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catsittingstill · 03-26-2009, 12:44 PM

Review of the Kindle 2 (K2) compared to the Kindle 1 (K1)--Part 2 of 4

Reading and Reading Materials:

Page turning speed

The K2 is supposed to turn pages somewhat faster than K1. When I tried it (laying both Kindles side by side, displaying the same book and pressing the buttons simultaneously, one with each hand) Sometimes K1 was faster and sometimes K2. The page turning speed of the K1 didn't seem consistent to me; it was as though it had to think longer about some pages than others. Furthermore, on the slower page turns, the Kindle 1 was not "flashing black. It seemed to alternate flashing (faster) and non-flashing (slower) page turns, but pausing for 3 seconds between page turns make all page turns flash, and turn at the faster speed. With the next to largest font, the Kindles seem to be equally fast, even when I'm flipping through the book fast enough to trigger K1's "failure to flash." So I'm not sure what to think, except it's more complicated than "page turning is faster on the Kindle 2." The black flash is still present on the Kindle 2 when turning pages; I am quite used to it now and don't care, but I thought I'd mention it in case others find it bothersome.

Books

Instead of the row of dots that the K1 shows at the bottom of the page (bolded dots for "turned pages" and unbolded dots for "unturned pages"), the K1 has a hollow bar, with a line inside it showing your progress. There's also a percent read out (I'm presently 56% of the way through "His Majesty's Dragon" for example), and it shows not just the location(s) of the present page, but the last location in the book. So my current page is locations 2862-71 in a 5096 location book. I don't feel very strongly about that, but does give a lot more information about where I am in the text than the K1 did. The author's name doesn't display while reading the book anymore in K2 (K1 has it at the top right). The menu gives the option of reading the book description (at amazon, I think), which the K1 didn't offer, and, more interestingly, the option of searching within the book rather than all the Kindle content. One also has the option of adding a note or highlight from the menu, though this is so easy from the book page interface I wouldn't bother to trigger the menu for it. And last but not least is the text to speech option; which in "His Majesty's Dragon" is not disabled. More on that later.

Blogs

The user interface is much better on the K2; the progress bar below the text on the K1 has become more sophisticated, showing not just total length of the downloaded blog and where the reader is within that length, but having little squares for the beginning of each post within the blog, letting the reader judge article length as well as jump to the previous or next posts with a twitch of the joystick. In addition, the articles list is available through a highlighted button below the progress bar. On the K1 there is no simple way to jump to the previous or next posts, except for a "skip this article" link present at the start of some, but not all, articles, and going to the articles list requires clicking on the menu, running the cursor down to "go to articles list" and clicking on it .

Another nice feature; on the K2 you can save a whole article as a clipping, instead of having to save it page by page.

Web

The improved user interface makes it possible to pick one link out of a line, which means a lot less clicking and roller-using and clicking again. On the other hand, the joystick/screen slowness is noticeable here.

The Kindle is still kind of slow as a web browser. No big surprise there; it's made to sip data over the EVDO/3G, not gulp it. The novelty of having the web accessible from darn near anywhere is still with me, though. And being able to access mapquest from a moving car (no, I wasn't driving) has saved me a lot of time sometimes. I never was able to get the "locate yourself using cell phone towers" thing to work, but it's not that hard to pull an address off a nearby building.

However, I don't know if it's a cookie problem, a java problem or something else, but the Kindle can't stay logged in to sites like LiveJournal. I can respond to a public post as "me" but with the next page I'm logged out again. This means I can read public posts but not friends-locked ones, which is kind of a bummer. However as far as I can tell, that hasn't changed between K1 and K2.

Searching reading materials

Just start typing the search word/phrase. It appears at the bottom of the screen. If you're within a document the default option will be to search that document (very nice!). However with another twitch to the right of the joystick you have the option of searching all your items, the Amazon store, Google, Wikipedia or your dictionary: pick one.

If you're in the home screen and start typing, your default option is to search all your items, with store, Google, Wikipedia, dictionary and "go to" as options. "Go to" uses your search term as a url: for example I typed "interest" and picked "go to" and wound up at http://interest/ which was, of course, nothing, but at least you know how that works.

If you change your mind about a search in the middle, press the back button or twitch the joystick up to return to the book. You can also search by pressing the menu button and picking search; doing this from the home screen gets you a menu of options: items, store, Google, dictionary, Wikipedia, and web (I'm guessing the last option works like "go to"). Doing this from within a book works like just starting typing: searching within the document is the default option, twitching the joystick right brings up all items, store, google, wikipedia and dictionary.

However within a book, one theoretically has the option of searching "note" which supposedly searches annotations—I haven't been able to get it to work. It's greyed out, even in books that have annotations, even if the search term is in the annotation, and even if the search term is in both the annotation and the book. However searching the book searches both the text and the annotations. I wonder if note is intended specifically for searching footnotes?

Mode error note

When you are reading, the Kindle 2 cares where the cursor is. Most of the time while you are reading it's not visible on the page. In this condition, twitching the joystick down brings the cursor down from the top left (cursor appears left of the first word in the top line of reading material); twitching it up brings it up from the bottom left. Certain actions have different results depending on whether the cursor is visible on the page or not, so if you're not getting the actions you expected, check for that. For example if you type a phrase with the cursor in the document, you're inserting that phrase as a notation in the cursor location. If you type the same phrase with the cursor not in the document, you're getting ready to search for that phrase.

03-26-2009, 12:44 PM	#2
catsittingstill Guru Posts: 643 Karma: 551634 Join Date: Dec 2007 Device: Kindle 1.0.8, iPod Touch, Kindle Keyboard	Review of the Kindle 2 (K2) compared to the Kindle 1 (K1)--Part 2 of 4 Reading and Reading Materials: Page turning speed The K2 is supposed to turn pages somewhat faster than K1. When I tried it (laying both Kindles side by side, displaying the same book and pressing the buttons simultaneously, one with each hand) Sometimes K1 was faster and sometimes K2. The page turning speed of the K1 didn't seem consistent to me; it was as though it had to think longer about some pages than others. Furthermore, on the slower page turns, the Kindle 1 was not "flashing black. It seemed to alternate flashing (faster) and non-flashing (slower) page turns, but pausing for 3 seconds between page turns make all page turns flash, and turn at the faster speed. With the next to largest font, the Kindles seem to be equally fast, even when I'm flipping through the book fast enough to trigger K1's "failure to flash." So I'm not sure what to think, except it's more complicated than "page turning is faster on the Kindle 2." The black flash is still present on the Kindle 2 when turning pages; I am quite used to it now and don't care, but I thought I'd mention it in case others find it bothersome. Books Instead of the row of dots that the K1 shows at the bottom of the page (bolded dots for "turned pages" and unbolded dots for "unturned pages"), the K1 has a hollow bar, with a line inside it showing your progress. There's also a percent read out (I'm presently 56% of the way through "His Majesty's Dragon" for example), and it shows not just the location(s) of the present page, but the last location in the book. So my current page is locations 2862-71 in a 5096 location book. I don't feel very strongly about that, but does give a lot more information about where I am in the text than the K1 did. The author's name doesn't display while reading the book anymore in K2 (K1 has it at the top right). The menu gives the option of reading the book description (at amazon, I think), which the K1 didn't offer, and, more interestingly, the option of searching within the book rather than all the Kindle content. One also has the option of adding a note or highlight from the menu, though this is so easy from the book page interface I wouldn't bother to trigger the menu for it. And last but not least is the text to speech option; which in "His Majesty's Dragon" is not disabled. More on that later. Blogs The user interface is much better on the K2; the progress bar below the text on the K1 has become more sophisticated, showing not just total length of the downloaded blog and where the reader is within that length, but having little squares for the beginning of each post within the blog, letting the reader judge article length as well as jump to the previous or next posts with a twitch of the joystick. In addition, the articles list is available through a highlighted button below the progress bar. On the K1 there is no simple way to jump to the previous or next posts, except for a "skip this article" link present at the start of some, but not all, articles, and going to the articles list requires clicking on the menu, running the cursor down to "go to articles list" and clicking on it . Another nice feature; on the K2 you can save a whole article as a clipping, instead of having to save it page by page. Web The improved user interface makes it possible to pick one link out of a line, which means a lot less clicking and roller-using and clicking again. On the other hand, the joystick/screen slowness is noticeable here. The Kindle is still kind of slow as a web browser. No big surprise there; it's made to sip data over the EVDO/3G, not gulp it. The novelty of having the web accessible from darn near anywhere is still with me, though. And being able to access mapquest from a moving car (no, I wasn't driving) has saved me a lot of time sometimes. I never was able to get the "locate yourself using cell phone towers" thing to work, but it's not that hard to pull an address off a nearby building. However, I don't know if it's a cookie problem, a java problem or something else, but the Kindle can't stay logged in to sites like LiveJournal. I can respond to a public post as "me" but with the next page I'm logged out again. This means I can read public posts but not friends-locked ones, which is kind of a bummer. However as far as I can tell, that hasn't changed between K1 and K2. Searching reading materials Just start typing the search word/phrase. It appears at the bottom of the screen. If you're within a document the default option will be to search that document (very nice!). However with another twitch to the right of the joystick you have the option of searching all your items, the Amazon store, Google, Wikipedia or your dictionary: pick one. If you're in the home screen and start typing, your default option is to search all your items, with store, Google, Wikipedia, dictionary and "go to" as options. "Go to" uses your search term as a url: for example I typed "interest" and picked "go to" and wound up at http://interest/ which was, of course, nothing, but at least you know how that works. If you change your mind about a search in the middle, press the back button or twitch the joystick up to return to the book. You can also search by pressing the menu button and picking search; doing this from the home screen gets you a menu of options: items, store, Google, dictionary, Wikipedia, and web (I'm guessing the last option works like "go to"). Doing this from within a book works like just starting typing: searching within the document is the default option, twitching the joystick right brings up all items, store, google, wikipedia and dictionary. However within a book, one theoretically has the option of searching "note" which supposedly searches annotations—I haven't been able to get it to work. It's greyed out, even in books that have annotations, even if the search term is in the annotation, and even if the search term is in both the annotation and the book. However searching the book searches both the text and the annotations. I wonder if note is intended specifically for searching footnotes? Mode error note When you are reading, the Kindle 2 cares where the cursor is. Most of the time while you are reading it's not visible on the page. In this condition, twitching the joystick down brings the cursor down from the top left (cursor appears left of the first word in the top line of reading material); twitching it up brings it up from the bottom left. Certain actions have different results depending on whether the cursor is visible on the page or not, so if you're not getting the actions you expected, check for that. For example if you type a phrase with the cursor in the document, you're inserting that phrase as a notation in the cursor location. If you type the same phrase with the cursor not in the document, you're getting ready to search for that phrase.