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Kickin’ It With The Kindle
After last week’s announcement of the Kindle coming to Canada I re-kindled (get it) a purchase decision I had started several years ago when I first saw a Sony e-Reader at CES.
Here are my thoughts after spending 24 hours with the Kindle.
Ordering
I bought the Kindle with accompanying leather cover. Total cost: $352.99
Order placed November 23. Order Arrived November 24.
Packaging
The Kindle arrives in a pretty simple brown package.
Kindle Packaging
At first I was underwhelmed but I really like the “Once Upon a Time” on the side.
side of kindle box
Here is an unboxing video….
The Amazon Kindle Arrives at Teehan+Lax from Greg Washington on Vimeo.
After opening the box this is what you see.
That text on the screen is not a sticker. That is the screen! It is incredibly sharp and crisp.
USB Kindle
You need to charge it fully by connecting the micro USB to the supplied power connector.
I’m not going to cover a full tour of the UI since these shots exist elsewhere online. But here are my initial thoughts.
* Purchasing content is easy. I bought a book on Amazon.com and it appears on the Kindle within 60 seconds. Buying content from the Kindle is as easy. Great experience!
* Reading is effortless and little to no eye strain. I read for about 2 hours last night and had no problems.
* When you hold the Kindle your fingers naturally rest on two buttons.
Kindle with Fingers on Nxt Page
My natural inclination is that pressing on the left button will go back and the right will go forward but that is not the case.
Kindle with Fingers off
It’s not a big deal but I miss hit it a few times.
* My biggest issue is something that I would never have thought of until I used the Kindle. When you read a book you make note of where you are spatially in the book. You are always aware of if you are 1/3 of the way through or 1/2 or near the end. The tactile feedback of weight in your left or right hand is an important cognitive clue, it also helps your brain position passages and narrative in a physical space. I can go to a book I read a year ago and know roughly where certain passages or parts are. “I know it was in the first half of the book”.
* With the Kindle I was aware that I would need to mark passages I may want to remember. There is a very robust notes and bookmarking feature in the Kindle. You can highlight passages, makes notes or simple bookmarks. The problem is to do this, you need to enter a menu, navigate a 5 way controller and then select the passage. It takes not only 10 or 15 seconds of time but more importantly you consciously need to stop reading and do this action. It is disruptive to the experience.
* The keyboard is ass. The buttons are really tough to type on. Maybe in the future I will type more notes and use it more, for now it’s just in the way.
* The Kindle arrives with your name and Amazon account programmed. This means there is zero setup when you turn it on.
* You get a Kindle.com email address. Sending PDFs to that address will add them to your Kindle.
I will try to cover more about the Kindle Store, newspaper and magazine reading in another post.
Funny enough the day before you tweeted about getting this I had bought my wife the sony e reader not knowing the kindle was available to Canadian. Shortly after your reply via tweet I made my first amazon purchase via iPhone in the parking lot of markville whole my kid slept in the back seat ( talk about being productive) the kindle wasn’t to arrive till the 26 th one day late for her birthday. The 25th. Low and behold the kindle arrived 24 hours almost to the hour of me ordering it. I returned the Sony this afternoon. And shell be opening the kindle in oh about 20 min. Good times thanks for your tweet about this otherwise I might be Sony e reading with regret.
I hope she enjoys it!
I like the concept a lot but think that $352.99 is still on the high end for an eReader. The natural pricing feels like is should be around $200 or so given what limited functionality the device really does. It will be nice when there are a few more on the market to put pressure on Sony and Amazon to bring down the cost. I actually like the B&N Nook better from an aesthetic point of view. The reviews are pretty good on it as well. That’s an interesting point about the spatial reference point while reading. Never thought of that.
@jaypiddy
@JP I don’t disagree but the wireless function is what elevates it above just an eReader. The integration to Amazon is the killer app. If it offered Blog and web browsing I think the cost would be better justified.
[…] Teehan + Lax, a high-end digital media agency in Toronto, posted a visual blog detailing the experience of ordering and using a Kindle. […]
I just bought a Kindle as well, and just FYI, the email address transfer thing doesn’t work in Canada. You can send documents to yourname@free.kindle.com and they will get magically transformed into the Kindle format and emailed back to you. But then you then have to add them to your Kindle manually via USB.