Apr

10

2008

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Shopping For Kindle Books

11:14PM by Jim Frost

For most of the last week I have been talking about the e-book market and the design and day-to-day use of Amazon’s Kindle reader.  Today I’m going to wrap up my series on the Kindle by talking about the process of obtaining books for the thing, and touch on a few of its features outside of its main raison d’etre.

So, what is it like to get books for the thing?

Apr

9

2008

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Reading Books On The Kindle

11:13PM by Jim Frost

Over the last several days I’ve talked about the publishing environment that the Kindle was introduced into, about the technologies that make it possible, and its physical design.  Today we get to the thing most people really care about: Is it nice to read with, or does it suck?  And how hard is it to load up with books?

Apr

8

2008

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Hands-On With the Kindle

11:12PM by Jim Frost

Yesterday I spoke a little about the basic qualities that I thought can make a successful e-book reader, and why the Amazon Kindle does a much better job at it than anything else to date.  Today I want to talk about the actual design of the device and what it’s like to live with it day-to-day.

Apr

7

2008

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The Kindle: A Confluence of Technologies

11:10PM by Jim Frost

The Kindle is Amazon’s bid for the e-book market, and their first-ever consumer electronics device.  Yesterday I looked into the history of e-book readers to see what failed and why.  Today I am going to look at what Amazon did to overcome the challenges of providing a commercially successful e-book technology.

Apr

6

2008

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Burning Down the (Publishing) House: The E-book Wasteland

11:09PM by Jim Frost

Over the next few days I’m going to be doing an in-depth review of Amazon’s Kindle, a device that has alternatively been described as hopeless, the future of reading, and even (I kid you not) “sexy.” The truth is, of course, somewhere between the extremes.

Unlike almost everyone else who has written about the Kindle, I bought one in the first five minutes after they went on sale.  Given the poor showing of previous e-book readers, and the $400 price tag, I was very surprised when it sold out in a matter of hours.  I thought I was going to me one of the few fools to spend that kind of money on it, especially given the poor showing of the superficially similar Sony Readers.  Despite many reviewers questioning the whole point of buying an e-book reader, the Kindle has remained on back-order for months.  This implies that there was considerable pent-up demand waiting for the proper product.