Kindle eBook Reader Review
I got my Kindle eBook Reader back in November of 2010 and have taken it through all of its paces and have found it to be one of the best buys I have made in years. My wife got her Kindle for Christmas and she says, “It is one of the best gifts she has gotten in years!”
I do not go in for all the newest and latest fads that hit the market, but I have been wanting a Kindle Wireless Reading Device since the day they were first introduced back in 2007. I decided to wait before getting mine to make sure that all the kinks were ironed out and that the price was a bit more reasonable than the original $399.Below is my personal review of the Kindle Wireless Reading Device, Wi-Fi, Graphite, 6″ Display with New E Ink Pearl Technology.
Kindle Ebook Reader Review: Love It or Love ItFrom the above title you can probably guess how I feel about my new Kindle Wireless Reader
The screen is plenty large. When I first turned it on and started reading the guide, I was literally in awe of how easy it was to read. More about that below. This is much easier than reading a real book.
2. Technology was my next concern. I will admit that I can very easily get frustrated with all the menus, function keys, etc. on lots of the new technology that is cropping up. I did not want a reading device that was hard to navigate and figure out.
Well, kudos to the staff at Amazon. They have created a device that is simple to navigate, use and best of all read on! I went through the complete guide, but you can easily just read the welcome guide and figure out most of the options.
Overall, the guide is very well written, so it takes you through everything you need to know, so there is really no excuse to not being able to master your Kindle Technology in a very short time. Even my wife who abhors almost all these new electronic devices has found it to be fun and easy. She got her own for Christmas, because she was constantly borrowing mine.
Exception: There are some things that are explained clearly in the guide, but once you do figure them out, the process is simple enough. I have included some clarification on some of those issues on the other posts.
3. Reading Ease: Another nagging concern was how the page would look and if I needed to scroll from side to side, up and down. Did not want to be constantly having to scroll back and forth to read the page. Well lo and behold this is not the case.
Whatever you are reading is on one page. Since there are no page numbers as in a normal book, your page could contain 100+ words or only 20 words, depending on how you set up your wireless reader. If you use the smallest type, you can get 20 – 25 lines of text, depending on paragraphs and such. There is room for 48 characters per line (that is my count, but not sure if the official stats are different). If you go to the biggest type you will only get about 6 lines of text with about 8-9 characters per line.
You can adjust your text to the size that best suits your reading habits. When you are finishing reading a “page”, you just click on the next page button and the next page shows up in under a second. Faster than turning a page in a book. There are two next page buttons on the Kindle Wireless Device . One on the left side and another on the right side. When you are holding the device naturally, your right and left thumb is resting on the next page button. A light tap and that is all it takes. If you want to go back to a previous page, there is a previous page button right above the next page button on both sides of the Kindle. Just moving your thumbs up slightly and there it is. It is very simple to turn to the next page or go back to the previous pages.
4. E Ink Display: Now, the real kicker to the Kindle is the reading display. Or whatever you want to call the screen. I heard and read so much about E ink, but unless you really see it in person, it is hard to explain. 
When you look at the page, it looks as if it is a printed page. There is no glow or electronic looking screen. It is a white background with black print on it. It is so effortless to read in almost any type of light.
I have read in bright sunlight, overcast shadowy days, bright snow days, on trains, in buses, in the car, inside the house, etc. ( I beginning to sound like Dr. Suess’s Green Eggs and Ham). I really think I have tested it in most conditions and there has never been any kind of problem reading it. The only time you can not read it, is when it is dark. There is no backlight. Just like reading a book, turn on a lamp!
Overall I am very very happy with the Kindle and how user friendly it is.
As mentioned above, it is easy to adjust the Kindle to your reading style. You have the option of adjusting the font size to either 7, 9, 11, 14, 17 or 20 pt. The screen does not actually say the number, but you see the font size and choose the one you want. You can always make it bigger or smalller.
It is very quick to do. You click on the Aa button and than use your 5 way controller to adjust it and than hit OK.
TYPEFACE: You also have the option of adjusting the typeface from either regular, condensed or sans serif. I prefer the regular, but my wife does like the condensed.
There are other possibilities too. You can adjust the line spacing, number of words per line and even the screen rotation. The reader is set up to read in portrait, but you can adjust the screen to landscape and even upside down portrait and landscape. So if you find that it is easier to hold and read another way, you just adjust the screen.
Even the navigation buttons will be changed to fit your screen rotation. In other words if you hold the Kindle,
I downloaded my first ebook from the Kindle store after registering my device. It was so QUICK, that I wanted to do it again. I didn’t. I waited a few days before purchasing another book. But really it is so simple to do. The guide takes you through it and after you have done it once, you will be amazed at how easy it is to do.
Amazon has made the technology in downloading the books, magazines, blogs and even pictures so simple that anyone can do it. I have just not had any problems whatsoever with this issue. I often use my computer for some of my downloads, since I live overseas and 3G is not always available everywhere I travel. But whenever possible I download via WiFi and it is brilliant.
One of my main goals for my Kindle with New E Ink was to be able to download the many PDF documents that I have on my computer and read them on my Kindle instead of using the laptop in bed or on the train. Well, I connected the Kindle to my computer and moved them over. This was a big mistake.
You do not want to do it that way. If you move your pdf files over without converting them, they are unformatted and hard to read. You will want to send them to Amazon for reformatting. See my other post on how to convert pdf files to your kindle. When you do it right, this is a fantastic feature!
The Kindle Verdict
There is a lot more I will tell you about the Kindle in the following pages, but let me finish this off by telling you that if you really enjoy reading books, but hate having to carry paperbacks, hardbacks, magazines and newspapers around all the time, than the Kindle is such a great alternative.
Yes, I still buy regular books and will probably continue to buy them, but I LOVE having lots of reading material on my Kindle. Now I can leave my physical books at home. The Kindle is lightweight and easy to fit into my briefcase, backpack or coat pocket. I keep a huge assortment of reading material on it and if there is nothing there that interests me at the time, I can quickly download a new book to read or preview one for FREE from the Kindle store.
Not to mention the 1000s of free books available to download on your Kindle.
Get your hands on Kindle Wireless Reading Device, Wi-Fi, Graphite, 6″ Display with New E Ink Pearl Technology today. You get Free shipping and makes a great gift.
I have now started buying a Kindle for birthday gifts for my friends and family, who all love to read. Even got a his and hers for my nieces wedding. These really make great gifts for anyone who loves reading.
Editor’s Review Cnet Kindle Wireless DX
The good: Large-screen e-book reader with improved, higher contrast e-ink screen; large library of hundreds of thousands of e-books, newspapers, and blogs via Amazon’s familiar online store; free 3G wireless access; can store up to 3,500 books; eight fonts available, including two new extra-large sizes; decent battery life; displays image files, PDFs, and plays MP3 and AAC audio.
The bad: Though it’s more affordable than the previous DX model, the price is still within spitting distance of the more versatile iPad; heavier weight (than smaller Kindle) could make long reading sessions tiresome; doesn’t support EPUB files; no protective carrying case included; battery is sealed into the device and isn’t removable; no Wi-Fi option.
The bottom line: Though it has a hard time competing with Apple’s iPad in terms of functionality, the less-expensive 2010 Kindle DX will appeal to those looking for a large, dedicated e-reader with an e-ink display.
Among leading e-book readers, a 6-inch screen–which approximates the size of a paperback book–is standard: it’s what you’ll find on the Amazon Kindle, the Barnes & Noble Nook, and at least one version of the Sony Reader. But for those who prefer the more spacious pages of a magazine or newspaper, that size can be a bit cramped. With that in mind, Amazon released the Kindle DX in the summer of 2009, supersizing the Kindle experience with a 9.7-inch e-ink screen.
With the subsequent arrival of the Apple iPad in April 2010, many tech pundits wrote off Amazon’s similarly sized–and identically priced–Kindle DX as a nonviable product. But just a few months after Apple launched its much-hyped tablet, Amazon is making efforts to resuscitate the DX with a price cut to $379, a new graphite finish, and a screen that offers higher contrast and darker fonts. The device still has “free” integrated 3G wireless connectivity from AT&T, and aside from the new “high-contrast e-ink screen” doesn’t add any additional hardware enhancements.
Features
The Kindle DX boasts 4GB of internal memory. It’s not expandable, but that space is enough for about 3,500 e-books. Should you ever run out of room (since you can also store images, PDFs, MP3 audio, and Audible audio books), you can delete your e-books with impunity and redownload them later as needed–Amazon keeps all of your e-book purchases readily available in an online “digital locker” tied to your account.
Though the Kindle is designed as a primary reading device, the e-books you purchase aren’t trapped there. You can also download Kindle software apps for nearly all other major platforms (Windows PCs, Macs, BlackBerry phones, Android phones, iPads, and iPhones/iPod Touch devices) to access all of the same titles, syncing up between them where you left off with Amazon’s WhisperSync feature. (Barnes & Noble’s rival Nook reader also supports all of those devices.)
Notably, unlike the Nook and the iPad, the Kindle does not support the EPUB file format standard, so you can’t use it to read loaner e-books from library, nor any of the myriad free titles available online from a variety of vendors such as Google Books. However, that issue is somewhat ameliorated by the fact that Amazon offers its own library of almost 2 million free, public-domain titles (mostly pre-1923, out-of-copyright titles), including a large range of classics by Mark Twain, Arthur Conan Doyle, H.G. Wells, Jane Austen, and the like.
In addition to hundreds of thousands of e-books, you can also subscribe to a good number of newspapers, magazines, and blogs, all of which are delivered wirelessly to the Kindle. The AT&T 3G wireless should cover most of the U.S., and it’s completely free. It also will work in many countries overseas, but additional charges may apply. Unlike the new, smaller Kindles, there’s no Wi-Fi option, but you can download content to your PC and side-load it to the Kindle via USB.
The Kindle has a built-in QWERTY keyboard for searching and notation; you can also tie the device to your Facebook and Twitter accounts, and share relevant passages among your social network. Anyone who’s used an iPad or a modern smartphone will have an impulse to touch the screen, but, alas, that’s not how the Kindle works. (That’s probably for the best: Sony’s attempt to add touch-screen functionality to its e-readers comes at the expense of screen clarity.) Instead, navigation is accomplished using the thumbstick and the page forward/back, menu, back, and home buttons along the screen’s right border. It’s definitely less intuitive than a touch screen, but most users will get the hang of it quickly enough.
The DX comes with a USB cable and AC charger, but no case–you’ll almost certainly want to invest in the latter, but be sure to seek one out that maximizes protection while adding minimal weight.
Kindle DX vs. iPad
If you’re considering the DX, chances are you’ve also considered the iPad, which has a 9.7-inch screen and starts at $500 for a Wi-Fi-only version. Obviously, in terms of functionality, the Kindle DX simply can’t compete with the iPad, which not only allows you to read books using your e-reader app of choice, including the Kindle or Nook apps, but it supports video playback, true (albeit Flash-less) Web surfing on a color screen, and a variety of apps that let you do everything from play games, do e-mail, read comic books, and everything in between. The iPad is also a strong PDF viewer, and there are several apps available for viewing documents and other graphic images.
The main things the DX has going in its favor are its e-ink screen and superior battery life (up to 2 weeks with wireless off). Amazon says that the display’s contrast has been improved by 50 percent over the previous Kindle DX, and though we didn’t think the difference was like night and day, we did think the lettering looked darker and sharper overall. It offers 16 levels of grayscale, and the flat matte screen can be viewed in direct sunlight. That’s opposed to the iPad, which has a reflective LCD screen. The iPad’s touch screen is invariably smudged with fingerprints, too. Unlike the Kindle, it’s backlit; that’s a boon for some, but many others find reading a backlit LCD screen to be tiring on the eyes for the long haul.
On a more cosmetic level, we also liked the graphite-colored border, which helps to distinguish this Kindle from the older DX. (Unlike the new 6-inch Kindle, which is available in white or graphite versions, the DX is, for now, graphite only.)
The reality is that the Kindle DX is for a very specific user who wants a large-screen e-ink display that allows you to see more text on a single page or increase the font size and still have more than three words per line (at the third largest font size, which should be plenty large for most people, you get about six or seven words per line). Its size also makes it superior to other e-ink e-readers for viewing PDF files and image-heavy textbooks (however, the textbook market and adoption rate of students for the Kindle DX has not taken off as Amazon had hoped). Newspapers and magazines also are better suited to the larger screen, but the iPad’s ability to display color and its zippier touch-screen interface give it a big advantage in this department.
The Kindle DX offers a rudimentary Web browser that Amazon lists as “experimental.” That’s a generous assessment: except for the most basic of text Web surfing, it’s not terribly useful. This may change with a future firmware update (Amazon is adding a WebKit-based browser to the new, smaller Kindle that may be ported to the DX as well), but for now, anyone who needs a more robust tablet device to access the Web should stick with the iPad.
Another unimportant but often overlooked consideration is weight. The DX tips the scales at 18.9 ounces, whereas the iPad is 22 to 23 ounces (depending if you go with the Wi-Fi or 3G versions). Add a case (likely for both devices), and they’ll be even a bit heavier. Now, both are quite light compared to a laptop, but they’re comparable to the heft of a 350-page hardcover book (25 ounces). If you’re holding them upright during a long reading session, they could begin to become tiresome, especially compared to a magazine, paperback, or 6-inch e-book reader.
Conclusion
Obviously, lowering the Kindle DX’s price and improving its screen are something Amazon had to do to keep the DX relevant–and we’re glad it did. With a price delta between it and the entry-level iPad now standing at $120, those considering a larger, dedicated e-reader might be tempted to opt for the DX. Still, its lack of versatility (no video, limited Web browser) and Amazon’s price cut to its 6-inch Kindle ($139 for Wi-Fi, $189 for Wi-Fi plus 3G), hurt some of the DX’s appeal and leave as niche product. But at least the new look, and improved pricing and screen contrast give it a better chance of survival in a post-iPad world.
- Reviewed by: David Carnoy and John P. Falcone
- Reviewed on:
- Updated on:
