. I’m currently reading the last of the “back-catalog” of Culture novels, The Algebraist.
If you’re looking for stuff to read, check out dria’s post about Project Gutenberg. I plan on signing up for at least a few books this year.
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