Amazon's [AMZN] new Kindle 2, shipping this week, shames the original Kindle with a host of improvements: better enclosure, faster page-turns, a better Web experience and seven times the memory. But the Kindle 2 is put to shame by the someday-Kindle 3, which exists, for now, only in our collective imagination.
Don't get me wrong; the $360 Kindle 2 is cool. Very cool. But not yet cool enough for the price. In fact, if anything, the Kindle 2 has made me more inclined to buy the original Kindle at its new discounted price of $220.
After spending a week using both Kindles intensively—I adopted a collegiate slacker-at-finals reading pace—I can say that neither device fulfills even a sliver of its potential. But when the next version bursts from CEO Jeff Bezos' bird-like head, I will picket tirelessly for its universal adoption. (Listen to Fast Company's interview with Bezos below.)
I'm usually an early adopter; I've recommended the original iPhone, the BlackBerry Storm, and the VooDoo Envy. But several of the incipient features that debut in the Kindle 2 leave me wanting.
The first is the improved screen, which is especially useful when viewing Web pages on the Kindle's built-in browser. From the beginning, Kindles have had wireless cell-phone radios inside them that allow you to download books from anywhere, usually for $10 a pop. Now the power of that built-in radio is being put to use, with a bare-bones HTML browser that lets you see Web pages in good-looking grayscale. Granted, they look like Web pages circa 1998; the Kindle 2 can't render many of the modern graphics and code that we're used to today. Being a technophile, I want more; color, Flickr, YouTube, and please, oh please, a touch-screen. Imagine something that looks like paper, but when you touch it, contains hyperlinks. That's the Kindle I'll drool over.
Another promising feature is the Kindle 2's ability to display all kinds of documents—not just books, newspapers, and magazines. The old one supports Microsoft Word files, nobly enough. But the new version can display Microsoft Word, PDF, HTML, TXT, JPEG, GIF, PNG, BMP, PRC and MOBI files, giving it real potential as a document repository. You load them by emailing them from your computer to your Kindle's dedicated email address, where they are wirelessly synced to your device.
The Kindle's keyboard—on version 1 and 2—is a piece of crap. I imagine Kindle 3 as having a real input device, letting you edit documents, not just read them. And a lot of PDFs don't render correctly because of the Kindle's 2 simple (but improved) screen; I want to be able to read anything. The new 5-way directional button is an improvement over the old Kindle's up-down scroll wheel, but it's about as convenient as those pencil-eraser mice that used to come on PC laptops. Which is to say, not very.
Stupidly, Amazon charges you $0.10 for every document you email to your Kindle. This is because there is no monthly subscription fee for using Kindle's wireless connection; you pay for it all up-front with the fat $360 sticker price. They presumably don't want users abusing their bandwidth, so they discourage wireless uploads with the fee. You can load documents (plus MP3s) on the device for free using the included USB cable, which doubles as a wall charger. There's about 1.5GB of storage on the device, which Amazon says will hold about 1500 books.
The Kindle 2 can also read to you, in a computerized voice that is by turns natural and hilarious (at one point, I believe my compu-narrator pronounced “dash” instead of pausing at one). It takes much more effort to listen to the text-to-speech readings than it does to listen to an audiobook, since you have to account for its occasional mispronunciations and wacky emphasis. (That hasn't stopped the Author's Guild from attacking Amazon for infringing on audiobook copyrights.)
But as I wrote recently, the text-to-speech feature has the potential to make reading more fluid than human beings have ever known it to be. Read on the train until your stop; plug in headphones and listen to the book as you're walking. Read on your porch until it gets too dark, and then listen to the rest of the chapter. Have Kindle help your kid learn how to pronounce big words, even when you're not around.
Once the voice becomes more human, these scenarios will be practical realities. And once screen technology improves, the menus won't feel so ungainly; right now, the whole screen must refresh every time an aspect of the page changes.
It's not quixotic to wait for these things: full color, full Web, full document support, touch-screen electronic ink, and natural voice have already been demo'd by some companies.
Both Kindles are available exclusively from Amazon, and as I mentioned above the latest iteration will run you $360. Kindle 1 can still be had cut-rate for about $220. The differences will only be appreciated by a true tinkerer, so if you're actually just interested in reading books and magazines without carrying books and magazines, well, get the Kindle 1. (True green-o-philes, however, may want to get Kindle 2 just for the new, no-nonsense recycled packaging.)
In a sense, the Kindle 2 is an incredible improvement because it's bumped the Kindle 1—which is slightly thicker and less refined—down to a reasonable price point. It will eventually pay for itself in cheaper book prices, if you're a big reader; book prices are half-off when you get them in Kindle format.
All the major niceties of Kindle life—Wikipedia access, a built-in dictionary, a word-search function, bookmarking, variable print size, wireless bookstore—are also all built into the cheaper Kindle 1. Amazon claims the Kindle 2's battery lasts 25% longer, but I went days without charging either device and hardly cared about the difference.
Amazon's zippy ad copy isn't lying; you really can settle into reading on a Kindle (1 or 2) and forget about the technology. It's durable and light enough that you can read one-handed or curl up and fall asleep on it by accident.
If you're an inveterate book monster, get the Kindle 1 and be happy with cheap books, a cheap device, and no subscription cost. If you're a gear geek looking for a cross-over device, Kindle 2 isn't it. At least, not yet.
Read more Fast Company stories about the Kindle, here, and The Fast Company 50: #9 Amazon.
Related Stories: | Topics:Innovation, Technology, Design, Music, Enterprise, electronic ink, it, Kindle, products, e-book, books, Amazon, innovative products, e-ink, Consumer Products, e-reader, review, bezos, Science and Technology, Electronic Book Readers, Electronics, Consumer Electronics, Amazon Kindle |
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Recent Comments | 33 Total
February 26, 2009 at 7:45pm by John Smith
Good overview and great to have pictures and comparisons. I am very interested in Kindle, but am still waiting for these books to be DRM free. It's just so much easier and "thought-free" when I don't have to worry about DRM and how I use something. The higher the resolution, the better it is too. We are nowhere near true 300-dpi but that's a technical limitation at this point.
Speaking of DRM-free, Amazon does have an awesome MP3 store that is DRM-free with a large selection and often good prices. It would be nice if they had the same thing with books.
On the note about Amazon, I recently came across an interesting table that details the discounts on Amazon. Maybe someone will find it useful too. It is at http://www.uberi.com
Anyway, Amazon appears to be quite serious this time. We will probably see faster advancements in this area in the near future as competition heats up.
February 27, 2009 at 12:39pm by Drew Boyd
Kindle 3 could be amazing if it incorporated some of these innovations:
http://www.innovationinpractice.com/innovation_in_practice/2009/01/the-l...
February 27, 2009 at 12:44pm by Haewon Kye
I appreciate your side by side comparison and pictures. I'm probably going to wait for the Kindle3 though.
February 27, 2009 at 11:16pm by Larry White
I'm a little confused here. The Kindle 2 is advertised and sold as a reading device, but this review reads as though you expected a combination reading device, PDA, GPS, PC, complete with word processing, email, and chat. Although it would be nice to have such a device (and we probably will in the near future), the Kindle 2 doesn't and hasn't claimed to be that device. It is an improvement over an earlier version and should be accepted as such. Perhaps the Kindle 3 will be the do-all device you envision, but for those of us who just want to kick back with a good book, the Kindle 2 should serve us even better than the original has.
February 28, 2009 at 12:24am by Melissa Hourigan
I am fascinated by the Kindle and yet find myself a bit hesitant. While I consider myself an early adaptor of technology, I also find the experience of buying a book one of the most rewarding. There is something to be said for the experience you have when walking into a bookstore, and that specific smell that comes with a new book. So I am torn, can we have our cake and eat it to in the work of Kindle versus traditional books?
I wrote a short post on the subject and conducted a Twitter poll and found the majority of responders when asked, Kindle books or paper books, answered paper books.
http://www.trackvia.com/blog/2009/02/27/kindle/
February 28, 2009 at 4:31am by Omar Yaroof
I share most of this review. What about providing the kindle service outside the US? I live in the United Arab Emirates where there is no network carrier for the kindle. I could only sync my purchased book through my PC. If I buy the Kindle from the US and use it in the UAE, I will be paying a high price without using the wireless connection.
February 28, 2009 at 1:05pm by Chris Dannen
@ Larry White: If all you want to do it read on the Kindle, get Kindle 1. It's priced right and does all the same stuff. Kindle 2, in my opinion, is better for tech tinkerers who want to the latest and greatest, even if it's half-baked.
February 28, 2009 at 3:11pm by Chris Dannen
EDIT: Amazon has just submitted to pressure from the Author's Guild, and will now make text-to-speech functionality optional on a per-title basis: http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10184406-93.html
February 28, 2009 at 4:22pm by Tom Cassidy
Looks like a neat little device, but needs more features to make the investment worthwhile. Also, wish the book cost was lower considering it's a download.
February 28, 2009 at 4:42pm by Hellen Otii
Dear Dannen, please, please, why won't you help design the next Kindle, your concepts would be a lovely user adventure! Do it for the good of Kindle-kind.
We'd all like the Harry Potter picture story newspaper effect as well!
And a random new thing to learn about: New Oil Discovery in Uganda, on land owned by the Acholi people
http://knol.google.com/k/global-witness/acholi-land-oil-and-operation-li...
www.voteforhumanity.org
February 28, 2009 at 4:44pm by Linda Bourgault
I think Kindle is gonna change the way people read. I love my Kindle 1. Think I will try to be patient and wait for version 3 before I upgrade -- especially since I am flat broke from buying too many other electronic toys.
March 1, 2009 at 11:24pm by Perry Richards
I was ready to buy a Kindle now this killed it for me.
"Kindle's Text-to-Voice Feature Now Optional"
You should all watch the Charlie Rose interview with this weasel Jeff Bezos his entire existence is a lie.
All he could go on about is the focus of the company being about the best end user experience and all about the customer.
All lies, his rodent like head and eyes were darting around like a caged animal and he never gave a honest answer.
Fuck him Fuck his family and fuck the kindle.
I have a feeling that in a few years we will all read about him dying from a self inflicted semen overdose in a san fransico leather bathhouse covered in body paint with the word HARD writen on his back.
March 2, 2009 at 2:46am by Ehrich Weiss
Change your Life? Hardly. Fast Company can do better than this kind of hype,I hope.
March 2, 2009 at 9:30am by Daniel Watson
Some commented: "I'm a little confused here. The Kindle 2 is advertised and sold as a reading device, but this review reads as though you expected a combination reading device, PDA, GPS, PC, complete with word processing, email, and chat."
Precisely. And that is why, if you are interested in the Kindle, you need to read these reviews with caution. If you are someone who reads books, you will find the Kindle has a lot to offer. I love mine, and although I do not find the improvements in Kindle 2 to be earth shattering, they are significant and good enough that I would strongly recommend it. Of course, the price should be considered in the context of how much you plan to use it, which I do a lot. But 90% of the reviews you read in the press of the Kindle are written by techno geeks who are disappointed it's not really video game machine, cell phone or something that will allow them to spend hours scratching away at a touch screen. Why anyone would want an electronic reader to do this is not clear to me. Most of us don't scratch at books, so I don't feel the need to do it with my Kindle. Many improvements could and probably will be made in the future, but the Kindle should never be yet another portable cyber entertainment center that caters to people who do not read books and would prefer to be surfing the net or playing a video game.
March 2, 2009 at 10:07am by Daniel Watson
Melissa - I completely understand the issue you raise in your blog. A huge part of my life was spent on the hunt in record stores (back before CDs and the internet) and bookstores. Although it is true I almost never buy music in a store anymore, I do shop for CDs on the internet, which also gives a bit of the thrill of exploration you used to get in an actual shop. But with respect to the Kindle, I don't think we should look at it as a replacement for the book. I still have tons of books and expect I will buy more. But the Kindle allows you to do things you can't with books. And let's face it, the actual book, as much as I have loved it, takes up space and becomes a drag on your life if accumulated in great numbers. At the moment, I do about half my reading on the Kindle and about half in the old technology, as I work through my library. E-readers don't necessarily have to elminate the book, although some individuals may choose to use it that way.
March 6, 2009 at 2:15am by Chris Dannen
Several people in this comment string have asserted that I expect too much from the Kindle; after all, it's just an e-reader, right? Wrong. It's a $360 device that can, and should, deliver more functionality for its price. No one's asking for games or telephony, @Daniel Watson -- but color would be a reasonable request. So would a larger screen, and less obtrusive manipulation (ie, via touch.) I'm not sure how spendy you're accustomed to being when it comes to gadgets, but I expect to be amazed for $360, and from the responses I've gotten showing off the Kindle 2 in person, I'm not the only one.
April 7, 2009 at 4:05pm by Pamela Mickelsen
So I have heard that either Kindle is not backlit. Is that the case?
April 7, 2009 at 8:09pm by George Anderson
You know, *right now*, Fujitsu is selling an e-reader with a larger screen and color... for $900. That's without the connectivity options, etc, mind you. $360 doesn't get you as much as you used to, netbooks aside (that's an entirely different rant right there: three year old technology in smaller, candy-coated shells).
*Right now*, Sony is selling an e-reader with a touchscreen for $399! It's called the PRS-700. What's the catch? Glare and impaired visibility. Owners have been complaining about this. Each time you stick something else between your eyeballs and the e-ink you're cutting down on light that passes through. This is not a good problem to have when you're talking about an ereader. Oh, it'll take extra power too.
You weren't asking for just a larger, color touchscreen, either. You wanted YouTube, for starters. Come on, now. Flash video hasn't even made it to the iPhone, and you want it on something as low-specced as the Kindle?
As for PDFs, that's Adobe's fault... it's not designed for this sort of thing. PDF format specifies the absolute position of each character and element on a page. Great for keeping formatting and stuff, and publishing, too. Not so good for fitting a letter-sized page on a tiny screen. This is ok on a smartphone since you can zoom and the screen will refresh very quickly. Unfortunately this isn't the case with e-ink screens in general.
Pamela: that is correct, no backlighting. Backlighting is incompatible with e-ink, since e-ink is opaque. The Sony PRS-700 has little lights in the bezel aimed sideways, with mixed results. Which brings me to something that I'm surprised that nobody has asked for: a built-in flexible arm or spring-loaded LED light.
April 12, 2009 at 6:51pm by joe schorzman
The first kindle has actually been moving up in price (for used versions of course) since kindle 2 was released. Could it actually be going up in demand? http://www.shopobot.com/kindle-amazon%27s-wireless-reading-device
April 16, 2009 at 9:49am by Don Gray
@joe:
considering you can no longer buy a kindle 1 new from amazon anymore, yes the demand for it is going up in the used sector.
concerning the kindle 2 pdf support, are there pictures displaying what kindle 2 does with a pdf? its basically the one thing that'd want me to get the 2 over the 1.
April 23, 2009 at 10:03am by Chase Trimble
If you start adding features such as a color display, touchscreen, wifi access, then the price and weight (due to larger battery capacity) would increase significantly.
May 29, 2009 at 6:47pm by Gy Hunt
The Amazon Online Reader is revolutionary to the world of reading.
http://www.reader-kindle.com/index.html
June 1, 2009 at 3:00am by Monty Jones
A review of Kindle 2 on Fast Company leads me to believe that I should wait for version 3 before buying. Version 2 is tempting to me mainly because of the opportunity to reduce dramatically the cost of buying books, but I think I'll wait for the technology to develop further. Others will read the Fast Company review and come to a different conclusion.
September 19, 2009 at 3:53am by Chandra Vinning
I think that the Kindle 2 is wonderful. The released it in February of this year and then turned ariund and released the Kindle DX in June. It's upgrading every several months; so it does not matter if you wait for the upgrade or not because they;re going to keep cranking them out as technology changes; just like cellular phones. I say if you want it get it, because you'll be waiting forever. To try and keep up with the ever changing technology is absolutely too expensive. Besides, you can't puchase the Kindle 1 new or used anymore. I just purchased the Kindle 2 and they even have them refurbished for $219.00.
--
Chandra
September 19, 2009 at 3:53am by Chandra Vinning
I think that the Kindle 2 is wonderful. The released it in February of this year and then turned ariund and released the Kindle DX in June. It's upgrading every several months; so it does not matter if you wait for the upgrade or not because they;re going to keep cranking them out as technology changes; just like cellular phones. I say if you want it get it, because you'll be waiting forever. To try and keep up with the ever changing technology is absolutely too expensive. Besides, you can't puchase the Kindle 1 new or used anymore. I just purchased the Kindle 2 and they even have them refurbished for $219.00.
--
Chandra
September 19, 2009 at 3:54am by Chandra Vinning
I think that the Kindle 2 is wonderful. The released it in February of this year and then turned ariund and released the Kindle DX in June. It's upgrading every several months; so it does not matter if you wait for the upgrade or not because they;re going to keep cranking them out as technology changes; just like cellular phones. I say if you want it get it, because you'll be waiting forever. To try and keep up with the ever changing technology is absolutely too expensive. Besides, you can't puchase the Kindle 1 new or used anymore. I just purchased the Kindle 2 and they even have them refurbished for $219.00.
--
Chandra
October 1, 2009 at 10:50am by Sean Utt
I’ve bought a Kindle DX at Revolution Store few weeks ago and I’m really impressed with it. It’s wonderful. I love it!
November 24, 2009 at 9:32am by Richard Nester
Win a Kindle 2: find the winner ad on Americanlisted and win a Kindle (global wireless)! Get started here: www.americanlisted.com/competition
December 6, 2009 at 11:07am by R H
I debated whether or not to by a Kindle or Nook and decided on the Kindle. Here is a pretty decent comparison between the two in case anyone is on the edge and not sure which one to get.
http://www.yourhelppage.com/index.php/showdown-kindle-vs-nook
I hope everyone enjoys their Kindle as much as I have!
December 9, 2009 at 7:28am by Gy Hunt
The Amazon Online Reader now comes in three generations. The first Generation Kindle is the Original Kindle Reader released in 2006. The Second Generation Kindle is called the Kindle 2. In 2009 AMZN CEO Jeff Bezos unveiled the ultimate online handheld reading device called the Kindle DX.
http://kindle-reader-store.reader-kindle.com/
January 7, 2010 at 1:17pm by Kindle Blog
The newest International Kindle DX will be finally released on January 19, 2010 for $489. You can buy yours at Amazon.com.
Source: Kindle Blog.