I’m generally a sucker for the latest gadget, but one I won’t be rushing to buy is Amazon’s first entry into the market, the Kindle. The Kindle is an attempt to create what Amazon calls “the iPod of books.” This slim, compact device is innovative in several ways. Instead of using a traditional LCD screen like most laptops and cell phones, it uses a technology called “ePaper”. This technology, though not yet available in color, looks more like a traditional paper page than a screen - it’s not backlit, and can be read more easily in a wide range of lighting conditions. Users have said it is comfortable to read this screen for long periods of time, though I personally don’t have much trouble reading a traditional LCD screen. As a result of this technology, the Kindle has an decent battery life (Amazon estimates you’ll need to recharge every other day).

The second innovation is the inclusion of EVDO wireless data support for “free”. EVDO is the high-speed data network technology used by Sprint and Verizon (it’s not clear who Amazon has teamed up with), so you’ll have internet connectivity at most locations. Of course, Amazon is giving this to you for free so you can buy eBooks instantly from anywhere

This sounds fabulous, doesn’t it? Free high-speed internet? You can browse the web from anywhere? As always, there’s a catch. While there is no monthly fee, you do pay for usage of this network (outside of buying books and using Wikipedia). Want to browse the web? Sorry, you can’t…only read customized newspaper feeds and blogs optimized for the Kindle. Well, at least those are free, right? Nope, you’ll pay for a newspaper subscription or a blog subscription, even though these are freely available online. And remember, the Kindle is black and white only. Want to use the Kindle to send a few quick emails? That will be 10 cents per message. What happened to “free”?

One feature that jumpstarted the iPod revolution was the ability to take material you already owned (i.e. CD’s) and copy the music onto your iPod. There’s nothing analogous for the Kindle. Amazon will convert some files to Kindle’s format, but you’ll have to go through them each time you want to, say, add a PDF to your Kindle (amazingly, the Kindle does not natively support PDF).

Lastly, there’s the price. $399 for the device alone, then you’ll have to pay more for each book. All this to have yet another device you’ll need to carry, one that isn’t really practical for anything other than reading Amazon’s eBooks. Don’t get me wrong, I think that electronic formats are the future of reading (if not the present), but the Kindle does too many things wrong for it to be worthwhile in its current format.

And, it’s really ugly…

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 20th, 2007 at 7:00 pm and is filed under tech. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.