Amazon Kindle: My Review

Cover via Amazon

After tinkering with my new Amazon Kindle 3 for a few days, I felt an urge to write a review. You know, there are millions of reviews all over the web regarding the Kindle, why not join the herd? And to add to that feeble excuse, I needed to blog again after a long-ish interval. So yeah here I am bragging about my new Kindle and trying to present an unbiased (yeah, as if thats possible) review of this truly amazing device from the jungles of Amazon basin. Oh wait, its Amazon.com! (Applause please at this insanely juvenile attempt of eliciting a laugh out of the reader)

Okay let me get serious now (frankly if you're still reading this, I'd better present to you a decent unbiased review of the product, you deserve it).

So it will the standard Pros and Cons format. Makes things simpler to read that way.

PROS:

1. Its the Kindle! Okay apart from that, this really is a device which has been built well. Every single inch of the device (there arent too many inches of it though, incase you're indeed counting) shows signs of a well thought out, well constructed device. Its ultra thin, ultra lightweight and more importantly, portable. The read aloud feature is quite handy too.

2. E-ink is great. Yeah it really is, reading books on this device is an absolute pleasure. It really is. The contrast (which has been substantially increased since the last Kindle) does make a significant contribution to the reading experience.

3. Buying books was never easier. If you sign up for Amazon's one click buying, you will be able to do just that from the Kindle or from the Amazon.com Kindle Store. Its as simple as a one click "Buy", and bam, the next thing you know, the book/magazine/other stuff is neatly waiting in the home screem of your device.

4. 3 GB of memory is massive. Lets face it, no one's gonna read 3 GB of stuff at one go. Considering the fact that this is a reading device, 3 GB is more than sufficient for e-books.

5. The Amazon Kindle Store. With its ever increasing collection of books, newspapers, magazines and singles, the Kindle Store is quite literally the ultimate place to go on a shopping spree.

6. Its more than an e-book reader. Kindle 3 has a web browser and a music player to boast of. So thats a welcome addition. It also has an integrated PDF reader, so that will come in handy for reading personal documents.

7. Extraordinary battery life. Although I'm yet to put Amazon's claim of 30 days of charge-less backup to test, its pretty evident from my heavy use that the Kindle might live up to that expectation.

CONS:

1. The 3 GB limit isnt really enough, especially since one's expected to have MP3s as well as PDFs on the device. The fact that you cant expand this memory is a bit of a letdown.

2. The browser is very, very basic. Its pretty much unusable to be honest. Although the "Article Mode" which sort of lets Kindle do its own processing, is quite handy.

3. The page turning buttons are very smartly constructed but badly placed. You will very easily end up turning the page while picking up the device.

4. The audio output is very basic. Dont expect Kindle to replace your iPod.

5. Page turning is a bit slow. Although its fast by e-ink standards, oh well, it still is far from satisfactory.

6. Not many accessories available right now. (Thats mainly because its a new device. Expect loads of additions in the coming months though)