Content Rights
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Nov
24
Why The Kindle is No Longer on My Amazon Wish List
November 24, 2009 | Tagged Amazon, Barnes and Nobel, Borders, Keplers, Kindle, Sony | 1 Comment
When the Kindle was first released two years ago, my first reaction was that of a typical geek. I wanted one. But I wasn’t about the plop down $400 for one, so I put it on my Amazon wish list and waited. Two Christmases came and went without a Kindle, and while the price has declined and the feature set of the Kindle has gotten better, I recently decided to drop it from my Amazon list altogether.
The reason for this is that I recently got a my chance to use one for a couple of weeks, borrowing the one from our school library. To my disappointment, the Kindle suffers from many of the same shortcomings I pointed out in my review of the Sony Touch Reader, namely the lack of color and no backlit screen. I’m afraid this is a fundamental shortcoming in all e-readers. We may have to wait until Apple releases its long-rumored netbook-tablet-Kindle-Killer before we see something better.
But the Amazon has it’s own unique foibles as well. The side buttons are, for me, incorrectly laid out. The bottom right button is next page, the bottom left button is also next page. Hmm. Previous page makes more sense to me. But no, previous page is above the next page button on the left side of the screen, opposite the Home button on the right side of the screen.
While I am sure that I would quickly adapt to this idiosyncratic layout, it just seems to me that it’s not just unfamiliar, it’s unintuitive.
You evoke most of the commands and move the cursor around the screen with a small joystick aside the keyboard. I found the feel of the joystick to a bit sharp; I’d prefer rounded edges.
Hi marks go to the Kindle for it’s long battery life. I’m 90% done with my book and the Kindle is still well charged. This is much better than the better life I experience with the previously mentioned Sony Touch. The screen refresh rate is also better than the Sony, and I like the fact that I can get the definition of any word by quickly navigating to it with the cursor. But the Sony’s touch screen is a big advantage for highlighting text.
Finally, even if the Kindle addressed all of my technical and human factors concerns, I’m still troubled by their content policies. You have to convert PDFs to work, and I want an e-reader to read any e-text I have purchased without any DRM issues getting in the way. So if I but a book from the Sony store, Barnes and Nobel, Borders, or my favorite independent bookstore, Kepler’s, I want to be able to read it any any electronic device of my choice. I don’t think this is asking too much. And, if I want to lend a copy of my purchased book to a friend, I should be able to do so. I’m willing to give up my copy of it on my local device—just as I would in the analog world give my friend a paper copy of a book. But as it is an electronic copy, and as my friends sometimes forget to return my books, I should also be able to electronically retrieve my copy from my friend and erase their copy. Friendship does have its limits, and authors have their rights.
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