Quote:
Originally Posted by cosmo1001
RFlash,
I'm seriously considering the Kindle, in large part because of being able to read the Washington Post on a crowded Metro train. I'm am VERY curious to know how your newspaper reading experience goes on the Kindle. Good to meet a fellow newspaper junkie on here...and good to know newspaper readers may finally have an ebook reader that allows for convenient digital content.
Jeff
|
Well, so far this is my newspaper experience:
New York Times
I was expecting something closer to their PDF version they send hotels, but instead it is a cleaned up version of their RSS newspaper with full articles, a decent table of contents, and a pretty good summary front page. Navigation is a little weak (can't skip to the 'next' article when inside of an article, only at the beginning or end), and I miss not having an overview of the home page like the Reader or even my BlackBerry can show. This could be fixed with a custom formatted home page. One picture is included per major article, so not too bad in imagery, but could do better. Overall, 7 out of 10.
TIME
This is just a copy of their RSS feed with no formatting enhancements. There is a functional TOC, but other than their logo, there are NO PICTURES and no other images (charts, etc.). Some articles are frustrating enough to include a disclaimer that says the article includes images and charts so you should go get a PDF or print version. What is funny is that the MOBILE version of TIME does include images, however uselessly small. Overall, 4 out of 10.
Mobile News Sites
These work better than expected, as long as you go to the mobile version of the various news sites. Think I am going to put together a web portal with all of these. But could use some custom formatting when Amazon releases (or people figure out) the specs for custom Kindle web page design. Overall, 6 out of 10. Amazon runs the risk here that unless they can get their news partners to better format their Kindle versions, we will all flock to wireless mobile news sites driving up their Whispernet costs through the roof.
Wireless Download
WOW! It's amazingly fast (NYT in under 10 seconds), automatic, and already 24 hours later I am taking it for granted. What the BlackBerry does for email, this does for news. If we only had custom formatted newspapers (maybe with time the various papers will see the benefit to that), this will be perfect. Overall, 9 out of 10.