Did the Kindle 3 change your opinion about Kindle/Amazon?

[Francesco]

I was one of those who complained all the time about the "lack of privacy of the Kindle," or its proprietary format, and what not. But after the K3 came out, my mind completely changed!!! Low price, great contrast, mp3 player, web-browser, WIFI , etc....
Now I'm a convert! How about you?

[cvkemp]

I do really like my K3 WIFI. I have been reading kindle books on my netbook for almost a year and when they came out with the K3 and WIFI only with the price I made up my mind to get it. And I am very very happy with it. It is so much easier to curl up with my kindle then with a netbook. my k3 goes with me every where.

[Dwayne_Matheson]

I was resisting an ereader, but when I saw the K3, its price and the reviews I guess I caved. I found my price point, it is around $139.00

[JeremyR]

Well, I was only looking for an e-reader. I don't care about wifi or a web browser.

I guess the Kindle 3 is okay, but it's somewhat soured me on Amazon where I've likely spent thousands over the years. I don't consider a form email telling me to call customer service to be very good customer support. Especially considering its their own product.

(I had problems with massive slowdown in sunlight with firmware 3.01. This was fixed in 3.02, but it would have been nice to get a reply from Amazon besides that form letter about calling CS support. 3 times they sent it. That's all they ever sent when I tried to communicate with them. Why an online company doesn't provide customer service only is beyond me).

Hardware wise, I hadn't seen any other e-reader, so I perhaps was expecting too much. But the contrast is not so great. I was expecting at least it to be like newsprint (black on off white). But it's black on light grey.

I posted about my problem with the cat hair getting stuck between the frame and the screen. That's annoying and seems like a result of poor build quality to leave a gap between that.

Beyond a few minor issues (like the mp3 player skipping a lot while playing a file and the slow page turns backwards and the lousy 5-way controller), there is also the book selection. It's not nearly as good as I hoped. Almost all the classics on Amazon.com itself are so poorly formatted that they are unreadable. (That's how I found this place). I don't see how a company that touts a big free library can find this acceptable.

Beyond that, if you buy books in Kindle compatible format from other companies, you're getting a poorly formatted product as well. You basically need to download the epub version and convert. And actually in both cases (from Fictionwise and Baen) I had to load the epub in Sigil, edit it to make it decent, then convert. This isn't amazon's fault exactly, but constantly having to convert a file to see what it looks like does add an extra layer of frustration.

Part of me thinks that perhaps e-books just aren't ready for prime-time yet. I think I probably should have waited another year to buy an e-reader, and then probably should have gone with something more like the Kobo.

But live and learn.

[desertgrandma]

Originally Posted by JeremyR

Well, I was only looking for an e-reader. I don't care about wifi or a web browser.

I guess the Kindle 3 is okay, but it's somewhat soured me on Amazon where I've likely spent thousands over the years. I don't consider a form email telling me to call customer service to be very good customer support. Especially considering its their own product.

(I had problems with massive slowdown in sunlight with firmware 3.01. This was fixed in 3.02, but it would have been nice to get a reply from Amazon besides that form letter about calling CS support. 3 times they sent it. That's all they ever sent when I tried to communicate with them. Why an online company doesn't provide customer service only is beyond me).

If I can suggest a reason?

When you call CS, they can actually ask permission to look into your Kindle from their end, try to find the problem, and reset if necessary. I've had that done in the past.

Your problem, of course, would not have been able to be fixed that way, but they had no way of knowing that without trying.

No one ebook reader is right for everyone, and if you are really unhappy with your K3, and are over the 30 day return period, I'm betting you could sell your k3 right now on ebay or even here, and make your money back. The one year warranty would transfer, and you could get a device you felt more comfortable with.

[zoran]

Originally Posted by desertgrandma

When you call CS, they can actually ask permission to look into your Kindle from their end, try to find the problem, and reset if necessary. I've had that done in the past.

Pretty scary. I was considering k3 for fine screen and wifi. My usage of
wifi would be to move files to and from, not to give access to the manu-
facturer. I assume I could handle most of problems I encounter during
configuring device, so I don't want little green people inside.
I see a lot of posters adore that very thing. Just as someone likes carrot,
which I don't.

[MrPLD]

To me, the K3 pretty much was an instant buy - the tech is becoming mature and the price hit the right place. Almost a classic 3rd-edition popularity explosion phenomena.

Paul.

[rty]

Let's be honest.... We ought to thank Barnes&Noble for bringing Nook to the market. Without it, do you really think Amazon would have come up with WIFI and the current price point for Kindle 3? I doubt so.

[zoran]

Originally Posted by rty

Let's be honest.... We ought to thank Barnes&Noble for bringing Nook to the market. Without it, do you really think Amazon would have come up with WIFI and the current price point for Kindle 3? I doubt so.

I doubt that too. Price goes down only if competition comes to town.
I've chosen kobo for epub support and lack of wifi/g3. Have to admit,
k3 sounds a bit better regarding the screen and go-to function. I don't
mind all about keyboard, since it was intended for process of buying
new books. Has it ever crossed out minds it was there for our pleasure?
No way.
Still, I see k3 as fine reader. Not so many users complaining about broken
<insert_something>. Good battery life. I'd only like space to grip it on
the lower part of the body. Epub too.

[Mr. Dalliard]

I love my Kindle, but, if it weren't for the masterpiece that is Calibre, I probably wouldn't have bothered.

[spacemonkey]

I always had a hankering for a kindle/other ereader, but the price was always too high. The K3 pricing made me an owner.

As to amazon? I love amazon, although the kindle drm is very oppressive. I am worried about the long term tie in and the monopolistic effect that will cause, just look at itunes store as an example of when these things go mass market.

Of course for me personally, DRM is irrelevant, for any sufficiently technical person, DRM is solvable, so if in the future I move to some non amazon ereader I'll just strip the DRM from my kindle books. Don't really care about the legal side of that as it's pretty much fair use to my personal moral compass.

[Josieb1]

I love my Kindle, but, if it weren't for the masterpiece that is Calibre, I probably wouldn't have bothered.

Me too. I had a Sony Touch 600, and it was only Calibre's ability to convert my epubs, PDF's and RTF's to MOBI which allowed me to move over to the Kindle as I read mainly fanfiction which is free on the internet.

NB: I should point out all the converted documents were DRM free and I convert the PDF's as they are text based and reflow correctly once on MOBI format

[avantman42]

Originally Posted by spacemonkey

I always had a hankering for a kindle/other ereader, but the price was always too high. The K3 pricing made me an owner.

I was similar. Two things happened to make me seriously consider e-readers: I got to play with one in the flesh, and they came down to my budget. I looked at various models, and in the end I went for a Kindle 3 with 3G. It arrived earlier this week, and so far I'm very happy with it.

[Mitsuya Cider]

I did not like the K1 or the K2. The K3 is something else, it's wonderful.

[EowynCarter]

Nope. Shop in France still using adept ePub. Kindle still don't read adept ePub. Kindle still fails !

Sony did move, they ditched their proprietary format, learned to justify ePub, got "touch" screen working properly. In the meantime, amazon have done pretty much noting to get things better.