| Kindle: Amazon's New Wireless Reading Device | 
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| Brand: Amazon
Category: Amazon Devices
Buy New: $359.00
Avg. Customer Rating:  3407 reviews
Sales Rank: 1
Color: Bisque
Media: Electronics
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 7.5 x 5.3 x 0.7
UPC: 892685001003
EAN: 0892685001003
ASIN: B000FI73MA
Shipping: Eligible for Super Saver Shipping
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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| Features:
| • | Revolutionary electronic-paper display provides a sharp, high-resolution screen that looks and reads like real paper. | | • | Simple to use: no computer, no cables, no syncing. | | • | Wireless connectivity enables you to find, buy, and read instantly—whether you’re in the back of a taxi, at the airport, or in bed. | | • | Shop the Kindle Store directly from your Kindle. | | • | Buy a book and it is auto-delivered wirelessly in less than one minute. |
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| Accessories:
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| Customer Reviews: Read 3402 more reviews...
 too much $$ July 4, 2008
0 out of 4 found this review helpful
"This is the future of book reading. It will be everywhere."
Not unless the price drops. I think it is a great idea and would like to have one but I'm not paying that much.
Re-Kindle your love of reading July 4, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
The Kindle solves several problems: 1) purchasing paper books, eating up untold numbers of trees & vats of ink and 2) storing or passing on the books when I've read them. Traveling with ample reading material is no longer a problem either. In short I love my new Kindle.
New electronic reader user July 3, 2008
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
I love my new kindle! It reads just like a book, and the convenience of having my daily newspaper and blogs delivered instantly is amazing. I would definitely recommend this product to anyone who spends a lot of time reading, or feels guilty about all the wasted unrecycled paper that is produced.
 Great concept. Poor execution!! July 3, 2008
2 out of 18 found this review helpful
First of all, let me say that I love this little thing. It's easy to shop for what you want to read and to carry and a great concept. However, mine is going back for 2 reasons.
The design is poorly executed. Unless the Whisper is supported by another platform there is almost no way to hold the reader without unwanted toggling back and forth amongst pages. If you try to hold it with your hand, you WILL toggle the pages.
2) There is no backlighting. I don't care what the concept was to produce the pages the same shade as whatever they are supposed to be. You need good lighting to read with it and this reader has none. In my mind, the lighting concept was as deficient as the support concept. That is to say, there isn't any. True, you could use a small reading light. But priced where this unit is, nope, figure out how to light it without the lamp on top of it. If the unit was $100 or so, I'd probably keep it. I do enjoy it. But priced where it is, IT IS NOT A VALUE PURCHASE!! Needs redesigning. It's going back!
Hope this helps.
Great to read, but problems with features July 3, 2008
5 out of 7 found this review helpful
Overall, I think it shows that eBooks have the potential to be my choice for the only way to read. If the Kindle had all the books I want, and the freedom to take them with me, I'd have no serious complaints.
Big Pluses
It's very readable. Since I got it a few weeks ago, I've been reading it a lot, and I find it at least as readable as the average paperback. I'm over 50, and read for hours at a time, and feel no strain.
Wireless download. This is extremely convenient, as having to dock the device to some sort of network would be a pain. Personally, I'd be happy with WiFi, but I can see the value of this solution. However, if they start charging for it, I'll certainly want to see a WiFi solution.
You can download all the free books from Project Gutenberg (there are 25,000). I've read some on a computer screen, which is painful: this is fantastic.
Big Minuses
Selection. There are 5.8 million "Books in Print." Amazon probably has more than this available, with used books. The Kindle has 130,000, so on looking for a specific book, figure on a less than 1 in 50 chance of finding it. And for me, the ideal use of the Kindle would be to load up series of books that I've reread over the years, like Rex Stout's Nero Wolf, Dorothy Sayers' Peter Wimsey. But they're largely unavailable. There are only 4 of 60+ Wolf, and 1 of 10 or so Wimsey books. No Lord of the Rings. Of course, your luck may be different.
Pricing/Rights. Pick a hardcover release, like David Sedaris's new book. It's $14.29 in hardcover. The Kindle edition is $9.99, which sounds okay. But then you have to factor the dreaded Digital Rights Management (DRM) into the equation. If I buy the hardcover release for $14.29, or wait a while and buy the paperback for $7.99, I can keep it if I buy a new bookshelf. I can even sell it to a used bookshop. But once I've spent $9.99 on a Kindle book, I'll have to have a Kindle as long as I want to read that book. This is a great deal for Amazon, not so good for me. I'll also mention that it's a little irritating that the Amazon site shows the Kindle price, "$9.99, you save $16," even though you can flip to the hardcover edition with one click and get it for $14.29, which is $2.30 more. The "save $16" is versus some imaginary price.
Small Pluses
Lookup. I use lookup all the time: it could be a trifle more convenient, but being able to just click a couple of clicks and look up a word is fantastic. I probably use it every 15 minutes or so, usually because I'm reading something maybe a little old, and I wonder about the use of some word in a specific context. I love it.
Small Minuses
The wireless network is either poor, or gives lowest priority to Kindle users. I often have plenty of bars of signal, but get a message, "Can't connect at this time, please try again later."
It's easy to subscribe to a magazine right from the Kindle for the "14 day free trial," but as far as I can tell, the only way to cancel is to log in to amazon.com via computer.
The "screen saver" pops up with whatever nonsense the developers have decided is cute, or helps make the Kindle look desirable. I can control the screen saver on my computer, even my mobile: why not on the Kindle.
The User's Guide says you can change your dictionary (for Lookup), but there are no other dictionaries available from Amazon, and I haven't been able to get it to accept Project Gutenberg's Webster as a dictionary.
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