My Love Affair with the Kindle 2

I bought a Kindle 2 when they were released last month. I've been using it heavily over the last few weeks and I finally feel that I can make some comments about my experience.

To start I have to say that the Kindle 2 makes an awesome first impression. The packaging is beautiful, high-style, black and very modern. It contrasts with the creamy white color of the Kindle itself. It was actually painful to discard the box!

The Kindle 2 is really cool looking. It is thin and stylish, with well shaped keys and buttons. The buttons are well placed and fit perfectly where my hands naturally rest. I find that I never have to move my hand to turn the page forward or backwards, this makes casual reading effortless and comfortable. The alpha keys are a little small, I would have made them a little larger if given the chance.

The screen is very nice. It has crisp clear text with an easy on the eyes background. The screen is a little sluggish, but it isn't so slow that it interferes with reading. There are currently very few books that have pictures in them, but the few that do seem to have some issues when the image is enlarged. They become fuzzy and lack clarity. This is a "action item" for Amazon.

When I bought the Kindle I purchased a ton of books for it. But, the ones that I planned to read for the evaluation and owned in book form were: The Sun Also Rises (owned in trade paperback), Tender is the Night (owned in trade paperback), the Heart of Darkness (owned in Everyman's Library cloth hardcover), and last a newer book to see if it was any better, Hood by Stephen Lawhead (owned in trade paperback). The reading experience for all was very nice. The Sun Also Rises and Tender is the Night seemed to be exactly like their book counterparts (a good thing), there was no real difference. Heart of Darkness was a lesser experience on the Kindle than the book, though the problem was all in the ebook I used, not the Kindle 2. Hood was amazing to read. First of all the story was good, but the formatting and visual presentation in the book were superb. So, I've noticed that many of the ebooks that are available are widely varied on a quality level. Those from major publishers seem to be fairly nice like Sun and Tender, but many lack basic features or are essentially rich text files. There are some that even lack a Table of Contents, which is completely unacceptable. Hood was a brand new book and I found the type, layout and presentation to be the best of all of them. Here is how much I liked the ebooks in order: Hood, The Sun Also Rises, Tender is the Night, The Good Soldier. It is clear that the quality of ebooks needs to improve for the market to expand quickly.

The Kindle 2 does not come with a cover. I bought the M-edge Platform Jacket for Kindle 2 and find it to be perfect. It fits the Kindle 2 perfectly and I have no fear that it will fall out. It leaves the edge ports perfectly accessible when it is closed, so I can charge it up while the case is closed. I really like the fact that I can open the case and flip it over to prop up the Kindle, that comes in handy for hands free reading.

To wrap up, I love the Kindle 2! The reading experience is quite enjoyable and quickly becomes second nature. I now prefer to use the Kindle 2 as my primary mode of reading.

The problems that I see with the Kindle 2 are simply due to the development curve of new technology. The quality of the ebooks that are available are too variable, this can be alleviated by buying only newer books by big named publishers. The availability of books needs to be improved too, although Amazon has a huge library of available books, all publishers need to be pushed and prodded to accept the new format and release their back catalogs electronically. The basic design of ebook files needs to be improved too. One problem is the lack of Tables of Contents on a wide number of titles, this is totally unacceptable. Also, there needs to be a better way to navigate around ebooks, like a side menu that can be pulled out to jump to any part of the book. This should go hand in hand with a re-evaluation of how books should be organized, writers need to break up their work into smaller units and chapters and clearly label them. No more Chapter 1, Chapter 2 etc. Also, the screen of the Kindle needs to become full color and a full page in size. All of this will take time as people and companies adjust to these technological changes.