Review of Kindle 2 and Kindle for iPhone

It’s really a late review but I reckon instead of just repeat all the specifications and then recycle those as a review, I would rather write you my review after finished six books with the Kindle 2 and the Kindle for iPhone. In other words, it is a review from a book reader point of view, especially living outside US. And I believe, some of the items below also applicable to the Kindle DX.

Kindle 2

  • The Kindle screen is good, the eInk is really easy on the eyes, and when combined with variable font sizes it really makes a big difference to eReading experience.
  • The device is very portable (not the DX though), and you can bring as many books as you like.
  • You can read with one hand (or even one finger), it is really useful in bus, subway, restaurant etc.
  • However, it is good for linear reading only – i.e. forget the random access to certain pages and also flip the pages freely to skim the book.
  • I found that not all eBooks from Amazon are the same, some with better formatting, some with status bar indicator (it shows each chapter with a tiny dot and also your reading progress … with more dots), some without table of content – even though all eBooks are in .azw format. I suppose it depends on the digitize process from each publisher.
  • The bottom location indicator is useless, that will be better if it shows which chapter you’re reading intead.
  • Keyboard is usable but not great, it is a pain to add notes to a book, really.
  • You can bookmark a page easily, but to retrieve it thru a search is not that easy – the search result page is not that useful after all.
  • The built-in dictionary is good.
  • There is no Kindle 2 Cover shipped with Kindle2, you have to buy separately.
  • PDF support is a joke, but you can partially fix it.

Kindle for iPhone

  • The screen is surprisingly good, and easy to read (with different background colors)
  • Good for short books, and you can read it anytime even you don’t have the big brother Kindle with you.
  • Next / Previous page gesture is even better than buttons in Kindle 2
  • Version 1.1 includes orientational lock and paper color
  • Whispersync is good (I tried it once in a trip to US), but not for non-US users

In summary, the Kindle 2 is not cheap but I think it worths every penny.

So, what are the books I finished so far with the Kindle ? Here you go:

Note: The above URLs link to the physical books, from there you can choose Kindle version if you want to.

Author: Michael Yung

Michael possessed over 30 years of experience in Information Technology with focuses on complex application development, database technologies and IT strategy. He also spent the last 20 years in Internet technology, eCommerce development / operations, web usability, computer security and Public Key Infrastructure technologies.

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