{"id":325,"date":"2008-06-24T01:13:02","date_gmt":"2008-06-24T06:13:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/matthewchan.com\/?p=325"},"modified":"2008-06-24T01:46:50","modified_gmt":"2008-06-24T06:46:50","slug":"my-review-of-amazons-kindle-10","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/matthewchan.com\/?p=325","title":{"rendered":"My Review of Amazon’s Kindle eBook Reader"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Since coming back from the 2008 Book Expo America in Los Angeles, I have been wanting to write my review on Amazon’s Kindle<\/a><\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n

My relationship with Amazon is multi-faceted.\u00a0 Like most book lover, my first relationship with Amazon is as a customer.\u00a0 In my opinion, Amazon has the best website to research and search for books.\u00a0 It also has the best book community support.<\/p>\n

Secondarily, I am an Amazon reseller.\u00a0 I resell my books and titles through their Amazon Advantage and Amazon Marketplace programs.\u00a0 Overall, it is a good business relationship.<\/p>\n

Essentially, I have grown to like and appreciate Amazon over the years.<\/p>\n

With the launch of Amazon Kindle, I find myself as both a publisher and a book reader evaluating the merits of Kindle.\u00a0 At nearly $400, I am resistant to buying an electronic device to read books.\u00a0 Although, I love my computer and everything it does, I still like to read old-fashioned books.\u00a0 I just like the convenience of flipping through pages and basically jumping around at a moment’s notice.\u00a0 I am still resistant to the idea of being depending on any electronic device to read.\u00a0 What happens if the device is damaged or lost?<\/p>\n

What I don’t like about books, however, is that they are subject to wear and tear.\u00a0 They are bulky and take up a lot of shelf space when you have hundreds of books like I do.\u00a0 They are a terror to move when packed into boxes.\u00a0 It is an annual ritual to purge books and either sell them or give them away.\u00a0 And it is difficult to find specific content within a book even with an index.<\/p>\n

As a publisher, I would like to do away with the printing of books and sell more content electronically.\u00a0 There is no hard printing costs, no warehousing costs, and it saves lots of trees environmentally. Having said all that, you will have a sense of my inherent biases and internal battle with Kindle.<\/p>\n

At BEA, I was quite happy to see Amazon with their large Kindle booth.\u00a0 Amazon intelligently and insightfully understood that there is still a huge portion of book readers who have never physically seen and fiddled with the Kindle.\u00a0 Unless you are on the cutting edge and don’t mind blowing $400 on an untried device, most people including me did not want to spend that money without actually having some hands-on experience with it.<\/p>\n

The folks at the Amazon Kindle booth seemed friendly.\u00a0 They were ready to engage anyone interested in playing with a Kindle.\u00a0 I awkwardly too the device and admired its design.\u00a0 It was light and clean looking.\u00a0 It had a relatively simple and elegant look.\u00a0 The quality of the reading screen even when viewed at a steep away angle was quite good.<\/p>\n

For the most part, Kindle was easy to navigate.\u00a0 I goofed a few times but I attributed that to my user unfamiliarity.\u00a0 The browsing of Kindle-titles was easy.\u00a0 The Amazon employee pointed out that there were still many titles not available on Kindle but work was aggressively being done to get more titles.\u00a0 As a publisher, I agreed with that.\u00a0 Amazon has been heavily courting publishers to release their content on the Kindle format.\u00a0 For me, I am interested but I have taken a wait-and-see attitude.\u00a0 I will get into why in another post.<\/p>\n

Back to the actual Kindle device, what I did not like about Kindle were the placement of the long page-turning buttons on both the left and right side of the device.\u00a0 I am guessing the idea of having a long elongated button is to accommodate different ways and styles that readers would hold Kindle.\u00a0 Unfortunately, I found it difficult to hold and adjust the Kindle with accidentally pressing one of the side buttons.<\/p>\n

There simply was no easy way to hold the Kindle in my left or right hand.\u00a0 If I wanted to adjust my seating position or get up, I found myself accidentally hitting the side buttons.\u00a0 The Amazon employee said that once you get used to it, that would no longer happen.\u00a0 That may be true but I feel the side buttons are too exposed.\u00a0 The designers gave too much space.<\/p>\n

My view of Kindle, like other electronic hardware or software, that this is a version 1.0.\u00a0 I asked about future revisions and that subject seemed to make the person helping me uncomfortable.\u00a0 I am guessing her job was to focus on selling the Kindle in the here and now, not focusing on a possible Kindle 2.0.<\/p>\n

I speculate that there will inevitably be a Kindle 2.0.\u00a0 There will be design enhancements and improvements to the hardware based on the feedback Amazon is receiving.\u00a0 Perhaps this review will be one they will refer to.\u00a0 They are likely to improve the battery life and viewing options such as including color.\u00a0 However, I believe color will come in Kindle 3.0.\u00a0 I think it is too much of a jump from Kindle 1.0 to Kindle 2.0.\u00a0 I don’t think Amazon is quite ready to so quickly obsolete Kindle 1.0.<\/p>\n

Overall, I enjoyed my user experience with Kindle.\u00a0 I understand why there seems to be a growing bubble of support for it.\u00a0 It really is a good device.\u00a0 But the downsides is still a deterrent for me.\u00a0 Kindle has to come down in price more.\u00a0 Even at 50% off, it would be $200.\u00a0 I am not sure I would still buy it at that price point.\u00a0 There has to be more titles.\u00a0 And the annoying side buttons need to be resized, relocation, or redesigned.<\/p>\n

It is ironic that I do want Kindle to be successful.\u00a0 And yet, for me as an individual reader, I still greatly prefer my books.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Since coming back from the 2008 Book Expo America in Los Angeles, I have been wanting to write my review on Amazon’s Kindle. My relationship with Amazon is multi-faceted.\u00a0 Like most book lover, my first relationship with Amazon is as a customer.\u00a0 In my opinion, Amazon has the best website to research and search for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3,2,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-325","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","category-publishing","category-technology","has-post-title","has-post-date","has-post-category","has-post-tag","has-post-comment","has-post-author",""],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p927L-5f","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":341,"url":"https:\/\/matthewchan.com\/?p=341","url_meta":{"origin":325,"position":0},"title":"In Seattle at Independent Online Sellers Conference","author":"Matthew Chan","date":"July 19, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"This is a quickie post.\u00a0 I am in Seattle attending the Independent Online Sellers Conference.\u00a0 I almost didn't come because this event is largely a grassroots effort.\u00a0 There are about 200 Amazon resellers here.\u00a0 Interestingly, this event is acknowledged by Amazon.com.\u00a0 I am looking forward to visiting Amazon HQ on\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Conventions & Events"","block_context":{"text":"Conventions & Events","link":"https:\/\/matthewchan.com\/?cat=38"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":511,"url":"https:\/\/matthewchan.com\/?p=511","url_meta":{"origin":325,"position":1},"title":"TurnKey Publisher Book Series Reviewed by Midwest Book Review","author":"Matthew Chan","date":"August 6, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"This was first posted on \"The TurnKey Publishing Blog\". ==== I had almost forgotten I had submitted to Midwest Book Review copies of my newest books \"TurnKey Publishing\" and \"The TurnKey Publisher's Audio Publishing Handbook\". I am happy to announce they did a favorable write-up for the two books. I\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Book Reviews"","block_context":{"text":"Book Reviews","link":"https:\/\/matthewchan.com\/?cat=11"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/matthewchan.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/08\/turnkey-publisher-set.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":52,"url":"https:\/\/matthewchan.com\/?p=52","url_meta":{"origin":325,"position":2},"title":"Midwest Book Review’s Comments on “The TurnKey Investor’s ‘Subject To’ Mortgage Handbook”","author":"Matthew Chan","date":"October 16, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Earlier this year, Midwest Book Review generously evaluated two of my books.\u00a0 One of them (from March 2006) included \"The TurnKey Investor's 'Subject To' Mortgage Handbook\".\u00a0 Here are their comments... The TurnKey Investor's \"Subject To\" Mortgage Handbook is a guide written especially for the independent-minded investor who is seeking a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Book Reviews"","block_context":{"text":"Book Reviews","link":"https:\/\/matthewchan.com\/?cat=11"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":59,"url":"https:\/\/matthewchan.com\/?p=59","url_meta":{"origin":325,"position":3},"title":"MRG Reviews “The Intrepid Way”","author":"Matthew Chan","date":"October 24, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"The same folks who runs Shifting-Paradigms.com also run the MangroveRootGang.com Blog.\u00a0 They had these comments to say about my book, \"The Intrepid Way\": \u00a0\u00a0 I wrote a short review in our Books\/Audio section on the SP website. In essence, this is the quintessential book on what you need to know\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Book Reviews"","block_context":{"text":"Book Reviews","link":"https:\/\/matthewchan.com\/?cat=11"},"img":{"alt_text":"The Intrepid Way","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/matthewchan.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/04\/3d-iw2006-150.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":74,"url":"https:\/\/matthewchan.com\/?p=74","url_meta":{"origin":325,"position":4},"title":"G.A. Bixler’s Book Review of “The TurnKey Investor’s “Subject To” Mortgage Handbook”","author":"Matthew Chan","date":"January 13, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"G.A. Bixler recently submitted her latest\u00a0book review of\u00a0one of my\u00a0consistent selling books, \"The TurnKey Investor's \"Subject To\" Mortgage Handbook\". Matthew Chan\"s latest book for TurnKey Investors is for experienced investors who \"wish to expand their financial repertoire by utilizing the \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcsubject to\" mortgage\" (p.5) This review is based upon that\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Book Reviews"","block_context":{"text":"Book Reviews","link":"https:\/\/matthewchan.com\/?cat=11"},"img":{"alt_text":"tkisub2.jpg","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/matthewchan.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/04\/tkisub2.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":53,"url":"https:\/\/matthewchan.com\/?p=53","url_meta":{"origin":325,"position":5},"title":"Midwest Book Review’s Comments on “TurnKey Investing with Lease-Options”","author":"Matthew Chan","date":"October 16, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Earlier this year, Midwest Book Review generously evaluated two of my books.\u00a0 One of the reviews (from January 2006)\u00a0included \"TurnKey Investing with Lease-Options\".\u00a0 Here are their comments: With contributions by Wes Weaver, professional real estate investor and property manager Matthew S. 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