A conflagration of kindles
Mar. 13th, 2009 05:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
catsittingstill Um. So, you'll recall way back when, when the Kindle 2 came out, and I looked it over and was disappointed that it didn't have an SD card slot or a user-replaceable battery, and that it was going to charge from USB and so on...
Well, I read a site called MobileRead which is about e-books and e-book readers. They have different sections for people who use different readers and formats and so on, and I mostly read the Kindle pages. But one day I went to the site and there was a Kindle 2 giveaway/raffle announced on the front page. Just post to such-and-such thread saying you wanted to join, and then make a few posts on the Kindle portion of the site, which I often do anyway.
(Blink) Well. What the hell, I wouldn't turn down a Kindle 2, and it costs nothing to sign up, and anybody can get lucky.
My reading and posting over at MobileRead did go up for the two weeks or so that the contest ran. And on the day the contest was done (or maybe the following day) when I logged on to the MobileRead boards I had a personal message from a name I recognized as someone who posted a lot and was well-thought-of over there. I admit that "maybe I won the contest" flicked briefly through my mind as I went to my user control panel to read the personal message, but I dismissed it as unlikely.
Except that I had won the contest.
And I am now the happy possessor of a Kindle 1 and a Kindle 2.
It was supposed to come Monday, but when I checked the delivery tracking system this morning it was in Jefferson City as of 7:35 am. So I spent much of the morning glancing thoughtfully out at the mailbox. I still managed to miss the mail carrier, though. About noon I went outside to check the mailbox just in case and found an Amazon box there. So yard work was unavoidably postponed while I unwrapped it and plugged it in and began playing with it.
Some first impressions:
Okay, I had thought I would be mature and deep enough to be entirely unmoved by its greater sleekness. I was wrong; I now officially eat crow on this one. Deep down in my immature heart of hearts I *do* like its design better (hangs head.)
Also the stubby little joystick they call a "five-way-switch" is in fact noticeably more convenient than the K1 roller. But it's not as fast if you have to go a long way to the word or link you want.
The text is just a smidge lighter. The "white" of the screen is just a smidge lighter too. Some folks have reported readablity problems as a result.
The charging-from-usb thing is not as bad as I thought. It comes with a usb cord (micro usb on one end, standard (male) usb on the other, that plugs right into a two-prong-plug-to-USB-female adapter; the whole usb-twoprong plug arrangement is about the size of a normal two prong plug. It's quite clever. The down side is you can't charge it and transfer reading material to it simultaneously--except I suppose the computer may be charging it, in a half-hearted kind of way, as you're transferring stuff.
I plugged it in when I got it and it took about 3 hours to charge; much less time than I thought.
I still wish it had folders.
Sleep/wake seems much faster, but I don't have much stuff on it yet.
I registered it to my account first thing; I can only have my periodicals on one Kindle at a time. Also my Kindle e-mail address only works for one Kindle, but my other Kindle has its own e-mail address.
It didn't come with its own cover, the way the Kindle 1 did (some people hated the Kindle 1 cover but I had very little problem with it and leave it in the cover pretty much full time). The standard Kindle 2 cover seems to have pretty good reviews, so when I could bring myself to believe that the Kindle 2 was in fact seriously real and on its way, I ordered one. However it won't be here for a couple of days yet. I'm a little afraid to take the Kindle 2 out of the house without one; those e-ink screens can be broken.
One apparent downside; I can transfer my subscriptions and such to the Kindle 2 but of my 10 or so Analogs I can only move the latest 3 over. I will probably call customer service to see if anything can be done about this.
Kip and I had agreed that I would try out the K1 and the K2 and see which one I like better, and he'll get the other one. I'm thinking I may want the K2, but I'm not eager to leave my old Analogs behind.
I tried out the text to speech and it's pretty good for a computer voice. With all that means--it's really pretty good, but nobody is going to forget that they're listening to a computer voice. I don't know how much I'll really use it, but it's neat to have the capability. I have not yet checked how many of my books allow it to be used, but it works fine on the Kindle's User Manual.
Well, I read a site called MobileRead which is about e-books and e-book readers. They have different sections for people who use different readers and formats and so on, and I mostly read the Kindle pages. But one day I went to the site and there was a Kindle 2 giveaway/raffle announced on the front page. Just post to such-and-such thread saying you wanted to join, and then make a few posts on the Kindle portion of the site, which I often do anyway.
(Blink) Well. What the hell, I wouldn't turn down a Kindle 2, and it costs nothing to sign up, and anybody can get lucky.
My reading and posting over at MobileRead did go up for the two weeks or so that the contest ran. And on the day the contest was done (or maybe the following day) when I logged on to the MobileRead boards I had a personal message from a name I recognized as someone who posted a lot and was well-thought-of over there. I admit that "maybe I won the contest" flicked briefly through my mind as I went to my user control panel to read the personal message, but I dismissed it as unlikely.
Except that I had won the contest.
And I am now the happy possessor of a Kindle 1 and a Kindle 2.
It was supposed to come Monday, but when I checked the delivery tracking system this morning it was in Jefferson City as of 7:35 am. So I spent much of the morning glancing thoughtfully out at the mailbox. I still managed to miss the mail carrier, though. About noon I went outside to check the mailbox just in case and found an Amazon box there. So yard work was unavoidably postponed while I unwrapped it and plugged it in and began playing with it.
Some first impressions:
Okay, I had thought I would be mature and deep enough to be entirely unmoved by its greater sleekness. I was wrong; I now officially eat crow on this one. Deep down in my immature heart of hearts I *do* like its design better (hangs head.)
Also the stubby little joystick they call a "five-way-switch" is in fact noticeably more convenient than the K1 roller. But it's not as fast if you have to go a long way to the word or link you want.
The text is just a smidge lighter. The "white" of the screen is just a smidge lighter too. Some folks have reported readablity problems as a result.
The charging-from-usb thing is not as bad as I thought. It comes with a usb cord (micro usb on one end, standard (male) usb on the other, that plugs right into a two-prong-plug-to-USB-female adapter; the whole usb-twoprong plug arrangement is about the size of a normal two prong plug. It's quite clever. The down side is you can't charge it and transfer reading material to it simultaneously--except I suppose the computer may be charging it, in a half-hearted kind of way, as you're transferring stuff.
I plugged it in when I got it and it took about 3 hours to charge; much less time than I thought.
I still wish it had folders.
Sleep/wake seems much faster, but I don't have much stuff on it yet.
I registered it to my account first thing; I can only have my periodicals on one Kindle at a time. Also my Kindle e-mail address only works for one Kindle, but my other Kindle has its own e-mail address.
It didn't come with its own cover, the way the Kindle 1 did (some people hated the Kindle 1 cover but I had very little problem with it and leave it in the cover pretty much full time). The standard Kindle 2 cover seems to have pretty good reviews, so when I could bring myself to believe that the Kindle 2 was in fact seriously real and on its way, I ordered one. However it won't be here for a couple of days yet. I'm a little afraid to take the Kindle 2 out of the house without one; those e-ink screens can be broken.
One apparent downside; I can transfer my subscriptions and such to the Kindle 2 but of my 10 or so Analogs I can only move the latest 3 over. I will probably call customer service to see if anything can be done about this.
Kip and I had agreed that I would try out the K1 and the K2 and see which one I like better, and he'll get the other one. I'm thinking I may want the K2, but I'm not eager to leave my old Analogs behind.
I tried out the text to speech and it's pretty good for a computer voice. With all that means--it's really pretty good, but nobody is going to forget that they're listening to a computer voice. I don't know how much I'll really use it, but it's neat to have the capability. I have not yet checked how many of my books allow it to be used, but it works fine on the Kindle's User Manual.
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Re: Kindle2 text-to-speech
Date: 2009-03-16 01:56 pm (UTC)