MobileRead Forums - View Single Post - So, briefly, what do you think about the Kindle now?

markbot · 12-04-2007, 03:35 PM

I just got my Kindle and I'm absolutely in love with it. This is it. This is the ultimate service. The speed is great. I love the font....on the 2nd level of font, 2 kindle pages = 1 paperback page. The dictionary function is fantastic....looks up every word in the line. perfect. wikipedia is tremendously useful.

The one design decision I really like is the mirror lcd scroll thingy. Makes selecting much easier....hopefully in the future, the screen tech on the page refresh will be so fast that you won't need it though.

A few tweeks.

1) The leather cover sucks. I don't like leather....prefer imitation, except with shoes. They obviously didn't think of the cover when designing the device. Sort of a novice mistake....don't you think?

2) You must sample the books before you buy them. Not all ebooks are formatted correctly. I sampled this one book....and the text was completely wrong because it had line breaks cutting off sentences. It was meant to be read on a wider screen. Not only that, some ebooks don't even have a table of contents. Lastly, the ebooks need to have the chapter and section in the header. But this will all improve as Kindle specific editions come out.

3) In the future, publishers need a version with the footnotes embedded. We know the kindle can do user footnotes. There is no reason why the book publishers can't insert bookmarks into the passage. So far, none of the books I sampled or bought had any footnotes. Footnotes are abolutely worth money, especially in the more arcane texts.

4) When I go back and forth between the store and the kindle...I lose my place in the store and have to search for the book I was looking at. I suppose this might be semi-fixed by using the page forward? But still...if I go inside of a book and then go back to the store...I've lost my place in the store.

5) As with every single other person who has ever commented on the Kindle....they need to make the page turn buttons less easy to hit by accident.

6) I'm sure they are going to improve the technology over time. My suggestions are to improve the page refresh, improve typing...function of page refresh...and increase the processor speed...a standard upgrade. Also some other standard upgrades are to increase the gray scale.

7) I think there would be a market for a deluxe version of the Kindle. Something with a slightly bigger screen....higher gray scale, faster page refresh, faster processor...etc. Charge $100 more.

That's it for now.

12-04-2007, 03:35 PM	#90
markbot Guru Posts: 612 Karma: 7511929 Join Date: Apr 2007 Location: New York, NY Device: Amazon Kindle Paperwhite 2	I just got my Kindle and I'm absolutely in love with it. This is it. This is the ultimate service. The speed is great. I love the font....on the 2nd level of font, 2 kindle pages = 1 paperback page. The dictionary function is fantastic....looks up every word in the line. perfect. wikipedia is tremendously useful. The one design decision I really like is the mirror lcd scroll thingy. Makes selecting much easier....hopefully in the future, the screen tech on the page refresh will be so fast that you won't need it though. A few tweeks. 1) The leather cover sucks. I don't like leather....prefer imitation, except with shoes. They obviously didn't think of the cover when designing the device. Sort of a novice mistake....don't you think? 2) You must sample the books before you buy them. Not all ebooks are formatted correctly. I sampled this one book....and the text was completely wrong because it had line breaks cutting off sentences. It was meant to be read on a wider screen. Not only that, some ebooks don't even have a table of contents. Lastly, the ebooks need to have the chapter and section in the header. But this will all improve as Kindle specific editions come out. 3) In the future, publishers need a version with the footnotes embedded. We know the kindle can do user footnotes. There is no reason why the book publishers can't insert bookmarks into the passage. So far, none of the books I sampled or bought had any footnotes. Footnotes are abolutely worth money, especially in the more arcane texts. 4) When I go back and forth between the store and the kindle...I lose my place in the store and have to search for the book I was looking at. I suppose this might be semi-fixed by using the page forward? But still...if I go inside of a book and then go back to the store...I've lost my place in the store. 5) As with every single other person who has ever commented on the Kindle....they need to make the page turn buttons less easy to hit by accident. 6) I'm sure they are going to improve the technology over time. My suggestions are to improve the page refresh, improve typing...function of page refresh...and increase the processor speed...a standard upgrade. Also some other standard upgrades are to increase the gray scale. 7) I think there would be a market for a deluxe version of the Kindle. Something with a slightly bigger screen....higher gray scale, faster page refresh, faster processor...etc. Charge $100 more. That's it for now.