Le Kindle est arrivé!
The big moment arrives - my belated and hugely anticipated birthday present - beautifully wrapped from Amazon.
Opening the box...
powering up...
reading through the instructions...
searching for a book...
reading a free sample...
making my first 'purchase' (a free copy of 'Athens: Its Rise and Fall. Book 1' by Baron Eward Bulwer Lytton - in readiness for forthcoming trip)...
putting it in its cover (found this a little tricky ...until I read the instructions)
and extending the light.
My initial impressions - very impressed. The page is remarkably like paper so much so that when Hodmandod Minor saw it he thought it was just a piece of paper attached to the screen and asked me when I was going to switch it on.
My only slight gripe is with the case. It is attractive, and I am sure it protects it very well, but it does make the thing quite heavy for travel - as heavy as a paperback I would guess.
Opening the box...
powering up...
reading through the instructions...
searching for a book...
reading a free sample...
making my first 'purchase' (a free copy of 'Athens: Its Rise and Fall. Book 1' by Baron Eward Bulwer Lytton - in readiness for forthcoming trip)...
putting it in its cover (found this a little tricky ...until I read the instructions)
and extending the light.
My initial impressions - very impressed. The page is remarkably like paper so much so that when Hodmandod Minor saw it he thought it was just a piece of paper attached to the screen and asked me when I was going to switch it on.
My only slight gripe is with the case. It is attractive, and I am sure it protects it very well, but it does make the thing quite heavy for travel - as heavy as a paperback I would guess.
posted by Clare Dudman at 10:30 am
20 Comments:
I have a kindle on my UMPC and I can take any text type file and make it kindle compatible... Pretty sure my UMPC is smaller than the kindle as well.
:P
Mmm. Shiny.
How funny, I saw your earlier post on this and I am in the same position! We saw the Amazon announcement while on holiday and Prof P got very into it (it's a gadget, I suppose) so ordered me one for my birthday- which has now been and gone. We have got the cover (I think - I saw a parcel anyway) and on Friday we heard that the thing itself has been dispatched. So, maybe, when I get home from work tonight, it will be there?!?! Looking forward to trying it out, especially since the range and price on Amazon is so good now, for Kindle.
PS I just noticed your choice of first book. Have recently been to Athens (was there on said holiday), and had a great time touring round Greece and various archaeological sites - Delphi, Olympia, Mycenae, etc.
That's amazing, Clare!
Try to think how many "paperbacks" you can store in this device that weighs as much as a *single* paperback.
I'm thinking about buying one when I finish writing my thesis. Actually I'm tired of packing my stuff (essentially books) every time I move from one place to another.
Interesting, Garbanian - I wonder how the screen compares. This, I think, is Kindle's big advantage - how it really does look like paper and is therefore easy on the eye.
Only shiny on the outside, Cromercrox :-) The screen is decidedly matt.
Hi Maxine, I expect it will be waiting for you! Ha, this is very much like the Beaujolais Nouveau - it feels quite exciting we'll all be in the same consignment.
And as for Athens - yes, can't wait...and amazing you've just been there. We wanted to go somewhere historical - and I thought why not Greece - surely one of the most historically interesting places on the planet (also I want to set a chapter of my novel there :-))
Yes, exactly, Andreia! I always find it a hard choice which books to pack, and how many - I dither for ages. Now my packing is going to go much more quickly.
I meant 'shiny' in the metaphorical sense, of course.
I have the Kindle app on my iPad, which is great, but I expect the Kindle screen would be less of a strain on the eyes than the iPad's LED screen.
In the iPad's native iBooks app you can adjust screen brightness very easily, but to do this in the Kindle app you have to go and set the brightness in the global settings department, which is a pain.
Grammar - I suspect that in French, the Kindle would be masculine, as I believe all nouns imported into French are rendered as masculine by default (e.g. Le Weekend). Just sayin'.
I still lust after your iPad, Cromercrox. I do think there is room in my life for both.
And thanks for your point about the grammar. I was wondering. I already had a bit of a dilemma over its gender having called it Caradoc. How can that be, I thought, if my Kindle is a girl? So it's a 'he'. It is decided. I shall change my blog-post accordingly.
Congratulations!
A good gadget for travelers, surely; weak on the
"comfort " side of reading, however, I found. Anyhow, I'm all for the "reading" aspect of it, so...
Cheers!
Yes, Ojimenez - it's the reading that's important - and this way I might get to do even more of it.
I have just bought an iPad for Mrs Crox, so now we have his'n'hers iPads.
Heh, heh 'his'n'hers iPads' - I like it (and am now even more jealous). I asked Hodmandod Senior if he wanted his own Kindle because I could see he was lusting after mine, but he said no. I think he is not telling me the truth because how can he not want a new Kindle?
You're bad for me Clare!
What did I do when I saw your Kindle? I succumbed to lust and rushed off to Amazon and ordered one. Good price, and I justify the purchase to myself by thinking it will save on shelf space. I'll still put physical books first though and still purchase them as collector's items.
Mrs Crox had always been somewhat snooty about my attraction to the Devices of St Steve of Jobs, but after I got my iPad she confessed that whenever we went into the Apple Store in Norwich (which is, like, all the time) she hankered after one, but couldn't justify it. So I bought one for her (I can always do with a tax loss, hehehehe), and she uses it for recreational computing (non-work emails, facebook, etc) and ordering the shopping online. For her it's not a 'reader' but a replacement for her old home computer (now nearly dead). And, using the 'mobileMe' facility, we can synchronize all our contacts and the Family Diary. However, if you read a lot, I can see the attraction of a Kindle - less strain on the eyes.
Heh, heh - I think you're going to love it, Anne! Last night, in bed, I fancied reading a little more Balzac. So I searched the Kindle store, found something called 'Vendetta' costing the very reasonable £00.00. So within a minute I had gone from whim to reading my very own book. Excellent stuff.
Yes, Cromercrox, I have the same trouble regarding a general snootiness about all things Apple from Hodmandod Minor. He can't quite work out what to make of the Kindle - not Apple, and yet his dorky mother likes it...(also one of his friends, sadly - such a dilemma).
Now I like the sound of this 'mobileMe'. I think I shall try and get Hodmandod Senior interested since he is an Apple afficionado already (although he despises all social networking as the works of the devil...except 'linked-in' which isn't...apparently).
Mobile Me isn't social networking - basically, you pay a rent (about £50 p.a.) for a piece of the cloud, wherein you store all your contacts, calendars and so on, such that an alteration in one of them in one device will be made silently to all devices so connected. In this way, my iMac, my iPhone, my iPad and Mrs Crox's iPad are all linked up so that if I type 'Tigger Tea Wednesday' in one of them, it'll come up in all of them. This means that (a) I no longer need a paper back-up (2) it makes keeping track of the family diary SO much easier. Although MobileMe is a Mac invention I believe it can work on PCs, though I haven't tried this.
Well that sounds very convenient, Cromercrox! I think I'll tell Hodmandod Senior about it. Thanks for telling me.
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