The next little thing
I am in lust, but I am in lust in the same ignorant way I have been many, many times before. I do not know enough about the old Kindle to know if a relationship with the new Kindle will work. Let’s read what they wrote to me.
Kindle 2
- New Features & Enhancements Slim & Lightweight : Just over 1/3 inch and 10.2 ounces
- Sounds great to me.
- Books in under 60 seconds : Get books delivered in less than 60 seconds; no PC required
- Really? How do they do that? Is it like an iPhone book?
- Improved Display : Reads like real paper; now boasts 16 shades of gray for crisp images and text; even reads well in bright sunlight— cool, that I like. Can’t wait for bright sunshine!
- Longer Battery Life : 25% longer battery life; read for days without recharging And just as it should be.
- More Storage : Take your library with you; holds over 1,500 books– omigod, I think it’s love.
- Faster Page Turns: 20% faster page turns– were they slow before?
- Read-to-Me : Text-to-Speech feature means Kindle can read every book, blog, magazine, and newspaper out loud. It would put me right to sleep, but sometimes that’s a good thing, no?
- No Wireless Bills : No monthly wireless bills, data plans, or commitments. Amazon pays for Kindle’s wireless connectivity so you won’t see a monthly wireless bill. In Italy?
- Large Selection : Over 230,000 books, plus U.S. and international newspapers, magazines and blogs available
- I want 230,000 books, but the rest I am not so sold on.
- Low Book Prices : New York Times Best Sellers and New Releases $9.99, unless marked otherwise.. hmmmm.
Is this the book I can live with forever? Is the the book that can load up classic novels by all of the various Trollopes? What will those cost? I don’t pay very much for used Victorian novels. Certainly not $9.99. And will they get all silly about letting my friend borrow my books like the movie dvd people do?
I hope one of you knows and will tell me. Right now it’s like I want to buy the Kindle 2 a drink and get aggressive in the cab home, but one does have to grow up and act sensibly eventually.
If you click through this article or through my Amazon Store on the right —-> they will pay me a commission. So if you are going to buy one, pleeeze do it through me and then tell me the answers to all my questions, OK?
If I had the time to read (maybe when Luigi goes to grade school) I would want one too, but sadly enough, I don’t think they work in Italy.
Apparently they will, but Amazon and the wireless folks are fighting about how much Amazon has to pay them to download to us. Is this typical or what? IT companies in Italy so greedy to make more money that they end up not making any? Seems they want to sell downloaded books, butcha know what? I can already buy 230,00o Italian language books!
I dunno Judith, I am on the fence about this thing. How do you look over someone’s shoulder and know what they are reading? How do you keep it safe on the beach? How do you keep it safe in the bath? And how do you reconcile the initial cost (really the only issue)?
Perhaps if I weren’t heading back to the US where there are libraries and, bookshops (be still my heart; is there anything like a bookshop?) and friends to share with, I’d consider it.
On the other hand, I love the size and light (can you read in the dark also?) and the immediacy of a good read.
On the fence, like I said. If you want, V’s coming back in May. He could bring it for you.
Older titles cost much less than $9.99. New titles are pricier, older titles much more affordable.
Judith, don’t you have a problem downloading the books? I am really thinking of getting one of these. A man I sat next to on a plane recently had one and it seemed quite wonderful. Before that I had only heard of them.
Like I said, I don’t know the answers to these questions. If I could be sure of these rapid downloads of loads of books I would be very tempted. I do not sit on the beach reading, but on a chaise in my garden. I never found a bath did anything good for a paper book! English language books are hard to get here and very expensive no matter how you buy them. That”s why sharing is so much a part of friendships here.
I just read an article yesterday that said the wireless operators in Italy want a much larger share of the price of the book to allow Amazon to deliver it to you via their system. What other countries’ providers get doesn’t suit them. So it’s all up in the air for us here. At present it doesn’t work here.
It would be nice to think one could eventually have ANY book ever published, yes?
I answered some of your questions in a blog post about traveling with a Kindle. Steve and I both have the original version, but have ordered the new one.
http://www.sloweurope.com/blog/2009/technology-on-the-go/traveling-with-your-kindle/
The short answer is that if you purchase the Kindle in the US and have a US based Amazon account, you can use a Kindle in Italy but cannot use the Whispernet to download books and subscriptions. Instead you have to connect the Kindle to your computer and download that way. And you have to run a VPN on your computer so that Amazon.com thinks you are in the US (a VPN – virtual personal network – fakes a US IP address). More on my blog post.
This is so cool that you have these answers. With a fast connection here I would love it, but alas, 42000 to 50000 bps would allow me to write my own books in the download times. I am off to read your post.
The book files are not that large since they are text with no graphics. My books range from 274KB to 1,009KB (1,009KB is about 1MB). One issue of the NY Times is 1 MB. Looking through the list of files on my Kindle, I see a couple of books that are larger (the smaller books are .AZW, the larger ones that are 2 – 5 MB are .AZW1). I am not sure why some of the books have such large files (but will look into it).
You can download books samples (usually the first chapter) for free. If the sample is .AZW1 format then the book would be the larger file. Most of the books I have downloaded are small files.
Even a large file of 2.8 MB would only take 20 minutes to download on a phone connection. Since most books are 1/4 this size, the downloads would probably only take 5 mins.