My Kindle 3 Review

TITLE: My Kindle 3 Review
Reviewed by Conrade Yap
Date: 15 Oct 2010

I received my Kindle 3earlier this month. It came in a 7.5” length x 9.5” breadth x 2.5” depth box. The packaging is simple with a small USB connector charger, a folded 8-page quick start booklet and a Kindle. I ordered the basic Wifi-only model.

I am impressed with the size of the Kindle. Weighing at only 8.5 oz (about 240g), and only a third of an inch, the Kindle is a pleasure to hold. The page left and right buttons are conveniently located on both sides of the handheld device. Due to its lightweight, it is easy on the hands and makes a wonderful bedtime reading device. The best part of the Kindle is the extremely comfortable text reading contrast on the screen. It is not as glaring or as heavy as the Apple iPAD. It weighs like an average paperback. Under bright sunlight, the Kindle works like a charm, and reads even better than a normal paper book.

BIBLES
I enjoy reading my Bible on the Kindle. Some of them like HCSB, GOD’s WORD, are free. Others like the KJV, the NASB, and the NET Bible are quite reasonably priced. This is the single biggest reason why I bought the Kindle. The ease of referencing Bibles, commentaries, even the orignal Greek and Hebrew texts.

STRENGTHS OF THE KINDLE

• Light and easy to carry;
• Text quality is superb; The e-Ink technology is by far the most impressive;
• Easy to download ebooks; Though Amazon markets it under a minute, most of the time it is within 20 seconds;
• The buttons are nice to press, though it can be a little too tiny for those with thick fingers;
• There is a convenient MP3 player and a slot for listening via headphones;
• The text-to-speech function is a nice thing to have;
• Its battery life is superb (up to a month);
• Wifi functionality is a nice-to-have, better than the earlier versions.
• The PDF functionality is great.
• eBooks can typically be downloaded up to 6 separate devices. Thus, even if we lose the Kindle, we can always re-download the purchased books back onto our replacement devices or on free Kindle applications on the PC/Mac/iPad.

WEAKNESSES

• Its range of books on the Kindle Store is still smaller compared to its closest competitor, the Nook (Barnes and Noble);
• The WiFi functionality while nice to have is too slow. I tried using GMAIL and have problems navigating the cursor to logout;
• The page flips like it is blinking. I would have preferred the flipping to resemble more like leafing action rather than a black/white blinking effect.
• After having it for 2 weeks, the first time the Kindle appears to crash is when the screen turns up ‘blank’ and then asks me to re-download my purchased books from Amazon Store. Thankfully I had WiFi at that time, otherwise I would have been caught offguard when I could not retrieve any of my ebooks.
• No light. Thus no reading in dimmer environments.
• At US$139 per Kindle, losing the device can be painful. People may not steal a book, but they can quickly spirit away the little e-Reader when one is not looking.
• No numerical keys on the keypad. Thus typing numbers takes a few more clicks.

My Verdict
Given that the strengths outweigh the weaknesses, I would say that the Kindle 3 surpasses my expectations. I will expect that the next level of improvements ought to be the quality of the ebooks, that they be made easier to browse and to navigate, especially Bibles. Somehow, the Kindle seems to fits readers of fiction rather than non-fiction. Anyway, with the introduction of this new generation of Kindle, I believe that the eBook industry is poised to grow astronomically.  Yet, the traditional book is still something I prefer, despite the advances of the eReaders. Perhaps having both is the way to go.

By the way, if you do decide to buy a Kindle, do buy it by clicking here or on the links on this website. That way, I get about 4% credit for me to buy more books.  It costs nothing extra for you, but it helps me out. Thanks in advance.

Rating: 4.5 stars of 5.

conrade