As noted elsewhere on this blog, I’m off for a long and busy trip around bits of Asia, and a trip that means I’m stuffed to the gills with hardware, cables, batteries and the usual clothes, etc. With that in mind, and having thought about it for quite some time (and even waited for the disappointing iPad), last week I went ahead and ordered a Kindle, which arrived whilst I was in Croatia over the weekend. In preparation I did some jiggery pokery and downloaded some books from Amazon to the PC desktop version of Kindle, ready to be transferred.
I also got the iPhone app, and did a little reading on that whilst away, but the small, bright screen means eye fatigue pretty quickly (and page turn fatigue even more quickly). On my return last night I charged the Kindle overnight and this morning everything was transferred and synched in minutes. The machine itself is thin, quite sturdy and feels good in the hand. I also invested in a decent leather case and, when closed and snug inside it looks like a thin paper notebook. I’ve been trying to resist trying it out today, preferring to wait for the plan tomorrow.
One of the features I do like is being able to do some reading on, say, the PC version of a novel in Kindle for PC and finding the book open on the same page I left off, on the Kindle itself. A small feature, but quite a good one (bye bye turned down pages, bookmarks and shopping receipts!). When I open the book on the iPhone whilst queuing to board, the book is there waiting for me to carry on reading. Nice touch.
I paid US$9.99 for each of the books I bought (currently EUR7.29 or GBP6.38), which strikes me as a pretty good price – that and the availability of books that I simply can’t get here in Barcelona. So far, so good. The six books I put on it means effectively I’m travelling with six books occupying roughly the same size and weight as half a normal paperback, which is most excellent!
I’ll let you know what it’s actually like when I get back at the end of the month.
Shame the Kindle doesn’t have a camera, or perhaps lucky given how red my face goes after a few Dunkels. Pleasure drinking with you, sir
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Likewise, Mr Case, likewise…..
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I came here looking for the 20,000 1-pixel images you mention in your tweet, and then I noticed you couldn’t believe there was a security flaw in IE, so I assume now that you are making stuff up all day on Twitter (cos how could you be surprised by that…?), and I’m thinking that a 1-pixel picture would be invisible, and I feel like a fool who should stay away from techno stuff forever!
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Sputnik,
Sorry – both those tweets were…ermmm… made up!
Gavin
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Shame! I was expecting some beautiful collage but was instead confronted with my own ignorance. Now I’m going to be Mr Suspicious, doubting all but the Godfather Case.
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