Category: Book

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.

Buy Kindle books from outside US

The Kindle 2 / Kindle 3 is now available for overseas market as well. So please read the following blog post if your country is not covered by the latest scheme, or you want to know more about other Kindle information.

Got your Kindle ? Now time to buy some books.

If you are staying in US, buying Kindle books is easy. Just select your book, click the “Buy Now with 1-click” and Amazon will send the book to your Kindle with Whispernet in a matter of minutes.

However, you need different steps if you are not staying in US. Here is how …

  1. First of all, Amazon will not sell Kindle books unless you have a US address. Therefore, you need to change the billing address of your credit card to a US address (see my blog post on getting a US address for shopping).
  2. Next, buy your Kindle book as usual, click the “Buy Now with 1-click”. Then in your Kindle Management Page, scroll down to the “Your orders and individual charges” section. Find the book you just bought, and change the right most setting to “Download / Send to Computer”. Then you can save the eBook to your computer, and transfer to your Kindle with the USB cable. Simple.

Download eBook

Update 1 : I think I better specify couple more points – First, I use an American Express card and it worked (i.e. I am not sure whether other credit cards work like that or not). Second, I also needed to assign an US address in the 1-click payment method. Hope it helps.

Update 2 : Another possible approach (similar information here) is to use your International credit card to buy an Amazon gift certificate, and then buy eBooks using this gift certificate. Don’t forget to delete your credit card information first from Amazon 1-click payment setting. Hope it helps.

Update 3 : As mentioned in above update, you can buy Kindle books via Amazon Gift Certificate / coupon / card. May be it’s better if I detail the steps here:

  1. Opened a new Amazon account with an US address;
  2. Use your other normal Amazon account to email yourself a gift card;
  3. Use the gift card on your new Amazon account;
  4. Then, your new account has no credit card just a balance from the gift card;
  5. Register your Kindle to your new account, turn on the option one click buying;
  6. Buy a book with one-click with your new account and then download the book you bought to your computer;
  7. Hook up the Kindle to the computer and transfer the downloaded file to the document section of the Kindle;
  8. That is it !!

Update 4 : Looks like since end September, there are problems in buying Kindle books outside US. And that affect both Credit card and Gift coupon purchasing methods. One solution suggested is to use proxy services as looks like Amazon is checking the IP address of the order. You can find more details here for the moment, and I shall report back once I found a workable method to do that.

Update 5 : (2009-10-05) I tried to buy Kindle books with my Credit card method and it failed just like the Gift coupon method. However, since it is related to the check of non-US IP address, I just used Hotspot Shield to hide my IP address and then tried again. And it worked !! So, I guess it works as well for gift coupon method. However, this incident worried me a lot … For those who have not bought the Kindle outside US, please reconsider it before you decide to buy it. You may or may not able to buy Kindle books in future if Amazon enforce some checks again.

Update 6 : The Kindle 2 is now available for overseas market as well. So please read this blog post if your country is not covered by the latest scheme only.