24 hours of Kindle

Well, folks, it's been 24 hours since the Kindle DX arrived, and I have to say, it is worth every stinkin' penny I paid for it.

I've seen a lot of crappy reviews.  Whiny ones, too, complaining that the PDF support is minimal and that it's a pain to hold the bigger frame of the DX, and blah blah blah.  None of that is true.

After a full day of use, I can report that the only things I dislike about the Kindle DX are kind of minor.  First, there are no folders.  Yes you can organize your files by date, type, and author, but there is no true file structure to help you keep things organized.  This would really be helpful for those of us who carrying around a lot of PDF files.  They get overwhelming fast.  The other thing I am not a fan of is the robot voice of the text to speech feature.  Either of them, for that matter.  You get your choice of male or female. I'm not sure how it is with standard English texts, using only simple words, but you start throwing in complex sentence structure and foreign words, and the robot gets lost.  All in all, though, it's still smarter than I thoguht it would be.

The Kindle has a number of uses.  First and foremost, it's a LOT lighter to carry than some of the books I have already downloaded.  Second, it's useful for a lot of tasks that would otherwise require a lot of paper: PDFs, Cookbooks (just take care to keep the Kindle clean and dry inthe kitchen!), and sheet music to name a few.  You can also annotate any text file, so taking notes during rehearsal ought to be a SNAP with the Kindle DX.  Text to Speech also makes a great alternative to books on tape (CD?) in the car.

The e-ink is another awesome thing.  It's like a real page, so reading outside is totally possible, unlike working on most laptops.  In fact, I spent much of yesterday evening sitting on the patio with the Kindle DX until it got too breezy to stay out.  Long before the sun went down. Unfortunately.

My favorite feature, though, I think, is the free wireless internet access (thanks, Amazon!).  It's Sprint 3G (where available) and not only can you download books from Amazon (many are free!), but you can also surf the web.  I think the web browser on the Kindle, while clearly limited, is still MILES beyond the one on my Instinct.  Not as good as my trusty ol' Firefox, though.  Maybe on the next one.  Several popular sites are pre-bookmarked, and you can add any number of your own, too.  You can also download files.  Kindle compatible files are automatically displayed on your home page by type, title, and author.  There are a number of sites out there that offer free e-Books that display on the Kindle and are available for Text- to- Speech as well.

The only feature I haven't played with is the mp3 player.  I'd rather listen to the books for the nonce.  The speakers are better than I expected, though nothing fancy, so I assume sound quality isn't terrible.

It has been quite an experience so far, from the moment I laid eyes on the box.  Even the packaging says "this is something special."

This is what arrived:

yeah, and the junk mail, too. 

But it was soon apparent that this is no ordinary box:

the inside was pretty too:

And it's so awesome.  Even the screensavers are cool:

There's a couple more pictures of the Kindle on Flickr!, including a very smart sticker and also some new jam and garden shots.