Comments on: Ken’s Kindle Review – Did it light my fire? http://kenmo.wordpress.com/2008/04/27/kens-kindle-review-did-it-light-my-fire/ Random thoughts from Ken Moss Sat, 25 Apr 2009 23:11:04 +0000 http://wordpress.com/ hourly 1 By: Mike Koss http://kenmo.wordpress.com/2008/04/27/kens-kindle-review-did-it-light-my-fire/#comment-9 Mike Koss Mon, 28 Apr 2008 08:23:49 +0000 http://kenmo.wordpress.com/?p=11#comment-9 Great review Ken. I was fast-on-the-draw when the Kindle was announced as was able to score one for Debbie, and a second for my mother, as Christmas presents (2007). We are all enjoying the Kindle a great deal (after seeing the Kindle in action, I got one for me as well - so I now have 3 Kindles associated with my Amazon account). The Kindle really shines when traveling. It's so great to be able to carry many books and get current newspapers when on-the-road. One downside is that that Whispernet does NOT work outside of the US (just got back from Japan where I had no access to my newspaper subscriptions). Having multiple Kindles I can add some notes to your review: The quality of the cover construction is very inconsistent. Debbie's cover works and fits great - mine exhibited the flaws you mention. This bugged me so much I decided to figure out why. I ended up physically removing the plastic tab in the cover binding, and then re-gluing it in place. Just about 1mm difference in how the tab is positioned makes all the difference. It also helps to give it a little "bend" upward. With this adjustment, the Kindle goes in and out of the cover with ease, and is held snugly in place with no fuss. While the Amazon titles all use DRM, you CAN share books with others in your family. As long as all your Kindles are registered to the same Amazon account, you can all download the same books if you like. So there is a little pass-along value to Kindle books (although not for newspaper/magazine subscriptions) [good news when you get your 2nd!]. It's great to be able to email public domain books (as text files, or now, PDF's) to your Kindle. This gives you thousands of free books to choose from, say, Project Gutenberg (lot's of "classics" available). The Amazon book selection is far from Universal. Lots of niche books are NOT available on Kindle - but you can count on all the best sellers to be for sale on the Amazon store. Subscribing to Blogs seems like a rip-off - when the same content (actually better content) is available online for free rather than a couple bucks per month. The experimental browser is very unstable, and frequently crashes. But it IS there in an emergency and works OK on Wikipedia and a few other select sites. I expect this to improve over time. I am sorely tempted to just disable the right-hand Next button. It's just too easy to hit accidentally, as you've noticed. I could live with the Next/Prev buttons on the left, and the small Back button (more like an "up" navigation button) on the right. Great review Ken. I was fast-on-the-draw when the Kindle was announced as was able to score one for Debbie, and a second for my mother, as Christmas presents (2007).

We are all enjoying the Kindle a great deal (after seeing the Kindle in action, I got one for me as well – so I now have 3 Kindles associated with my Amazon account).

The Kindle really shines when traveling. It’s so great to be able to carry many books and get current newspapers when on-the-road. One downside is that that Whispernet does NOT work outside of the US (just got back from Japan where I had no access to my newspaper subscriptions).

Having multiple Kindles I can add some notes to your review:

The quality of the cover construction is very inconsistent. Debbie’s cover works and fits great – mine exhibited the flaws you mention. This bugged me so much I decided to figure out why. I ended up physically removing the plastic tab in the cover binding, and then re-gluing it in place. Just about 1mm difference in how the tab is positioned makes all the difference. It also helps to give it a little “bend” upward. With this adjustment, the Kindle goes in and out of the cover with ease, and is held snugly in place with no fuss.

While the Amazon titles all use DRM, you CAN share books with others in your family. As long as all your Kindles are registered to the same Amazon account, you can all download the same books if you like. So there is a little pass-along value to Kindle books (although not for newspaper/magazine subscriptions) [good news when you get your 2nd!].

It’s great to be able to email public domain books (as text files, or now, PDF’s) to your Kindle. This gives you thousands of free books to choose from, say, Project Gutenberg (lot’s of “classics” available).

The Amazon book selection is far from Universal. Lots of niche books are NOT available on Kindle – but you can count on all the best sellers to be for sale on the Amazon store.

Subscribing to Blogs seems like a rip-off – when the same content (actually better content) is available online for free rather than a couple bucks per month.

The experimental browser is very unstable, and frequently crashes. But it IS there in an emergency and works OK on Wikipedia and a few other select sites. I expect this to improve over time.

I am sorely tempted to just disable the right-hand Next button. It’s just too easy to hit accidentally, as you’ve noticed. I could live with the Next/Prev buttons on the left, and the small Back button (more like an “up” navigation button) on the right.

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