How we read (or don’t) Part II

I’ve been a gadget slut for years. So of course I ordered a Kindle the minute they became available. In case you haven’t visited Amazon in the past couple of weeks, the Kindle is their entry into the pretty long line of ebook readers that so far have been utter failures in the marketplace. The idea is you can download a bunch of books onto a reader and carry a small library around with you. Far less bulky than, say, taking ten books with you on vacation.

The New York Times says “So e-book readers keep on coming and keep on flopping: the Rocket eBook Reader. Gemstar. Everybook. SoftBook. Librius Millennium Reader. The Sony Reader is in stores even now, priced at $350 and making literally dozens of sales.”

The Kindle, however, seems to stand a better chance. One reason is that you can download books anywhere and, though the books cost, the wireless does not. Amazon covers that expense of Sprint’s 3G cellular data service.

The Good

• Free wireless connectivity.
• Free first chapter of any book, free 2 week subscription to any newspapers. I’ve read a few magazine articles on it and am thinking I may start getting The Nation this way rather than via snail mail.
• Side scroll curser works well and fairly intuitively. Bookmarking is a breeze.
• Kindle store is easy to use. Books are $9.99.
• Highlighting and annotating is not the most intuitive, but it’s a great feature.

The Bad

• The hardware is really, really poorly designed. It’s pretty much impossible to avoid inadvertently clicking the Next or Previous page buttons. And the keyboard is nutty - too big to thumb type, too small to touch type.
• It’s hard to hold at the top, which is what I like to do if I’m reading in bed while lying on my side.
• When you drop the Kindle an lose your place — OMG, where was I? What got clicked? Where am I now? — it’s much more disorienting than dropping an actual book and refinding your place.
• Typing in bed is impossible and results in the above.
• eInk is fantastic — I could read well in low/amber light just as well as in bright sunlight.
• There’s only one font, and the typography is occasionally bad enough that it’s distracting – too much space between words on justified lines. Its interpretation of a few lines of verse was awful.

The Ugly

• Man, it’s ugly. Embarrassingly so. Looks like something out of the 70s. Nasty beige plastic, asymmetric shape. It’s hard to believe they did any real user testing on the hardware.

It’s not a great picture, but that little photo off to the right is of my Kindle with a view of the store. Click to enlarge for an idea of the text clarity - it really is pretty amazing.

I definitely read slower with the Kindle than with an actual book. I think that’s 75% typography, 25% not being used to the screen. And, uh, 40% being extra aware of the fact that I was reading on a new gadget.

I’ll be glad when they work out the kinks, and I’m not going to kick this first generation model out of bed for eating crackers. In fact, when I travel next month, this is the only “book” I’ll bring. That will be the real test. I wish I’d had one on my trip around the world—the hardest part of that journey was not having books because I had to travel light. This thing only weighs 10 ounces—almost light enough to wear on a string around my neck. But I won’t.

Read Part I of How we read (or don’t)