Daves Personal Blog

The Kindle DX: First Looks

Okay, I’ve had my Kindle for over 48 hours now.  I’ve done lots of downloading and such to get some open source and sample chapters on the reader.

Here’s my quick and dirty review of the DX after about 48 hours of use.

First, let’s talk about the screen.  The screen is awesome, the 9.5″ screen really isn’t as big as you thing, it seems really natural to me.. I don’t think I could do the 6″ screen.  The battery is doing very well, on a normal CELL phone it would be “one tick” down.  The wireless coverage is actually pretty good, but as is the cell phone 3G coverage.  However, I have found that I use the USB more than the wireless features of the device.

Kindle in ScreenSaver Mode

The screen is pure awesomeness.  It’s big, it’s crisp and works wonderfully portrait or landscape mode.  The keyboard takes some getting used to.  It’s like typing on tick tacks, but it becomes natural after a little while.

Next, PDF Support.  PDF’s seem to work very very well on this device, as in comparison to the Sony 700.  The one thing I found that I really did NOT like about the PDF support is the fact that you can NOT add annotations to PDF files.  Bookmarks, yes.  Notes, no.. and this is one of my MAJOR things when looking for a eReader.

The Text-to-speech is about what you would expect from a computer.  But it’s not overly bad.  On the other token, the text-sizing is wonderful.  My parents, who both have bifocal+, loved this feature.

I did find, after reading  a few chapters here and there, that I do honestly miss having a hardcover book in my hand.  I am sure this is some sort of nostalgia, but I really do miss having that book in my hand, I’m sure this puts me in that weird “old foggy” section of tech geeks.  I love the ultra-shiny aspect of the device, and the fact it can hold all the books I can think of, and it REALLY does look like a book, but not having that paper in my hands.. I miss it already.. and I don’t really read all that often, but having the kindle in my hands has sparked my interest in reading again.

One thing I did find annoying is that, I have a reading disorder.  I don’t really remember what it is, but it takes me FOREVER to read a page, and I found that in my reading of a page, the screen saver would kick in and I’d have to turn the device back on.

So, now I’m in that “on the fence” moment of sending the DX back, and going out and buying a few books and saving the money for something else.. or keeping it and getting over my nostalgia.

Decisions….comments are always welcome.

As many of you know, I try to keep myself busy.  I found that a good way to do this is to take up a hobby, or 100.   In addition to all the other stuff I do in my spare time, Crafts is another.

Yes I sew.  Yes I knit.  Yes I Cross-Stitch (NO I don’t crochet :p).  Deal with it.  It’s fun, and you get to make things.

Well, a friend of ours was teaching a class on how to make sock creatures.  Now, I’m sure many of you have seen the Sock Monkey.  The Sock Monkey has been around since the 1930’s, and was pretty much the easiest thing to make in Arts and Crafts.  Well over time he’s budded into other Sock Creatures (just about anything you can think of), including the Spock Monkey.  I thought these things were awesome, and I figured, since I knew how to sew why not!

Cover of Stupid Sock Creatures

The class, which is 2 nights once a week, was held at Home Ec, a wonderful little Thread-Banger store in Iowa City.  They are nice people, give them a visit when you can.  The class, so far, was awesome and I have a Sock Man started.  There are, however, no plans on what he will actually be.. but it’s a start.  I’ve also been looking at maybe getting the Stupid Sock Creatures book as well and doing many more of these sorts of things.  Goodwill is a plethora of used socks I’m sure we could use and low prices.

More over, this class is  yet another attempt at trying to get the impending delivery of my Kindle.  Keep the mind busy, it won’t know how to cope.

I leave you now, with SPOCK monkey.  Live long and prosper!

Spock Monkey, attacked by tribbles

As many of you know, I’m not a patient person, by any means.  I’ll glady go and buy a product from a brick and mortar store if said store has the same product in the store, even if the store has it for more.  Usually, with this, my limit is 50$ difference.

I currently ordered an Amazon Kindle DX and upgraded my shipping (of course) to two-day.  Today I checked my order status and noticed the estimated delivery date:
Yes that’s right, even though it’s just this Friday (count ‘em, 4 days and counting), I still can’t wait.

I’m very excited to get this nifty new little device, I’m just hoping that it will be everything that I hope it will be.  This is the reason I wish we had an Amazon Store nearby.

Look for my Kindle Review, sometime next week, after I’ve had time to manhandle the thing

Okay, I’m going to preface this blog post with some background information.  I follow a local guy here in town on twitter, Jason.  He was looking for a new eReader.

eReader?  I thought to myself, why would anyone want a eReader.  The cold plastic book that holds books.  Doesn’t a laptop (or net-book for that matter) do the same time?  Why would anyone want to look at a screen for the amount of time that you would read a book.

These are all things that many people would say.  Let me tell you though, once I saw the Sony Reader (PRS-505) in Target one day, I fell in love with the thing.  The screen was dark gray text on light gray background, it looks almost exactly like a book would.  The text was sharp, rich and clear.  Seems, also, that it would not contain any eyestrain.

eBooks Side by Side

Seems that these LCD’s we have now have a back-light, that after a good amount of time, start to strain your eyes.  LCD’s have, granted, a faster refresh rate than CRT’s, but they do still flicker.  Granted the flicker is almost not noticeable to the human eye, but if you ever video record a Flat Panel or a CRT monitor you will see it.  This flash causes eye strain as your brain still sees the flash and tries to adjust your vision to match.  This, of course, is highly debated.

PDF and eBook, side by side

So in my quest to find the true “The One” eReader, I found a plethora of readers.  Some of which haven’t been finished yet (Plastic eReader) and some that compare to the big boys (JetBook).  I quickly found, the two most popular readers are the Sony Reader (PRS 505 and PRS 700 currently) and the Kindle.

I’m sure many of you have heard of the Kindle (or seen one somewhere) as Amazon has sure put a advertising blitz out there.  Many blogs also talk about the Kindle.  The Kindle, in my findings, seems to be the cadillac of the eReaders (some have called it the iPod of eReaders).  The sony is the nicely priced mid-sized car of the eReader line.

PDF on 700

Now, what I want to do with the eReader is be able to view books (Stephen King, Dean Koontz) and view PDF’s I’ve bought, as well as reading work documents on the go.  This would greatly reduce what I have to carry in a normal day.  Needles to say, PDF support is a must.  I also would like to be able to add notes to pages.  I’m a notorious note take in my books, be it with post it’s or writing, this is very important to me.

Now the Kindle doesn’t native support PDF’s and from what I heard their conversions aren’t the best.  (Except for the Kindle DX, releasing on June 10).  Every other eReader seems to support PDF.  So I thought I would try to find the Sony Reader that supports PDF nicely and allows notes.  The Kindle has always allowed notes and bookmarks, but has just now allowed PDF (Kindle DX).
I was able to see and touch the Sony Reader 505 at Target, which is where I fell in love with the idea of an eReader, but could NOT find a 700 anywhere.  Finally found that Borders has 700’s so I took a roadtrip to a local borders (about 1.25 hours away) to see the Reader.  The 700 honestly did not impress me at all.  The text was hard to read on a normal book, the contrast was horrid.  The PDF support was nice, it had zoom and annotation that I wanted, but reading it was hard with the glare from the touch screen.  I thought to myself, I should just try it.  So I ask Borders what thier return policy is, they only return Readers if they are defective.  The only Sony Store has a 14day return policy I believe, but after seeing the two side by side, I figure I won’t even bother.

The Kindle DX, I believe, will be my reader of choice.  The Amazon Store has an ample 30 day return policy (from delivery date) and PDF support.  Plus it has a bigger screen.  I found that while trying to read PDF’s on the Sony’s 6″ screen, it was hard to read at small “form”.. and when you expand the text the formatting kinda breaks.  The large 9.7″ screen of the Kindle DX I think will really help with that.

The only downside (besides price) of the Kindle DX, would be there is no SD Card support and the battery is in the form factor (ala the iPod).

Once I get my Kindle I will post a more functional review.