UPDATE 25 November 2011: The Kindle Fire and new Kindles are out.
- Here is an unboxing video of the new Kindle Fire
- Here is an overview of the latest Kindles available
- Here is a guide for understanding what is an ereader and what is a Kindle
UPDATE 28 September 2011
New Kindles and a Kindle tablet called the Kindle Fire have been announced. Here is a quick overview of the new Kindle products.
UPDATE 9 October 2010
The Kindle 3 is out, and there are three models to choose from:
- Kindle Wi-Fi Graphite
- Kindle 3G + Wi-Fi Graphite
With the latest generation, the above three Kindles offer higher contrast screens, lighter and thinner designs, better battery life, faster page turns, and better PDF document reading options than the first generation Kindles.
Click any of the above links to get more details, including a comparison chart of all the features and prices.
Information on previous models is below.
UPDATE [25 November 2009]: The Kindle 2 now has support for viewing PDF documents with the 2.3 software update! This update also allows for screen rotation, so you can read your books in portrait mode or landscape mode.
UPDATE: I’ve posted my review of the Kindle DX ebook reader, here. You might say it’s the new Kendall book reader, since my wife swiped my Kindle 2 (review below of the Kindle 2).
So I just received the new Kindle 2
book reader, available from Amazon
The design and build quality of the new kindle book reader (now called the kendall book reader by my wife) is much improved over the original kindle. The next-page buttons are better-placed, the case is sturdier, it holds a lot more books (about 1500), and the 5-way direction stick allows for easier navigation and selection.
Buying any of the over 240,000 available books (with more being added daily) is very easy, as is subscribing to magazines, newspapers, and blogs. Reading text with the e-ink display and turn-page buttons makes the device “disappear” — you aren’t constantly reminded that you are using an electronic device to read a book, as perhaps with other book readers or devices (like your cell phone ?!).
Battery life is great, since the e-ink displays do not drain the battery to refresh the screen — only on the turn of the page (which may confuse some flight attendants).
The cellular, free connectivity is very handy, especially since I am often on travel and without an Internet connection — you can download new books, surf, and access your content even if you are not near a wifi network using Amazon’s Whispernet service. Again, for free. This means you can access Amazon and even the WWW via the built-in web browser without having to be tethered to your computer or be near a wifi access point. (Note that some websites are creating mobile versions — webpages that look good when rendered on a small mobile device screen.)
In addition to reading commercial content, you can view your own documents or documents sent to you from other people. Amazon charges a small fee to convert these documents for wireless download to your kindle (which some people gripe about), but I figured out that this conversion service is actually free if you send the converted pdf/document first to your computer, then to your kindle, rather than directly to your kindle over the cellular network from Amazon.
The kindle also plays audio books from Audible.com (review) as well as mp3 files — you can even have your favorite song playing in the background while you read your book.
The graphics are much improved over the original kindle, as can be seen in the images on this page.
In case you want to travel with your kindle — which is one of the main benefits of the kindle, since you can carry a truck load of books with you in the palm of your hand — you may want to purchase a travel case in which to carry your kindle, such as the Belkin Neoprene Sleeve Case
, shown below.
I should point out that this device is not an iPhone — you can’t interact with the device by touching the screen, for example, and other user-interface decisions are different from the iPhone experience. But this device provides a reading environment better than any other electronic device. In addition, it provides other advanced features (such as text-to-speech, and taking notes within the book) that are way-beyond the capabilities of other devices.
In all, the Kindle 2
- Kindle 3G + Wi-Fi Graphite
