Ode to the Kindle

This isn't my first electronic book reader.  I have been reading books on laptops, my old Newton, various Palm and CE-based PDAs, Smartphones (including my iPhones), and my Sony Reader.  I think the idea of electronic access to my absurdly large library of books makes as much sense as electronic access (via my iPhone/iPod) to my library of music.

I think the Kindle, as aesthetically unpleasing as it is, may finally be a step in the right direction.

Rather than sprout a bunch of platitudes about how fantastic it is, let me just illustrate some uses I have put it to and let those speak for themselves:

• I have nearly 50 books on the kindle, and it weighs the same as one book.  I travel frequently, so the weight of my carry-on bag is much lighter than previously.  I now pack, for reading, my kindle and a magazine (for takeoff/landing when you cannot read the kindle).  No more sore shoulders, elbows, wrists.

• Amazon, in it's efforts to make the book-purchase process as frictionless as possible, allows you to download sample chapters of books before you buy them.  I have had about a 50% hit rate on purchases based on sample chapters, which means that I didn't purchase 50% of the books that originally sounded good but turned out to not be what I was expecting.  Nice savings there.

• The WhisperNet, in the US anyway, just works.  I have found myself on more than one occasion in a location that I cannot even receive a cellular signal to my iPhone and notice that my Kindle just downloaded today's Wall Street Journal while I was reading a book.  For those times that I am exiting the country for a bit, I will find myself using my layover at O'Hare in the Red Carpet Lounge purchasing two or three books for the long flights, then turning off the radio on the Kindle.  I recharge it when I get back from the trip.

• I can easily send file attachments to the Kindle from my computers to be read whilst in transit.  This is really handy for that large stack of 'Can you please read this paper or draft I wrote?' emails that is perpetually clogging up my inbox like so much arterial plaque.

• The price of the books I do end up purchasing are rarely above $14.99 and usually seem to be $9.99.  In contrast, I spent $188.90 at Borders last night with my daughters to purchase them a smallish pile of childrens books and two or three magazines.

[This is one area that has not yet been figured out, magazines. Although you can download electronic versions of many magazines using ebook readers and computers, none of them are as functional as a paper magazine.  I have Zinio reader on my Mac with a number of subscriptions to magazines, and find myself being alerted to a new issue of a magazine while in the middle of work, dismiss the alert, and then forget that I have the magazine until next month.  Not good.  Even the WSJ on the Kindle is a bit of a hassle to use, interface-wise, and I find myself listening to my audible.com version more often than reading the Kindle version.]

• Finally, I don't know the environmental impact of manufacturing the Kindle, however I know I have saved a number of trees in my purchases of the 50 e-books and WSJ editions.  And that divisor is only going to go up.

Now, if only it wasnt so, well, ugly.

Comments

[Aaron Uhrmacher]

I actually just got a kindle as a birthday gift last week and so far I love it for many of the reasons you mentioned above.

I agree it's hard to read newspapers, and I probably will use it more for travel than anything else, but the magazines work pretty well and the books are a breeze.

Too bad amazon charges for subscribing to blogs. A good feed reader would make this amazing for my productivity.