My Reviews: Kindle 3 - The Kindle Odyssey

Since the release of the Kindle touch in Europe is only less than a month away I will finally take the time to review the Kindle 3 or at least give you an account of my experiences so far.

As soon as the amazon Kindle became available in Europe I had to get one even though it costs the same in euros as in dollars (which is not a good deal given the current change rates). Still it is rather affordable and even in the lower price segment compared to the other e-readers available here in Europe.

Before starting on my personal account I have to make it clear that I will not make any comparisons between tablets and e-readers since I don’t see the point of that. A lot of people on the internet bitch about why the iPad is far superior than the Kindle or vice versa. In my opinion they have completely different applications so any comparison would be completely useless.

So the Kindle I got (the first one I have to say) was the wifi only version. the 3g version is considerable more expensive for little benefit for my kind of use, because during the time it takes to read one book, it is very likely that at least once you will get near a wifi to download a new book. Maybe this is different if you spend most of the time in some hut in the woods far from human civilization but otherwise I do fine with the wifi only version.

By far the best feature is the display which is brilliant for reading books. Pictures in black and white are also quite good. Too complex graphics or scanned text is sometimes a bit fuzzy. Otherwise I like the no backlight paper look and feel of the display. Sometimes there is a little ghosting of the previous pages but you really need to look very close to see that and it doesn’t appear all the time. The turning of the pages is fast enough to keep reading fluently.

The battery life is awesome due to the great display and the fact that most of the time you will probably have the wifi turned of as well. The battery is said to last a month. I have read about 3 books with one battery load so that is absolutely ok even if you take the kindle with you on a weeks vacation to a secluded location with no electricity.

If you use the Kindle without any cover, which you probably won’t, it is really really slim and the plastic is rather slippery and smooth. I had a bit of a problem holding it while reading without a cover. You have either no good grip at the back or you touch one of the turn page buttons. When you hold it in one hand you have only one reasonable spot to rest your thumb if you don’t want to put it on the keyboard or on the display.

One of my fears while considering to buy an e-reader were that I would not have the same feeling as actually holding a real book. Usually when I read a book I always have an instant subconscious feedback of were I am within the book because of the thickness of the stack of pages I have already read in one hand compared to the stack in my other hand. After reaching the middle of the book I usually have the impression that reading gets easier and faster. It is like climbing a mountain and running down the other side. So one of my fears was, that I will no longer get that sensation from my Kindle. Most Kindle ebooks i have don’t have page locations but only the rather ominous location numbers. They don’t help to get more oriented at all.

While reading my first ebook on the Kindle i was actually totally satisfied with the percentage bar at the bottom. This even allows me to see my progress in a book even better, knowing now when i reach a quarter or a third of the book which are things that you don’t feel that distinctively with a real book.

Another point to consider of course was the price, which isn’t too expensive but which is still  rather high compared to a book. I wouldn’t take the Kindle to the beach because of the fear of it getting stolen. But on the other hand I read most books on my way to work or at home so the few times a year when I actually read at the pool or at the beach I can still take some cheap paperback.

One of the benefits of the Kindle for reading on the way to work is definitely the weight of the device and the possibility to have more than one book with you. I usually read more than one book simultaneously and i usually switch between them according to my mood. Being able to have that flexibility everyday and not having to carry 3 or 4 books is actually quite nice. Big books like e.g. „Les Miserable“ belong to those books I always wanted to read but which I never take with me because of the weight. On the subway to work I can read about 10 to 20 pages and I don’t want to carry 1000 pages with me just for that. Therefore such big books usually collect dust on the shelf. Because the Kindle is so small and lightweight I have it with me at most times and can use every free minute to read a few pages.

Other advantages of the Kindle are the integrated dictionary and the fact that you can access the internet if you really want to look something up or check your emails when needed. Although the internet feature is for emergency use only (surfing on a regular basis is rather awkward and slow) it is nice to have this option available.

So what are the downsides? The pdf-viewing could be better. The only option to zoom pdf with to small print is to flip the device to the side or to zoom in on the page. But in both cases some lines will be cut off and you cannot move around the page freely so you just jump around and the same line might stay cut off. There is definitely room for improvement here. Also if you have rather big pdf documents with graphics and all, the page turning gets really slow when you want to skip through the pages. If you are not patient enough the Kindle might actually crash and then takes minutes to reboot. So if you plan to read pdf for the most part you probably won’t be too happy with this device.

Another negative aspect for me is the fact that amazon ebooks are rather expensive. Sure you can get a lot of old books for free and also some new ones pretty cheap (if they are from rather unknown authors) but most books are really expensive. They only cut about 1 to 2 euros of the hardcover price. Often the ebook has the same price as the paperback. I think that this is not just, given that you don’t get a real book and that you are limited in it’s use since you cannot lend it to friends of give it away as a gift once you read it. I think it would be fair to cut at least half the price of the hardcover.

Problem is you can get tons of books on an illegal basis which is more attractive the more expensive and limited in use the original books are. With two torrent downloads you have a dvd full of books which is pretty much the amount of a small bookshop. Amazon has at least started to make the „deal of the day“ and letting you download some books for free on a special day. I’m also hoping for an Amazon Prime subscription for more valuable legal content here in Europe but at the moment this option seems to be out of reach.

Charging the earnest customer with a high price and then not even giving them the option to share the book with friends is rather hard and will either lead to people not buying ebooks and e-readers or to a higher consumption of illegal content.

My personal history with the Kindle has so far prevented me from buying a second one. The first device I had got stuck one day before going on vacation to Italy. I was rather pissed because I was looking forward to reading some books and due to the fact that there is no real hard reset (you cannot disconnect the batterie completely) there are little options left when the „hold-the-power-switch-for-30-seconds“ reset doesn’t work. Comparing this to a regular book which can basically not fail to function it was very upsetting and made me rather angry. But my anger was soothed quickly due to the excellent customer service from Amazon. They immediately sent me a new device. Returning the broken one was no trouble at all and it didn’t cost me anything.

Only problem was. The second device I got crashed on a regular basis about 2 to 3 times a week. The page turning got slow and then it stuck completely. I tried everything I could from clearing all content, restoring factory defaults and any other possible way to make it work but the crashing continued. Again I had to contact customer support. And again they sent me a new one.

My third device so far seems to work fine and until now hasn’t crashed once. But my experience has somehow tinted my view on the quality of the device itself. It seemed to me that Amazon throws out a cheap device which will function at least in some cases and hopes to solve any arising problems with a good customer service. This is fine by me for now and for the one device I have but I will cautiously wait any further developments before I will buy my next e-reader.