Note: This review is of the $79, ad-supported, non-touch device named simply “Kindle”, as the Kindle 2 and 3 / Keyboard once were before it.
The new Amazon Kindle is a superb device, boiling the essence of the Kindle product line into a simpler, smaller package than any that came before it, and working so well it renders its compromises meaningless almost instantly.
This Kindle is the latest in a line of Amazon’s dedicated e-readers, which are built (save for the DX) around six-inch e-ink screens for impressive legibility and battery stamina. Each has featured wireless networking, eschewing the need for a PC and allowing book downloads directly to it. Yet the Kindle plays well with other devices, allowing its books to be shopped for (and pushed from) computers and smartphones, as well as syncing page locations from the device and back with the various Kindle apps on smartphones, tablets, computers, and, blessedly, the Web (read.amazon.com).
With each revision, the Kindle brings something minor-sounding, but important, to the table. The second Kindle promised faster page turns. The third Kindle brought a higher-contrast screen (sometimes called Pearl) that makes a world of difference, particularly in less-than-ideally lit environments. (I’d been craving a 3 for a while, just on that screen alone.) It also allowed for superior one-handed operation, with back-and-forward page buttons on both sides of the screen and a lighter weight and smaller chassis.
The latest Kindle continues the trend, shedding the keyboard (sometimes thought superfluous), dropping size and weight, and discarding even the option of 3G networking, depending alone, instead, on Wi-Fi.
In fact, in going from my Kindle 2, I gave up 3G, a keyboard, speakers and, according to some, my dignity, now that I have ads directly on the device. Here’s why those compromises were worth it for me:
3G: The Kindle’s ability to hook up to cell-phone networks is cool. You can buy a book from anywhere, they say, and have it downloaded in 60 seconds. Honestly, I might’ve thought my Kindle was broken if a purchase had ever taken sixty seconds to get to me; I can’t say, because they were always much faster. Also, if you’re using Kindle apps, it can sync up your latest location all the time, so you can always pick up on your phone or whatever. This is all cool. (And it’s easier to set up for the tech-phobic, since it’s connected out of the box.)
However, in a year with the Kindle 2, I’ve already built a backlog of books. If I run out, I’m almost always in Wi-Fi range, and it’s easy to plan ahead if I need to buy a new one. Also, I don’t care about the phone apps anymore, because this thing is so light and the screen so nice that I’ll take it everywhere. (It uses a similar screen to the Kindle 3, now called the Kindle Keyboard on Amazon.com; I wouldn’t be surprised if they are the same. Look at it below.)
Keyboard: I don’t take notes in paper books or electronic ones. I do, however, love the ability to search through my books I’ve read for favorite passages using the quick search built into Kindles. (It takes just a few seconds to return a sorted list of every time a word or phrase appears in a book.)
So this new Kindle doesn’t have a keyboard, per se, but rather a pop-up onscreen keyboard that you navigate with the directional button below the screen. Due to the screen’s improved refresh rate, the keyboard is not that horrible to use, and the rest of the time I get to enjoy the benefits of a smaller, lighter device. It’s an easy trade-off.
Speakers: I used my speakers all the time, if only to demonstrate to people that my Kindle can, in fact, play music. (I kept an MP3 copy of Them Crooked Vultures on it for just such occasions.) That’s because most people see it and think it’s some kind of conventional tablet. More fittingly, the text-to-speech capability can also read most books aloud to you. The speakers were louder and sounded better than you’d expect. I just pretty much never used them. This Kindle doesn’t have a headphone jack, either, so it can’t play audio at all.
Ads: Ah, the kicker: I don’t really own this thing because Amazon will send me a string of ads forever and ever. (For $109, you can buy this device sans the ads.) It’s true, I will get a lot of ads, and I can’t pay the $30 later to get rid of them, which I think is lame. [EDIT: Actually, you can do exactly that.]
That said, there are no ads in your books. They appear on the lock screen (see the first picture above) and on the bottom of your list of books when viewed on the device. (That smaller ad at the bottom corresponds to whatever ad was on your lock screen last.) See below:
I found the lock screen ads completely unobjectionable and the one at the bottom of my reading list relatively distracting. (That Amazon one is probably the most understated that I’ve seen.) But you really don’t see it that often.
Some people take a strong, principled stand against ads in their reading; I just hope they never flip through the last few pages of any of their paperbacks. I had another, more personal reason for giving the ads a shot, which I won’t get into now, but they’re fine. Not sure I’d buy the ad-supported version as a gift for a loved one, but I found it fine for personal use.
So what else am I missing on this Kindle? Well, it has only 2 gigs of storage, except that’s 1,400 books, and I’ll never need more. Its battery life is listed at a mere month compared to the two months of the new Kindle Touch. I don’t even think I’ll get a month out of it but a week is plenty for my standards. (My Kindle 2 got me maybe two days if I read a lot; I’ve read a lot the last couple days and I’m not even down a quarter yet.)
And it doesn’t have a touch screen. Everyone who picked up my Kindle 2 thought it was a touch screen, and many were disappointed when it wasn’t. (Which is weird, considering the Kindle 2 has 52 buttons on its face.) Okay, first off: touch technology has made people idiots. The reason touch is such a great feature on, say, an iPhone, is not because touch is an inherently superior way to control things, but because getting rid of physical keys and having a bigger screen allows for vast improvement in certain uses, like video playback and Web browsing. However, some people buy touch screen feature phones and find they don’t do anything better than their last phone, which just had buttons.
And anyway, I don’t want to touch/leave fingerprints on a screen I’m reading from. My laziness prefers the side-mounted page-turning buttons to having to reach all the way to the screen. Further, the device is so light and the bezel so small that sometimes I put a thumb on the screen to grip it, and I’m glad it doesn’t turn the page when I do so. That said, the touch is said to improve the usability/speed of the onscreen keyboard.
Oh, and this Kindle doesn’t come with a charger, just a USB cable to charge off your computer. This is like how iPods stopped coming with wall chargers after a few years. It’s a little annoying, though it’s a standard micro-USB port on the device and USB cable, so it may well work with other chargers you have already, or you can buy a charger from Amazon for $9.99.
Despite all this: using the thing is a breath of fresh air. Why can’t everything work this well? You think you’re going to regret getting the cheaper model, but Amazon did a very commendable thing and made their low-end product a joy to use. It’s got a beautiful screen, amazing battery life, and convenient, comfortable dimensions. Plus it still has those nice Kindle touches, like the ability to arrow over to a word and see its definition in a popup, without ever leaving the page.
If you’re thinking of getting a Kindle now, and can live with the trade-offs, my advice would be: go for it.
