Kindle 2.0 is out…almost

[Tim Cheek]

http://www.amazon.com/

Search for Kindle

At 10.2 ounces, it seems even better. Someone please buy one and report.

[JT Croteau]

For those, like me, who don't know WTF this is and don't want to click the link, this is a wireless reading device you download books onto.

[Miner]

From what I've read, it seems with the wireless turned off, it gets really good battery life (2 weeks; not sure if this is continously on or not). If you are going out for a long trip, the 10oz wt penalty doesn't seem bad since you can bring several books to read. The large display and thin device profile seems like it would be easy to read for a long period of time.

The fact that you can upload PDFs to it (though some more complex formatting may be displayed wrong) says you can now upload your topo map printouts to it. Though 16 grey scale colors isn't bad, a color display would be better for the maps. Now if only you could get the PCT or JMT guidebooks in pdf or kindle format, this would be ideal to take for a thruhike. Well sure, I could cut my guidebooks up and scan them into a pdf, but that seems like a lot of work.

[Brett Tucker]

I own Kindle v1.0. Although the reader has an on/off switch, the device isn't really "on," in terms of battery use, unless you're doing something that causes the electronic ink to refresh. If you leave a page displayed and are simply reading, virtually no battery use is occurring since the ink display is essentially "solid state." (The display goes to "screen saver" mode after 10 minutes or so, and again, this is the equivalent of having the device physically turned off, in terms of battery usage.)

One week of light to moderate daily reading per charge seems to be a reasonable estimate with the v1.0 battery.

The wireless receiver has its own on/off switch. Always leave this turned off for maximum battery life, as the drain is quite substantial, especially for the first version Kindle. (A few hours from fully charged to discharged if you're browsing the web.)

I wouldn't want to use Kindle for anything intensively graphics oriented. The original Kindle displays images quite poorly, unless they're specifically tailored to the device, as with the build-in screen saver illustrations (these are quite elegantly done, and beautiful to look at). Although the v2.0 Kindle offers 16 shades of grayscale, the actual display resolution for user-uploaded imagery could still be highly variable; nor did v1.0 offer any means of displaying images at full size, it doesn't allowing panning but just resizes down to fit the screen dimensions. To wit, Kindle is not a PDA, iPhone or the like. That's just not its niche.

[Dirk Rabdau]

I agree that this an evolutionary, rather than revolutionary, change from the Kindle 1.0.

Longer battery life but now the battery isn't user-replaceable. The Kindle 1.0 features a user-replaceable batter (although it took three months on backorder to actually get a spare battery.)

Removal of the SD card slot – this is not a huge deal since the Kindle 2.0 can hold hundreds of books.

The use of "Whispersync" technology that may allow the Kindle one day to sync with your iPhone or other mobile device. This is very interesting.

http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9127642&intsrc=hm_list

And it runs on a 3G network so theoretically you could be on a hike, find an area with cell reception, and actually download a book during your hike.

The thing isn't bulletproof. You would have to be careful backpacking with it as it is very thin.

The screen looks better and has improved the delay when you "turn" the page. The button placement is also better.

Verdict? I don't think it's compelling enough for a Kindle 1.0 owner to go out and buy the Kindle 2.0 at a cost of $350. I think the Kindle 1.0 is great, and if the Kindle 2.0 improves on that, even better!

Dirk

[Brett Tucker]

The 1.0 user-replaceable battery is nice, since you can carry an extra on the trail for twice (eg) the range between charges, something the 2.0 wouldn't be expected to match, regardless of improved battery technology.

I'm not sure if 1.0 is on a 3G network, or if that's simply a function of the upgraded network itself, irrespective of the user's device version. In any case, during a long hike last fall I found the Kindle 1.0 wireless signal to be considerably less reliable than that of the Verizon cell phone I carried as well. Occasionally, I'd receive no signal at all in a fairly large town with otherwise strong wireless reception. I suspect the Kindle simply wasn't able to locate a supported network in those cases. Typically the device won't communicate with any network (or it gets hung up) unless the signal strength is at least 3 bars, as measured by the on-screen signal icon.

That said, when it works, the Kindle's Basic Web browser is a great tool for viewing mobile-based web pages and sending/receiving text email, given that there is no cost for unlimited use of bandwidth.

One other note: Kindle fits great inside a BPL 8×10 BubblePakit, and placed in one of the O.P. Aloksaks for extra weather protection.

[Timothy Foutz]

I have been looking at a sony ebook and this is making me lean more that way. The wireless thing is cool but I want more on board memory. 1.4 gigs free is just not enough. But I think I will wait on a color version.

[Nate Meinzer]

is it possible to do GOOD color with a e-ink? I'm not sure that this development is on the horizon.

[Brett Tucker]

Timothy – The Sony generally gets lower reviews. I believe the concerns are A) long-term readability B) ease of use and C) content availability.

With Kindle, you get access to 230,000+ Amazon.com titles, plus major magazine and newspaper subs, and readability is first in class.

Your concerns about on-board memory may be unfounded, given that this is primarily a reader, not a PDA-type device. What you pay for is yours forever, as Amazon maintains a backup, so you can delete items from Kindle at will then add them again later. Same idea with user content, via USB to/from a PC.

[Dirk Rabdau]

The biggest things the Kindle has going for it include:

Wireless purchase and delivery of content from Amazon.com.

This is huge advantage over Sony for the following reasons:

a) Amazon.com sells books. It's their core business so they have every reason to want the Kindle to be successful. They are serious about the Kindle, so serious that they have made new releases very affordable ($9.99 for most new titles). And once you have an account setup on Amazon, you can just have them charge your account.

b) You can peruse the Amazon.com store from the Kindle, buy a book and download the book without ever having to plug into a PC. That's significant. Impulse buys are a major component of their business model. I can hear about a book on NPR and buy it no matter where I am at.

c) Amazon.com allows you to re-download your purchases at any time. Amazon.com is aiming to be a serious player in the cloud computing/storage game and keeps your purchases available for future download. Should you run out of space on the Kindle or replace it with a new Kindle, your books are still available for download.

Analysts I read believe the wave of the future is to have books on your mobile phone. I can't think of a worse screen to have to try to read a book. Maybe the iPOD touch. I think the Kindle screen is really easy on the eyes and its battery life is better than most phones. However, I am sure phones will be very different in a decade.

I know people who love the Sony model because of its versatility. This is not to disparage Sony at all. I just think the Kindle is successful because what it does, it does very well.

Dirk

[Roger Caffin]

Other factors to consider:

* Is Sprint available outside USA? (not in Oz)
* Can you load files any other way than wireless?
* Can you download .txt files directly to the Kindle?
* Can you load non-Amazon formats to Kindle?
* Can you replace the batteries in the field?
* Can you plug in external memory units?
* Is the system OPEN?

Cheers

[Sean Mantell]

I didn't see anything definite but 'm pretty sure that it's an internal battery. But here is the other info you asked about.

Storage: 2GB internal (approximately 1.4GB available for user content).

Content Formats Supported: Kindle (AZW), TXT, Audible (formats 4, Audible Enhanced (AAX)), MP3, unprotected MOBI, PRC natively; PDF, HTML, DOC, JPEG, GIF, PNG, BMP through conversion.

Personal Documents
Kindle makes it easy to take your personal documents with you, eliminating the need to print. Each Kindle has a unique and customizable e-mail address. You can set your unique email address on your Manage Your Kindle page. This allows you and your approved contacts to e-mail Word, PDF documents, and pictures wirelessly to your Kindle for a small per document fee–currently only 10¢ per document. Kindle supports wireless delivery of unprotected Microsoft Word, PDF, HTML, TXT, JPEG, GIF, PNG, BMP, PRC and MOBI files.

You can email your PDFs wirelessly to your Kindle. Due to PDF's fixed layout format, some complex PDF files may not format correctly on your Kindle.

If you are not in a wireless area or would like to avoid the fee, you can send attachments to "name"@free.kindle.com to be converted and e-mailed to your computer at the e-mail address associated with your Amazon.com account login. You can then transfer the document to your Kindle using your USB connection. For example, if your Kindle email address is [email protected], send your attachments to [email protected].

[Roger Caffin]

Hi Sean

Actually, I knew the answers to all of my rhetorical questions. So perhaps I should answer them myself my way.

* Is Sprint available outside USA?
It is not available in Oz or most other countries. What if I don't use Sprint anyhow?

* Can you load files any other way than wireless?
Yes, but there are complications and costs.

* Can you download .txt files directly to the Kindle?
I believe you have to email your documents to Amazon and get them to reformat them for you, into the proprietary Amazon format. You are therefore entirely reliant on a connection to Amazon. Ever heard of 'lock-in'?

* Can you load non-Amazon formats to Kindle?
By and large, no. Ever heard of 'lock-in'?

* Can you replace the batteries in the field?
No. You have to be near the mains.

* Can you plug in external memory units?
No.

* Is the system OPEN?
NO!

* Does use of the Kindle cost you money?
Yes (unlike email which is free):
'This allows you and your approved contacts to e-mail Word, PDF documents, and pictures wirelessly to your Kindle for a small per document fee–currently only 10¢ per document.'

History has shown us that most of these innovations start being proprietary, with the vendors hell-bent on a lock-in aimed at maximising their short-term profit, but eventually the real market success comes from OPEN systems.

You have only to look at the public reaction to all the proprietary audio and video DRM systems which the consumers have overwhelmingly rejected. We just don't want to be told what we can and can't do with the things which we have bought.

The idea that I will be eternally dependent on the Amazon server for use of the Kindle is anathema to me.

Cheers

[Rog Tallbloke]

This seems to be a mixed bag, some great and innovative technology, and some annoyances and deficiencies.

I read through the specs and features on Amazon, and a few points and questions came to mind.

Screen tech: Great for what it's designed for. Low power consumption, daylight readability.

Formats: A bit limited, but considering there's no big power hungry cpu to run, I can live with having them converted by Amazon for free and emailed to me. It should even be possible to pick up the mail on a smartphone out in the field, and sync the document to the kindle via usb, assuming kindle will talk to windows mobile? Or just pay your 10 cents. ;-)

Web browsing. Cool, but can you post? It's be great to be able to converse with friends on BPL via this device.

Free books. project Gutenburg has a lot available, and you could convert these to .doc or .pdf to get them onto your kindle.

I read on the net that the company that makes the screens is also planning on producing smaller displays which will attach to smartphones. Cool idea. This would be lighter, and would be driven by a device which is always on anyway. Windows mobile is a fully fledged computer operating system, albeit limited in some ways, but with office mobile, acrobat reader, and other text handling programs including a simple web browser which can turn off images and simplify layout, this would be a winning idea IMO.

If this whole device weighs 10oz, a (say) 4.8" smartphone plugin screen without the keyboard and kindle battery would be a lot less. If it included a small keyboard, your smartphone suddenly becomes a more useful comms tool too.

[Jim Colten]

clck here for the best kindle review yet

[Joe Clement]

Gotta love Opus…….

[Rog Tallbloke]

Doen't seem to be on sale throuh amazon.co.uk
Wonder why they don't want to sell it here?

[Darryl Romm]

I would guess that if and when it becomes available in UK it will be available in France, Germany etc. Will there be a country specific unit or will there be one for all of Europe? Then there is roaming charges to think about. So then there may have to be one for each country as I believe these units to not have a removable SIM card. So the complexity of the release in Europe is the stumbling block if the above is correct (I have read this kind of train of thought some time ago, but can't place it now).

Is it the future? Well I think a book is a book. I for one find it easier to digest info from paper rather than a screen.

In UK we have so many daily newspapers, and the idea of receiving your daily newspaper on one of these units seems very plausible. (I can't quite see the average Sun reader using one though!)

[Rog Tallbloke]

Good point, it may be using EV-DO rather than 3G for comms. Amazon UK would need to tie a deal with a UK telecoms provider. Oh well, I'll have to wait until someone makes an E-ink screen addon for a smartphone.

[Darryl Romm]

Roger

Here is info on Amazon Kindle UK and here is a thread discussing Kindle for EU

[Brett Tucker]

To Roger's points:

* Can you load files any other way than wireless?

Yes, but there are complications and costs.

Kindle 1.0 user's response: Actually, a standard USB 2.0 connection is all that's
needed to transfer to/from a PC.

* Can you download .txt files directly to the Kindle?

I believe you have to email your documents to Amazon and get them to reformat
them for you, into the proprietary Amazon format. You are therefore entirely
reliant on a connection to Amazon. Ever heard of 'lock-in'?

Kindle 1.0 user's response: Not true, Roger. You can download txt files directly.
The Amazon wireless conversion service is only a convenience feature for remote
file handling, not a requirement. Freeware is readily available for home PC
that will convert html, pdf, etc. to prc (mobi) format, which in any case is
not proprietary to Amazon. Actually, Sean answered this question already (non-rhetorically).

* Can you load non-Amazon formats to Kindle?

By and large, no. Ever heard of 'lock-in'?

Kindle 1.0 user's response: Again, Sean's response was straight from the Kindle
site and is worth rereading.

* Can you replace the batteries in the field?

No. You have to be near the mains.

Kindle 1.0 user's response: Incorrect (Kindle 1.0, still the only version currently
on the market, has a user-replaceable lithium ion battery)

* Can you plug in external memory units?

No.

Kindle 1.0 user's response: Incorrect (Kindle 1.0, still the only version currently
on the market, has an SD media port)

* Is the system OPEN?

NO!

Kindle 1.0 user's response: See http://kindlehacks.blogspot.com/2007/11/amazons-director-of-kindle-has-no.html

* Does use of the Kindle cost you money?

Yes (unlike email which is free)

Kindle 1.0 user's response: Kindle costs you money when you download content
from the Kindle store, that is books, magazines, newspapers, blogs. Or when
you optionally use Kindle's wireless file conversion service. Otherwise Kindle actually
saves you money, since the included, no-fee, no-contract Basic Web browser can
display mobile-formatted web pages, including webmail.

>>The idea that I will be eternally dependent on the Amazon server for use
of the Kindle is anathema to me.

You'd be dependent upon it to the extent that you're interested in reading books
that you'd otherwise be buying at a bookstore or through Amazon.com. The good
news is that Kindle e-books from Amazon generally cost less than unused glue-and-paper
books delivered to your home or purchased at a bookstore.

[Rog Tallbloke]

Thanks Darryl. The company that makes the screens offers a development kit for $3000. I WON'T BE BUYING ONE, but I mention it because they include a digitiser layer so developers can develop pen based applications. I see this as the way forward. A touchscreen which will jack into a smartphone, large enough for a useful onscreen keyboard and ebooks, web browser etc. They are about to release a 5" screen with the same resolution as the 6" screen used in the Kindle, but considerably lighter.

Brett:
Is it possible to post messages to websites etc? I assume so, since you say you can access webmail, or is this an amazon webmail only thing?

[Roger Caffin]

Hi Brett

But what about Kindle 2.0? That is what the posting was about.

I note that the Hanlin reader is much more open:
Screen:600*800 6inches [same unit]
OS: Linux OS
Format Support: PDF, DOC, WOLF, MP3, HTML, TXT, CHM, FB2, Djvu, PNG, TIF, GIF, BMP, JPG, PPT, EPUB, LIT, PRC, MOBI.
Language Support: English, Chinese, Russian, Ukraine, Turkish, French, Spanish, German, Dutch, Japanese, Korean, Bulgarian, Estonian, Polish and more is adding…
Accessories: 1 charger, 1 USB cable, 1 earphone, 1 battery and 1 hand band. [Battery can be swapped I believe]

And much cheaper:
Retail Price:$299

Cheers

[Dirk Rabdau]

I think the great appeal of the Kindle is its simplicity. The Kindle is an E-Book reader. It's not going to be a jack-of-all-trades device. I can understand why many people want a phone/ebook reader/MP3 player/email/GPS all wrapped up in one. That's understandable, especially on a website dedicated to UL backpacking. Of course, with any such device it makes a few compromises in the name of inclusiveness.

The Kindle makes its own compromises. It's not just the features, but the implementation of those features, that makes the technology compelling. It's built to do a few things very well, and in my opinion, it succeeds. It doesn't take any particular technical skills to run the thing. And from a cost perspective, it's far cheaper to buy a new release in e-book format for the Kindle than any other e-book reader currently on the market. Plus Amazon.com has a larger selection of ebooks.

I think it's similar to the reasons the iPhone is so popular – the device finally delivers the experience people always yearned for but never received with lesser mobile devices.

Obviously, the Kindle has a niche following. My girlfriend reads voraciously, both library books and e-books. She is among the early adopters (and she's owned many generations of ebook readers that ultimately failed to gain any market penetration) who pave the way for newer and better technologies to be adopted and embraced by the masses.

Dirk

[Brett Tucker]

What Dirk said.

To which I would just add, in answer to the question about Basic Web – yes, it supports text input to form fields via the small chicklet keyboard below the screen. However, Basic Web in 1.0 is very quirky, in that on-screen selections are made by first moving a scroll wheel to the horizontal line on the page containing your item of interest, then selecting from a pop-up list of all selectable items on that line. The process is slow and tedious – though apparently improved in 2.0 with a joystick-type selector that allows pinpoint item selections as normal. The 1.0 and 2.0 selection processes also apply to how the standard e-book display is manipulated for looking up word definitions and so forth. Although 2.0 would seem to be a significant improvement, I suspect Basic Web would remain very unlike a typical PC web browser experience, in terms of convenience and functionality. But… it works for viewing most mobile-formatted web pages, certain non-frames-based, non-mobile-formatted web pages, and there's an interactivity component. It's hard to ask for much more from a specialized e-reader device that offers free wireless internet access mostly for the purpose of downloading books.

For whatever it's worth, I can access and read the forums here using Basic Web, and might even be able to post, given enough time and patience…!

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