For a limited time, Sony is offering a free code from the Sony Reader Store for a free download of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone when you purchase the Sony PRS-T1 Reader Wi-Fi.  You’ll receive the eCoupon upon purchase and registration of the new reader.  You’ll redeem the code at the Pottermore website.  The PRS-T1 is still available in red, black, and white for $129.99.  It would make a great gift for the mom who loves to read.

Check the related links at the bottom of this post for The Gadgeteer’s review of the Sony PRS-T1

Filed in categories: eBook Readers and Gear, News

Tagged: eBook reader, Harry Potter

Mother’s Day Gift Idea – Give Mom a Sony PRS-T1 eBook Reader with a Free Harry Potter Book originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on May 8, 2012 at 12:00 pm.

ReAuthored saves old hardbound books from the shredders and converts them into protective cases for tablets and eBook readers.  Books are selected for condition and size, then they are hand-customized into cases for your Kindle, Nook, iPad, or other similar devices.  You can choose to leave the exterior as is, or you can elect to have the exterior covered with light brown, black, or dark brown heavy jacquard cloth.  Your device will be held in with corner bands, and an elastic band will hold your ReAuthored cover closed.  Covers are about $40 – $60, depending on the device.  If your device isn’t listed, you can request a custom size to fit.

Filed in categories: eBook Readers and Gear, News, Tablet Computers and Gear

Tagged: eBook reader cases, tablet cases

ReAuthored Tablet and eBook Reader Cases Repurposes Old Books originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on April 30, 2012 at 12:00 pm.

We reported on Amazon’s Send to Kindle for PC utility when it was released, and now Amazon has released their Send to Kindle for Mac client.

• Send personal documents to your Kindle from your Mac.
• Drag and drop one or more documents on to the Send to Kindle icon in your Dock or launch the application and drag and drop one or more documents on to it.
• From any Mac application that can print, select the print menu and choose Send to Kindle.
• From Finder, simply control-click on one or more documents and choose Send to Kindle.
• Choose to archive documents in your Kindle library, where you can re-download them conveniently at any time.

I use this utility heaps across multiple Kindles on multiple accounts, it’s just so handy.

Available from Amazon for free.

Filed in categories: eBook Readers and Gear, News

Tagged: Kindle, mac

Amazon Send to Kindle – Now for Mac originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on April 27, 2012 at 10:00 am.

If you read your ebook reader a lot at night or in the dark, then throw away those additional lights or lighted cases.  Barnes and Noble have up for pre-order their Nook Simple Touch with Glowlight.  With a click of a switch you can turn on the GlowLight to illuminate the e-ink display.  Brightness is adjustable via a slider switch, and the unit also comes with a pre-installed anti-glare screen protector. With the now standard 6″ e-ink screen, the unit weighs in at 7 ounces .

“With GlowLight on at the default brightness setting, a single charge will last over 1 month with wireless off based on ½ hour of daily reading and a 1 page refresh per minute. A single charge lasts over 2 months with wireless off and GlowLight off based on ½ hour of daily reading time and 1 page refresh per minute. Battery life depends on device settings, usage, and many other factors. Battery tests conducted using specific units. Actual results may vary. “

Pre-orders are expected to ship on May 1 2012.

Screen and light effect simulated

Filed in categories: eBook Readers and Gear, News

Tagged: ebook, nook WiFi-only

BN Nook Simple Touch with GlowLight originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on April 19, 2012 at 8:00 am.

On Wednesday the U.S. Department of Justice filed an anti-trust lawsuit against Apple, Hachette Book Group, HarperCollins, Macmillan, Penguin Group USA and Simon & Schuster.  (Note: Hachette, HarperCollins and Simon & Schuster have tentatively agreed to a settlement and, if approved, should be removed from the list of defendants.)

In the past couple years our favorite gadget news sites have sometimes resembled legal reporter sites because of all the inter-company lawsuits, but this lawsuit is significantly different than those lawsuits. It also gives us a view of the effects of digital technology in the book industry, while shedding some light on Apple’s mindset when it comes to competition.

So, what makes this lawsuit different than the slew of patent cases we’ve been bombarded with over the past couple of years? Well, a couple of things. First, it was brought by the U.S. Government and not another company.  The government is going to try to show that the publishers conspired to and did violate the Sherman Antitrust Act (or what we lawyer types refer to as 15 U.S.C. §1). The Sherman Act was passed back in 1890 and was named after its principal author Senator John Sherman (Republican from Ohio). The act allows the U.S. Government to prevent private businesses from engaging in anti-competitive activities. Most notably, it is the law that prohibits monopolies and cartels (multiple companies acting as one).

By the way, when a case brought by the U.S. Government is announced in the courtroom, it is often done by the statement, “The People of the United States vs. ”. It takes a pretty hardened defendant or attorney not to understand the weight of a matter so entitled.

When companies are allowed to become monopolies or when a group of companies conspires to work together, the price of their products tends to rise. That’s when the U.S. Department of Justice is supposed to step in. There have been a number of famous antitrust cases bought by the U.S. against companies such as US Steel, Standard Oil, IBM, AT&T, and Microsoft.

Okay…for the three of you still awake, let’s move on to what happened in the e-book industry that led up to this.

When Amazon released the first Kindle reader, e-books started to become popular. One of the key reasons was that their prices were lower than their paperbound equivalents. That made sense to most people. The publisher no longer had to print books, buy paper stock, or ship and take returns on their books. Amazon also no longer had to purchase and hold them in inventory or put them in a box to ship to their customers. So, by removing these costs, publishers and eBook sellers could retain their profits simply by deducting their cost savings from the price of the book.

Prior to 2010, e-books and paperbound books were sold to resellers at a 30% – 65% discount off the cover (retail) price and the resellers were then free to set their own selling price. So, if a book had a list price of $20 and the reseller paid $8 for it, the store could sell the book at any price it wished with the difference between the selling price and the cost being the gross profit on the item. Consumers could then shop around for the best price on that book.

Amazon began pricing e-books aggressively ($9.99 or lower) in order to increase sales volume and make the Kindle more attractive to purchasers. Not surprisingly, people began to buy e-books rather than their paper-based equivalents—and publishers panicked. You see, they had a problem. While the money made on e-books was roughly equivalent to the sale of a paperback edition, it wasn’t nearly as much as the profits garnered from much higher-priced hardcover editions.

Popular books are generally released in hardcover first, at cover prices ranging from $20 – $50; then six to nine months later the paperback version would retail at $5 – $15. The publishers, who appear to have had a little more foresight than their cousins in music and video, understood that the majority of their customers preferred reading on e-readers and that e-books were soon going to dominate their overall sales. This meant that delaying e-books releases wasn’t going to push people to buy the more expensive hardcover version earlier.

The publishers also considered a sliding scale, with pricing of e-books depending on when they were purchased. So that on the first day of availability, the publisher would list an e-book at $25, and then drop the price as time went on. Once again, this idea was discarded as causing customer confusion and discontent.

The publishers were fearful that Amazon was going to become so dominant in this new marketplace that it would have too much power in their ongoing dealings. Publishers prefer to have at least several resellers sell their products so that no single entity can dictate the terms of their business relationship.

Book sales were already under increasing pressure from other forms of media, and then along came Steve Jobs. He had an idea that would help the publishing industry increase their selling prices, reduce Amazon’s dominance in book (especially e-book) sales, and secure Apple’s own black bottom line. Oh, and if it flew in the face of antitrust laws and competition, so be it.

Apple was about to release the iPad, and while we all recognize it as a hit product now, no one was quite so sure back then. Steve Jobs knew he needed to include books along with music and video in the iTunes market place, but didn’t want to get into a pricing war with Amazon. So he convinced (I have a feeling it wasn’t all that hard to sell) the major book publishers to change from selling their products at a discount off a variable list price to selling them at a fixed price and then giving the reseller a 30% rebate or commission. This is usually called an “agency model”.

All e-books resellers are contractually obligated to sell books at the price stated by the publisher.  If resellers discount the price, not only will they will not receive a commission, but they could lose the rights to sell a publisher’s entire library.

Within a month of the iPad’s release and the adoption of the new agency model, consumers were now paying 33% – 50% more for e-books and there was no pricing competition. All resellers charged the same price. Amazon now puts a note by the price of all affected e-books that the price was set by the publisher.

As a result of this industry-wide agreement, some e-books now cost more than they do bound and printed on paper. For instance, you can purchase George R. R. Martin’s A Game of Thrones four-book set as paperbacks for $21.00 from Amazon, but the e-book version sells at a publisher-fixed price of $29.99, the same price it sells for on iTunes, B&N and others.

I believe that Apple and several of the publishers chose not to settle because they know cases like this can go on for years. Eventually they may settle, but they may be able to wait out the current administration in the Department of Justice and get a more favorable settlement, or the case may be dropped entirely.

Anti-trust cases tend to be very complex, with the government bearing the burden of proof.  In order to pursue a violation of this sort, they must allege and ultimately prove that the defendant entered into a contract, combination, or conspiracy, and that it resulted in an unreasonable restraint of trade. While the actual measure is not the “beyond a reasonable doubt” that we’re all familiar with from the criminal trials that often make headlines, it still won’t be an easy case to prove.

Although, it will be some time before a decision of any sort is rendered in this case, it is undisputed that all of the major publishers shifted to a different pricing model around the same time and that it caused the price of e-books to increase substantially.

As for Apple, while it may have been the instigator of this action and certainly has benefited, it still took the publishing companies’ agreement for this to happen. I believe the only real harm Apple will suffer is a diminishment of their reputation among some consumers.

In a public release after the lawsuit was filed, Apple claimed that it did not collude with the publishers and that by opening the iBook store, they have broken Amazon’s monopolistic hold on the e-book industry. They compare their approach to book selling to the way they allow publishers to set prices on apps in the app store.  In my mind, if Apple had opened their iBook store under a standard pricing model, they still would have done well. But the thought of having to compete on price with other e-book resellers wasn’t to their liking. Apple also failed to mention that the sale of music, which is truly analogous to books, through their iTunes store is not under an agency model, but instead follows the more traditional resale model.

As I wrote earlier, anti-trust actions can be very complex, and Apple and the publishers will present a number of defenses and cite cases where minimum pricing has been allowed. I believe those cases to be significantly different than this current action. Perhaps as this case and story unfolds, we’ll keep a running dialog going in the comments section.

If the vast majority of an industry is allowed to work in lockstep on pricing and business terms, it could set a very bad precedent.

Filed in categories: eBook Readers and Gear, News

Tagged: anti-trust, ebooks

It’s About Time! DoJ Sues Over E-book Price Fixing originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on April 15, 2012 at 10:01 am.

The day long awaited by ebook fans is finally here – the complete Harry Potter series is available as ebooks!  Even though the books are being advertised at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Sony ebook stores, you’ll be redirected to Pottermore to purchase the books.  They are compatible with most popular ebook readers, tablets, and smartphones;  see the complete list here.  The first three books are $7.99 each; the last four are $9.99 each.  You can buy the complete set for $57.54, a 10% discount.  You’ll need to create a new account at Pottermore and use a credit card to make your purchase.

Filed in categories: eBook Readers and Gear, News

Tagged: ebook, Harry Potter

Harry Potter Now Available as eBooks originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on March 29, 2012 at 9:14 am.

How fast do you read?  I read a lot, and I can read fast, which came in handy when I was in college.  Now that I mostly read for pleasure, I’ve slowed my speed down.  When I heard about a new app at Staples that measures your reading speed, I was interested to give it a try.  With the What Speed Do You Read app, you read a page from a classic novel (War of the Worlds, Alice in Wonderland, or The Wonderful Wizard of Oz), then answer questions about what you’ve read.  The app then determines your speed and compares you to other readers.  I scored 490 words/minute reading the page from War and Peace and answered all three questions correctly, so I could finish the book in 19 hours, 59 minutes at that speed.  The app also tells me how many average-length books I could read on various ebook readers before I’d need to charge it again.  At that speed, I could finish 6.5 books before needing to recharge my Sony PRS-T1 reader.  How fast do you read?

Filed in categories: eBook Readers and Gear, News

Tagged: Reading app

How Fast Do You Read? originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on March 20, 2012 at 1:00 pm.

The ePillow by Veyl Products LLC is a large, soft pillow with a U-shaped ridge designed to comfortably and securely hold a tablet or e-reader in a usable position for extended periods. If you have an Android tablet, iPad, or one of the heavier eReaders (for example, a Kindle Fire which comes in at about a pound), you’ve probably discovered that holding one of these in a “view a film” or “read a book” position for more than a few minutes isn’t really pleasant. In fact, you’ve probably propped yours up against a pillow or other object to try and ease the strain of holding it up… only to have it slide down (or off!) after a while. In a plane or car it’s even worse, since you’re far more limited in available space to make some kind of prop. This is the problem the ePillow is trying to solve – and it does so simply and effectively.

The ePillow Front and Back

The first shot above is the front of the ePillow. It’s a large (18″x11″) soft, light (honestly I have no idea – less than a pound for sure) and fluffy (about half a foot thick, if fluffed, or compressing down to a few inches) pillow. It comes in either a suede or faux leather finish for the pillow itself in seven colors. The “retaining ridge” is faux leather in black, gray, or pink. There’s a little pocket on the right side for your headphones or a microfiber wipe.

The back just has a strap for easy airplane carry-on – slide the ePillow onto your roll-on luggage and you’re done.

iPad Pillow Fight

This is a simple product, so I’m not going to belabor the point. Pretty much the goal of this thing is to sit there and hold a tablet. I took it for a spin with an iPad2 in portrait and landscape orientation:

The bottom lip of the retaining material is deeper than it seems at first look, which lets you slide the iPad down for a secure hold. Even just sitting on a table for a photograph, the ePillow keeps the iPad at a comfortable “sitting next to it” viewing angle. On a plane on the tray table, or in your lap in a car or plane, the iPad is easy to see. The ePillow is firm enough to hold the iPad steady for navigation (swiping and pressing), but I found it to have a little too much give for serious typing. Not that I can do much serious typing on glass anyway, but I have seen people pound away at their iPads when typing out an email, and I think the ePillow would make that even less accurate than it already is.

In portrait mode you’ll really be thankful for that deep lip, as the ePillow will easily keep your iPad upright without worry that it will flip or fall out. I found reading with the ePillow to almost rival the comfort of hand-holding my tiny 6 oz Kindle. You can also clearly see in this photo that the ePillow has no trouble accommodating an iPad with its Smart Cover attached and flipped back.

10.1″ Android Tablet

Next up is my Viewsonic gTablet; coming in at an inch wider and a quarter pound heavier, this thing really isn’t comfortable to handhold for extended periods.

Horizontally, it’s definitely pushing the limits on width, but it does fit – I’d say this is about as wide as you can go. Also, you should note that with both devices, the front bezel is obscured on the bottom by the lower lip of the ePillow – after all it is slotted down there to hold the thing in place. If you have a tablet with a very narrow, or no front bezel, you might lose some screen viewing/access when it’s in the ePillow.

Portrait mode on the longer gTablet still works just fine on the ePillow. In fact, I was able to actually find a good viewing angle (the gTablet has a pretty horrible screen) and maintain it comfortably for nearly an hour of reading with the ePillow. I’d pretty much given up on the gTablet for reading because it is normally so hard to find a good angle and hold it there, even using pillows or other props.

A Simple Idea That Works

The ePillow isn’t a complicated product. It’s a pillow with a retaining lip, pocket, and strap. The construction is solid – it looks like it will hold up to use and travel. It’s light enough to bring along on a trip, and it’s easily mistaken for a regular pillow so it can be left hanging about the living room. If you use a tablet weighing a pound or more, between 7 and 10.5″ wide, the ePillow will give you a lot of options for comfortably holding it for extended periods.

Filed in categories: eBook Readers and Gear, Reviews, Tablet Computers and Gear, Travel Gear

Tagged: Universal Tablet Stand

ePillow Tablet and eReader Stand Review originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on March 20, 2012 at 11:00 am.

id America has announced the Cushi for Kindle Fire, a back skin made of durable EVA foam.  The first design is called “Dream”; this playful design is embossed in the EVA foam for an almost 3D look.  The skin improves your grip and protects against knocks and scratches.  Cushi removes easily without leaving residue behind.  It comes with a crystal-clear protective film for the screen and a squeegee and microfiber cloth.  Cushi for Kindle Fire will be available on March 20, 2012 for $19.95 at the id America website.

Filed in categories: eBook Readers and Gear, News

Tagged: eBook Reader accessories

id America Announces Their First Kindle Fire Accessory originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on March 14, 2012 at 10:00 am.

Scholastic Books have released reading app and ebookstore for children.  The Storia app is available for Windows and for iPad, and it comes with five free ebooks and access to the Scholastic ebook store.  Books have been carefully curated into age-appropriate groups, so you’ll know what’s right for your child.  Storia has a built-in dictionary to define and pronounce words the child highlights, and some titles are Enriched eBooks with activities to help develop reading confidence and critical thinking skills.  You can monitor your child’s progress through a book and see how many pages they read, how many new words they learned, and how long they spent reading each day.  If your child’s teacher participates in Scholastic Book Clubs, your Storia ebook purchases will earn rewards for the teacher.  Both the iPad app and the Windows apps are free, and they are available now.

Filed in categories: eBook Readers and Gear, iPhone, iPad, iPod related, News

Tagged: eBook reader app, eBook reader software

Scholastic Books Storia eReading App for Children originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on March 10, 2012 at 9:00 am.

At this point in time Amazon will only ship the Kindle Touch WiFi to Australia.  Up for preorder now on both BigW and Dick Smith is the Touch WiFi for $185AU for release on March 5th and the Touch 3G for  $249AU for release on the 13th of March.

The only question I’ve got is why ? To grab a Touch WiFi direct from Amazon is only $150.98US shipped, which is even less in $AU with the Aussie Dollar so high at the moment.  I suppose it’s for those people who aren’t internet savvy or don’t like buying online and would rather support local suppliers. The $30AU+ difference could certainly purchases a few Kindle Books

Filed in categories: eBook Readers and Gear, News

Tagged: australia, Kindle

Kindle Touch Available in Australia… But at What Price? originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on February 23, 2012 at 8:00 am.

The Genius Leather Case for Kindle Fire is a case, stand, and a wrist strap all in one.  ZooGue guarantees the Genius “is the most convenient/functional case on the market or your money back.”  The Genius is a protective case; the Fire is held in a leather frame and the screen is covered when the case is closed.  It’s a horizontal or vertical stand that holds the Fire at almost any angle.  There’s an elastic strap you can slide your hand under to give you a secure grip on the case as you read.  You can even pull the leather frame out of the case (attached with Velcro) and leave the rest of the case at home when you want to travel light. The Genius is available in black or pink for $39.99

Filed in categories: eBook Readers and Gear, News

Tagged: Case and stand, Kindle Fire

ZooGue’s Genius Leather Case for Kindle Fire originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on February 20, 2012 at 1:00 pm.

At this year’s CES, Solarmio introduced the world’s first solar e-reader cover for the Kindle and subsequently became a Design and Engineering Award honoree for the same device.

The SolarKindle is a protective case with a solar panel affixed to the front, an internal backup battery, and a built-in LED reading light.  The Kindle “snaps” into place in a form-fitting interior compartment.  When the case is exposed to sunlight, it will start charging the Kindle.  Once the Kindle is at full capacity, it switches over and gives a charge to the internal battery, which powers the LED reading light.  If sunlight isn’t available, the Kindle can be charged using this battery as well.  Since charging times depend on sun intensity and other factors, a rough estimate is that an hour of direct sunlight will provide a Kindle with up to three days of power.

Right now this case is only compatible with Kindle 4, with products being planned for the Kindle keyboard, Kindle Touch, and other models in the future.

The SolarKindle case is available through Solarmio for $79.99

Filed in categories: eBook Readers and Gear, News

Tagged: Kindle lighted case, solar charger

Harness the Power of the Sun for Your Kindle originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on February 17, 2012 at 9:00 am.

If your Sweetie has been wanting an ebook reader, you can give him/her a Sony PRS-T1 for Valentine’s Day for only $99.00.  (Read The Gadgeteer’s review of the Sony PRS-T1.)  Sony has reduced the price on their latest reader for a limited time, bringing the price of their touchscreen, WiFi-enabled reader in line with that of the Kindle Touch – only there’s no ads on the Sony PRS-T1 like on the $99 Kindle Touch.  The Sony PRS-T1 is available in red, black, or white at Sony.

Filed in categories: eBook Readers and Gear, News

Tagged: eBook reader

Just in Time for Valentine’s Day – Price Reduction for Sony PRS-T1 Readers originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on February 10, 2012 at 1:42 pm.

Gadgeteer reader Sandee Cohen writes in with some potentially good news for Amazon Kindle Keyboard owners:

Julie,

You might want to write this up as a post.

I got a Kindle Keyboard model Christmas 2010. ByNovember 2011, some of the letters on the keyboard had started to fade. (I play a lot of word games that require typing on the keyboard.)   By the end of January 2012 the “I” “O” and “A” were completely blank. And it was very hard to read the “S”.

I wrote to Kindle-feedback@amazon.com and told them how disappointed I was with the situation.   Almost immediately I got an email back telling me to contact Amazon by phone. (They have a cool way of entering your phone number on their web site and then your phone rings and Amazon is on the line.)   After explaining the situation, the fellow told me that “your machine is out of warranty, but we make an exception for this issue.”   I take that to mean that this is a known problem with the Kindle Keyboard versions. And although Amazon doesn’t sell the keyboard models anymore, they do have ones available to exchange for damaged ones.

The new machine arrived and indeed the letters on the keyboard are raised from the plastic and look like they will last much longer.   I think this information should be made more public so those who are struggling with faded letters can get a new machine.

Perhaps you will use the Gadgeteer to publicize it.

Best,
Sandee Cohen

Note: Images can be clicked to view a larger size.

I asked Sandee to send me some close up images of her old Amazon Kindle Keyboard reader and the replacement she just received.

Old Amazon Kindle Keyboard	New Amazon Kindle Keyboard

In the image on the Left, you’ll notice the I, O and L keys are worn pretty badly. Sandee commented that they look much worse in real life than they do in these macro shots.

It’s good to know that Amazon will replace this older model eBook reader even when it’s out of warranty. That’s great service!

Thanks to Sandee for sending in this info. Hopefully it helps someone else.

Filed in categories: eBook Readers and Gear, News

Tagged: Amazon, Kindle

Does your Kindle Keyboard have fading letters? Amazon might send you a free replacement originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on February 4, 2012 at 1:00 pm.

In my article Amazon Kindle 3G-The Perfect Travel Companion, I talked about how useful I found my 3G Kindle while travelling overseas.  One of the comments left on that article pointed to a blog that said that Vietnam was one of the only places that the author couldn’t get any 3G signal.  This confused the heck out of me, as I had full coverage (and also full web access) from North to South for the 3 weeks I was over there. What was going on?

US Kindle 3 3G Coverage

I went to Amazon.com to look at the 3G coverage map. Huh? No 3G coverage in Vietnam? Had I slurped back too much Pho, or had the sun addled my brain, or was it just like an episode of Dallas and it was all a dream?

Then I remembered there’s actually two versions of the 3G Kindle , a US one that is only available in the US and uses an ATT sim card and also an International model that uses a Vodafone sim card.  Now, Australia being NOT being part of the US meant I had an international model. So I went to Amazon.co.uk and check the Vodaphone 3G coverage map there.

Intl Kindle 3 3G Coverage

So you can see while the US (ATT) Kindle 3 offers ZERO 3G coverage in Vietnam, the International version (Voda) gives almost full 3G coverage. The same applies for Cambodia.

US Kindle 3 3G Coverage

Intl Kindle 3 3G Coverage

Tasmania US v Intl 3G Coverage

For interest sake I then had a look at Australian coverage.  I live in Tasmania, that little island just underneath Victoria, but couldn’t get my screenshot to include in the map above, so I added separately. (We hate being left off the map of Australia ).  You can see  that there’s dramatically different coverage between the International and the US Kindle 3 3G . Looking at the maps above, in reality I’d be much better off with a US Kindle 3 3G than the International model. Vodafone has notoriously bad coverage in Australia and I can tell from the ATT coverage that they’re partnering on the Telstra 3G network. It’s a bit ironic that a US Kindle would give me better coverage than an “International” version.  But of course if I had a US model, I’d have NO coverage while in Vietnam.

A quick comparison of the maps shows some obvious areas where coverage is different, Morocco (I), Namibia(I), Ghana(I), Belarus(I), Malawi(I),Ecuador(U), Tanzania(U) and Bolivia(U) amongst others, and the degree of difference in coverage varies.

I’m guessing that this “anomoly”  has to do with the partners that the respective Telcos have in the different countries. The long and short, if you’re intending to use your Kindle while travelling, it’s worth checking out if the US or International will give you the best coverage in the countries that you’re going to visit. Be aware though that it’s not possible to get a US Kindle 3G directly from Amazon internationally and conversely an International Kindle 3G in the US, but there are ways of doing it.

Happy travelling

Filed in categories: Articles, eBook Readers and Gear, Travel Gear

Tagged: 3G, Kindle, Travel gear

Amazon Kindle 3 3G International Coverage – US vs International model originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on February 3, 2012 at 11:00 am.

Amazon introduced their first Kindle device back in 2007 when the dedicated eBook reader population was made up almost exclusively by Sony’s Reader line of products. The eReader population has grown to include more brands than I can count and in the last 5 years, we’ve seen the technology in this category evolve from e-Ink devices to readers with color LCDs. After several popular e-Ink Kindles, Amazon’s first color device is the Kindle Fire. Although it may look and act like a tablet, Amazon does not want you to compare the Fire to an iPad or dedicated Android tablet. They say the Fire is just a content consumption device for books, magazines, music and video.  Of course telling people not to compare their device to other tablets, will cause them to do the opposite. I’m going to take a look at this already very popular device and let you know what I think.

Note: Click the images in this review to see a larger view.

Hardware Specifications

Processor: 1Ghz Texas Instruments OMAP 4 dual-core processor
Operating System: Android
Display: 7″ multi-touch 1024 x 600 pixel resolution at 169 ppi, 16 million colors
On-device Storage: 8GB internal (approximately 6GB available for user content)
Battery Life: Up to 8 hours of continuous reading or 7.5 hours of video playback, with wireless off. Battery life will vary based on wireless usage, such as web browsing and downloading content
Charge Time: Fully charges in approximately 4 hours via included U.S. power adapter. Also supports charging from your computer via USB
Connectivity: Wifi 802.11b, 802.11g, 802.11n, or enterprise networks with support for WEP, WPA and WPA2 security using password authentication; does not support connecting to ad-hoc (or peer-to-peer) Wi-Fi networks
USB Port: USB 2.0 (micro-B connector)
Audio: 3.5 mm stereo audio jack, top-mounted stereo speakers
Content Formats Supported: Kindle (AZW), TXT, PDF, unprotected MOBI, PRC natively, Audible (Audible Enhanced (AA, AAX)), DOC, DOCX, JPEG, GIF, PNG, BMP, non-DRM AAC, MP3, MIDI, OGG, WAV, MP4, VP8
Size (in inches): 7.5″ x 4.7″ x 0.45″ (190 mm x 120 mm x 11.4 mm)
Weight: 14.6 ounces (413 grams)

Included in the Box

Kindle Fire
U.S. power adapter (supports 100-240V)
Quick Start Guide

Let me start out by showing you how the compares to the iPad 2 as far as device size. For me personally, a 10 inch display like the iPad’s is the sweet spot when it comes to web browsing and magazine reading. The smaller 7 inch display of the Fire is definitely great for portability, but it feels cramped when I’m using it for web browsing and viewing magazines. That said, I find the screen size of the Fire to be just fine for reading books, watching full screen video and playing games.

The Kindle Fire has a very spartan design. It’s available only in Black and you’ll find no flashy chrome trim, LED status lights or menu buttons on this device. Actually it has only one button… a tiny power button located on the bottom edge.

The front of the device has the display with a narrow bezel around all the edges.

The display is crisp and clear, with colors that are bright and vibrant. It’s not Samsung brilliant, but it’s still very nice. The image above does not do it justice. It’s very difficult to photography glossy color LCDs like the Fire.

The back of the Fire is made of a soft rubber like material that attracts smudges and grease.

Along the top edge are two speakers. Don’t expect to be able to hear audio in noisy environments. Even at max volume, it’s not very loud. In a small room, it works fine though.

On the bottom edge you’ll find a 3.5mm headphone jack, micro USB connector for charging and the power button. That’s it. No dedicated volume buttons, microphone and no camera. These omissions definitely restrict the Fire from being considered a full fledged tablet since you’ll be unable to use it for Skype calls and other video chat type applications. The omissions do not end with the microphone and camera though. The Fire also does not include a flash memory card slot for file expansion and it lacks Bluetooth connectivity as well. The lack of Bluetooth means you will not be able to connect a wireless Bluetooth keyboard or headphones. The lack of a flash card slot isn’t a deal breaker since Amazon gives you free file storage in the cloud for all their content and the built in 8GB of memory (6GB available for user content) enables you to store 80 apps, 10 movies or 800 songs or 6,000 books directly on the device.

In hand the Fire feels really solid. It feels like a slab of Lucite with no flexing, creaking or cracking. It’s comfortable to hold in your hand because the edges are rounded and the back has a slight grip to it.

User Interface

The Kindle Fire is powered by the Android operating system, with a highly modified front end.

The home screen uses a familiar bookshelf motif that consists of multiple shelves. The top shelf is a carrousel / cover flow style stack of icons of the latest accessed apps, books, music, videos and webpages. You can flip through the icons by dragging your finger across the stack. I don’t really like flipping through the icons because frequently I’ll tap an icon and nothing will happen or it will flip to the next icon in sequence and launch that one instead. You can add your own icons to the bottom shelf, which is designated to hold your favorite apps, books and magazines. If you add more than 4 favorites, a new shelf will be created to add more. Then the whole home screen will scroll up and down.

At the top of the screen is a search box that will allow you to search the content on your device. As you type a book title or app name, you’ll see a list of matching items that filters as you continue to type the search criteria. The search feature will not drill down into books though. It will only allow you to find items based on titles, authors and artists.

Below the search box is a navigation bar that takes you to the 7 areas on the device: Newsstand, Books, Music, Video, Docs, Apps and Web.

Like other Android devices, you can view your notifications by swiping down from the top left corner of the display. To access the volume slider and other hardware settings, you tap the little gear icon in the upper right corner.

You will also notice a Home icon and back arrow at the bottom of the display. This is a menu that isn’t static on the screen. You usually have to tap the screen to have it appear. I really prefer a dedicated home button (and volume buttons) of some sort on my devices.

Reading Books

Here we see the book area. You can view your library by cover art grid view…

Or display it as a list which shows the title and author. In list view it also shows a percentage of how much you’ve read for each book.

It would be great if there was a way to file books in named folders, but the only way to organize the book list is by author name, recently read or by title.

Notice the Device / Cloud button at the top of the display. You’ll find these buttons on the Books, Magazines and Apps pages. When you’re on the device tab, you’ll see the books, magazines and apps that have been installed directly on your device in the 8GB of built-in memory. The cloud on the other hand, is an online storage space for you to securely store and access all of your own personal content, from your own personal movies, mp3′s, documents, etc. You can access your “Cloud Drive” on Amazon from almost any device that can access the internet.

Your amazon account includes 5GB of free cloud storage. For $20 per year more, you get 20GB of storage space, plus unlimited space for your mp3 music files. If you need even more memory, there are additional paid plans.

Of course you can access Amazon’s store to browse and purchase books. You’ll need a WiFi connection though as the Fire does not include built in 3G connectivity like other Kindle devices.

I like the interface for the store a lot. It’s simple and easy to navigate. I always found the store on older (non-touch) Kindle’s to be a little tedious to use.

I love that you can download a free sample of a book that you’re interested in buying. The samples show up in your library with the rest of your books.

I found the book reading experience on the Kindle Fire to be enjoyable. I’m already very comfortable reading on devices with a color LCD as I do almost all my reading on an iPhone. I always switch the background to black and the letters to grey, but you can also have a white or sepia background.

When you’re reading there are no distractions on the screen. Just words.

To see the clock, you have to tap the center of the screen. Turning pages is accomplished by tapping the left or right side of the screen. You can select words or phrases for a definition. You’re also able to highlight and make annotations.

You can then view your notes and highlights for each book by clicking the menu button at the bottom of the display.

Reading Magazines

Reading magazines on a 7″ display isn’t a wonderful experience in my opinion because you can’t easily read the magazine pages as intended due to the screen size.

The Fire’s magazine reading interface does offer a solution to that problem by allowing you to toggle into a Text Mode. If you look at the image above on the Left, that’s the normal magazine page. In order to comfortably read the small text, I have to zoom in. But if I toggle to Text mode as seen above on the Right, the article text is reformatted in more of a book style. Pictures are still shown and you can even search text. However, you can’t annotate, highlight or bookmark pages in magazines.

FYI: turning the Fire into landscape view makes things worse. It shows 2 magazine pages side by side with even tinier text.

Listening to Music

The music player on the Fire isn’t overly fancy. It has the necessary features to get the job done. Just remember, that the max audio output from the built-in speakers is pretty low and the Fire does not have dedicated volume buttons. The music player has a volume slider right on the screen though.

You can use the music player to stream music stored in your cloud drive. But of course, you’ll need to have a wifi connection to do so.

Watching Video

The Fire comes with a free month of Amazon Prime service. Amazon Prime gives you free 2 day shipping on tons of products and unlimited, commercial-free, instant streaming of thousands of movies and TV shows at no additional cost along with newer movies and TV shows that can be rented or purchased. For example, right now you can rent The Help for $1.99 for 48hrs. Or buy episodes of The Vampire Diaries for $1.99.

I did cartwheels (ok, not really…) when I saw that the original Star Trek episodes were available for free. I watched the very first episode, which I had somehow managed to have never seen. The episode streamed perfectly with no hiccups, pausing or stuttering.

It’s important to note that the Prime Instant Videos are streaming only. So you’ll need a Wifi connection to enjoy them. However, rented movies and purchased TV shows can be downloaded so that you can view them even when you’re offline.

Apps

The Kindle Fire is powered by Android, but you will not be able to access the standard app market with this device. You’ll only be able to use Amazon’s own appstore, which is a bit of a bummer considering that Amazon’s appstore does not include all the apps that the app market has to offer.

Don’t get me wrong, Amazon offers a very good selection of apps and even offers a paid app for free each day. But I hate not having it all. I’m greedy. One example of an app that I’d like to install on the Fire which is not included in Amazon’s appstore is the official Gmail app.

The good news is that there’s an email app included on the Fire. I set it up to connect to my Gmail account. Yay right? Well… not really. The app is ok for reading and responding to messages.

In portrait mode you can thumb type.

Or kinda touch type on a very cramped keyboard when in landscape orientation. But here’s the bad news… you can’t connect to your gmail/google contacts. What is up with that? Grrrr…

Good news again… you can use the Fire’s web browser to access your Gmail and your contacts.

Web Browsing

Browsing my favorite sites on the Fire is an ok experience. It’s not nearly as comfortable as browsing on the iPad due to the screen size though. You can browse in tabbed mode as shown above.

Or full screen mode, which gives you a few extra lines per screen.

In landscape mode, it’s much easier to read the text, but you have to scroll more often.

Browsing on a small screen can also cause frustrations when tapping links when they are small and next to each other. A lot of times you’ll need to zoom in so that you can tap accurately. I don’t know how many times I tried to tap something and would end up tapping an adjacent link and then have to press the back button.

Book marks can be viewed by thumbnail or list.

One of the touted gee whiz features of the Fire is this new web page loading technology called Amazon Silk. According to Amazon, it’s supposed to be a revolutionary Cloud-Accelerated “Split Browser” that dramatically improves web page loading times. Unfortunately, I really haven’t noticed it being any quicker than surfing on my iPad. If anything, it actually feels SLOWER to me. I wanted to do some speed test with my favorite Speedtest app, but guess what? It’s not in the Amazon market and my attempts to sideload it failed.

Another weirdness I noticed is that some flash based sites like CNN’s video pages, prompted me to install the latest Flashplayer and thought the Fire was an OSX device. Of course trying to install it didn’t work.

I had the same issue with Hulu.com. Android fans always brag about being able to load flash enabled sites but it feels hit or miss to me. I never really notice the lack of flash on my iPad because I don’t visit many (any?) flash enabled sites.

Performance

Changing from screen to screen, app to app, loading books, magazines, etc, all feels snappy. The Kindle Fire has a dual core processor, so it’s not laggy by any means. The only lag I can really complain about is with the web browser. I’m not the only one complaining, so I’m hoping and expect Amazon will improve the tech behind Amazon Silk.

Battery Life

No complaints here at all. Battery life is great. I can get days and days of use out of the Fire before needing to charge. Granted, I don’t watch many videos or surf for long periods of time using this device.

Conclusion

The Kindle Fire is already a wildly popular device because of its sub $200 price tag and Amazon’s brand reputation. The reasons why I like the Fire are its price, compact size, nice display, snappy performance and good battery life. The reasons why I don’t like this device are the lack of 3G, Bluetooth, dedicated volume and menu buttons, laggy web browser and no access to Google’s app market or core apps (Gmail, Calendar, etc.). I understand that this is Amazon’s first “tablet” device, so I’m cutting them some slack and am hoping that that future models will address at least some of these deficiencies.

I don’t consider the Amazon Kindle Fire to be a real tablet.  But it will be many people’s first taste of Android and using a tablet style device. I think this device is causing ripples in the tablet market which will benefit all of us. Even an iPad fan like myself.

Filed in categories: Android related, eBook Readers and Gear, Featured Items, Reviews, Tablet Computers and Gear

Tagged: Android, ereader, Kindle, Tablet

Amazon Kindle Fire Review originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on January 31, 2012 at 11:10 am.

I love my Kindle, and I love the Amazon ecosystem for the purchase and reading of novels but did you know that  you can extend  the functionality of your Kindle way beyond that?

The Kindles supports more than just Amazon’s .AZW book format (basically a .MOBI with Digital Rights Management-DRM).  From the web site the Kindle supports:  Kindle (AZW), TXT, PDF, unprotected MOBI, PRC natively; HTML, DOC, DOCX, JPEG, GIF, PNG, BMP through conversion.

So maps, pictures, articles and other useful stuff can be loaded onto your Kindle. Amazon promotes this and gives you up to 5GB for storage of personal documents. Anything archived here can be downloaded to supported devices or applications just like your Amazon books. When I’m travelling I like to keep copies of important documents like itineraries,travel insurance documents and medical documents on my Kindle.  That way they’re always with me and won’t get crumpled, lost or wet .

This is a short article to quickly cover the most common ways of getting your own documents onto your Amazon Kindle (note: I am not going to discuss DRM)

Please click on any of the pictures to enlarge the screenshots.

Direct File System

By plugging your Kindle into your PC or Mac, you can get access to the Kindle as an additional drive. This way you can just drag and drop supported files onto your Kindle.

Documents can be placed directly into the root of the document directory or can put into subdirectories. Similarly, audio files can be manually placed into the music directory or audible books into the audible directory.  Note that putting them into sub-directories does not put them into collections.

Useful if you’ve got you Kindle handy and just want the native file put onto your Kindle or if you have multiple documents to transfer. Just as a side point in the example above you’ll see two files with the same name but a different extension.  The .AZW is the ebook itself and the .MBP is your “progress” file for that ebook.

Advantages:

• No Wifi required
• Fast transfer
• Can transfer music and audible books

Disadvantages:

• Need PC/Mac and micro-USB cable and Kindle
• No conversion available
• Not archived in your Amazon Personal Documents storage

Personal Documents  Kindle Email

Amazon supplies you with two email address that allow you to send documents to your Kindle.

@kindle.com – your personal document will be received via either wifi or 3g. Sending via 3g on the Whispernet is chargeable, so you need to be careful how you connect by default ( as I found out from borrowing a friends Kindle 2 to test to see if I liked the Kindle and managed to rack up a $60 bill )

@free.kindle.com – will only send via wifi. Even if the 3g is your default connection it’s only the next time you connect via wifi  that the document will be downloaded (for free).

Where this is additionally useful is if you have multiple users and devices on a single account. In my example above I can send a personal document to one, two or all three of the Kindles attached to my account just by adding their email address. For security you nominate what email addresses are allowed to send documents to your Kindle addresses otherwise I’m sure by now Kindle spam would be a reality

If you send a document and put “Convert” in the subject line of the email, then Amazon will attempt to convert from your format to AZW format.  By converting to .AZW, you can then manipulate like a normal book: change font size and typeface, spacing, style, etc. The accuracy of the converstion depends on format and layout of the source document. You will receive an email when your document is ready for delivery and also a notification on your Kindle when the document is available.

Advantages:

• Does not require Kindle
• Can be initiated from multiple platforms as long as you have an email client
• Can be sent to individual user for multiple user accounts
• Can do conversions to .azw
• Archived in your Amazon Personal Documents Storage
• Can retrieve over 3g

Disadvantages:

• Author becomes email address.
• Can incur Whispernet charges inadvertently
• Document must be less than 50MB
• Email must have less than 25 documents
• Email must go to less than 15 recipients

Amazon Send to Kindle application

Amazon recently released their Send to Kindle app for PC.  Once installed, you then have two ways of sending documents to your Kindle.  You can either right click on a document in Windows Explorer and choose Send to Kindle, or you can use the Print function in almost any Windows application to convert your source to a PDF. You can choose whether to send it via Wifi or Whispernet. You can select whether to archive your document or not. Again receiving a document may incur a 3g Whispernet fee.

Advantages:

• Does not require Kindle
• You can rename the title and author
• Any source can be converted to PDF via Print option
• You get the option to archive in your Amazon Documents Archive
• Can retrieve over 3g

Calibre

Calibre is more than just a means to be able to send documents to your Kindle, it’s a complete e-book manager.  I’m not going to review the full functionality of Calibre here as that’s a subject by itself.  Calibre can be used to convert from pretty much any e-book format to another.  If you click on the picture above you’ll see that I’ve got two documents in my library.  By plugging your Kindle in, you can see that the green tick next to “Locked On” means that that document is already on my Kindle.  By highlighting a document and hitting “Send to Kindle” you can transfer documents from your library to your Kindle.  If you have a lot of documents you can easily see what is and isn’t already loaded on your Kindle.

Advantages:

• Fully featured ebook/document management (and more)
• Support for Windows, OSX, Linux and a portable (thumbdrive) version
• Multiple conversion options
• You can rename/modify any information about the document

Disadvantages:

• Not archived in your Amazon personal documents
• Need PC/Mac, micro-USB cable and Kindle

So there’s multiple ways to get personal documents onto your Kindle, each with it’s own advantages and disadvantages both in terms of procedure, operation and complexity.  One of the big differentiators is if you need the document to be saved into Amazon’s Personal Document storage either for sharing, archiving or for on/off-line access. Personally I use a mixture of all the methods mentioned above depending on my circumstances of what sort of document I need to send, what source format it’s in, what destination format I want it in, where I am and what sort of  ”resources” are available to me. One other thing to keep in mind is that if you don’t have a security code on your Kindle then if you lose it or it’s stolen then anyone can access your personal documents so be careful what you do put on

Filed in categories: Articles, eBook Readers and Gear

Tagged: Kindle

How To: Getting Personal Documents on Your Kindle originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on January 19, 2012 at 11:00 am.

Send a lot of personal documents to your Kindle but sick of mucking around with emails to get them there?  Amazon has just released the free Send to Kindle for PC  application. Using Windows Explorer, right click on any supported file format (.doc, .docx, .txt, .rtf,.jpeg, .jpg, .gif, .png, .gmp, .pdf) , and Send to Kindle will send your document to your Kindle Personal Documents ready to be downloaded to your Kindle device and supported Kindle reading application. You can also “Send to Kindle” from any Microsoft application that can Print and documents will be delivered in PDF format.

The application gives you the option to send to select Kindles if you’ve set your account up that way; however, it appears that there’s no convert option.  Be warned though, if you download this document to your Kindle using 3G (if you have the option), standard Whispernet charges will apply.

Available soon for Mac as well.

Filed in categories: eBook Readers and Gear, News

Tagged: ebook, Kindle

Send to Kindle for PC – Personal documents just got easier originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on January 13, 2012 at 12:00 pm.

If you like the look of leather and hair hides, Heidi Comfort makes covers and grips for eBook readers and some tablets that you might like.  The e-Accessories sets are sized to fit Kindles, nooks, Sony readers, iPads and other readers, or you can specify your device for a custom fit cover.  The envelope-style cases have Velcro closures and shearling inside to protect the screen.  You’ll also receive a hand grip, called the IT-Grip, that fits over your device to provide a secure grip while you’re reading.  The sets are available in a variety of leathers, and they cost $55-$65.

Filed in categories: eBook Readers and Gear, News, Tablet Computers and Gear

Tagged: Cases and covers

Heidi Comfort Leather eBook Reader Covers and Straps originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on January 12, 2012 at 8:11 am.

Solarfocus will introduce the SolarKindle cover at the Consumer Electronics Show today. With a built in reserve battery (1500mah) that will charge via USB or via an optional built in solar panel the cover also includes a built in LED reading light (800 lux) that will last up to 50 hours without using the Kindle’s own battery. The company claims that one hour of direct sunlight will result in 3 days of reading.

Currently only available for the latest Kindle non-touch however other models are in the pipeline.

The SolarKindle Lighted cover will be available January 15th for $79.99 from Solarfocus website and selected retailers.

Filed in categories: eBook Readers and Gear, News

Tagged: Kindle case, Lighted cover

Solarfocus Solarkindle Cover- Solar Powered Kindle originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on January 9, 2012 at 7:30 am.

An e-reader should be pretty simple to review, one like the Kindle Touch that has only two buttons even more so. Amazon‘s ebook reader has one primary task: displaying the pages of the reader’s books.  Sure, there are other features of importance like availability of content, size and weight, and overall usability issues. But in a world where we expect our mobile phones to do everything from telling us where we are and how to get where we want to go, to capturing high-definition video, playing 3D games, maintaining contact with multiple remote servers, and even making the occasional phone call, an e-reader is downright simplistic.

For something so simple, this review has taken me well over a month to write and has been a bit of a struggle. Part of that time was spent reading a few books on the device. I’m sure Julie (Editor-in-Chief of The Gadgeteer) thinks I chose Moby Dick and War and Peace, but that was hardly the case.  (They were actually John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men, Stephen Hunter’s  Dead Zero and Stephen King’s 11/22/63).

When faced with a challenging writing assignment, I try to have some fun along the way. I’ve sprinkled in a few quotes from some authors and other well-known folks here and there to give a hint about the following section. And while I’m you sure you’ll agree that the quote by Eleanor Roosevelt was directly related to her frustration with the lack of a quality light for the Kindle Touch, I may have twisted the context of some of the other quotes just a wee bit.

“All hope abandon, ye who enter here!” – Dante Alighieri

So, fair warning to those of you looking for a concise, specification-filled review of the Kindle Touch; you’re probably going to be disappointed, if not disgusted. A quick search will find plenty of those types of articles available on the web, some quite good and probably more informative and worthy of your time than what you’ll read here. As I begin this review I’m not sure if I like or would recommend the Kindle Touch. This is going to be a case of I’ll know what I think about the Touch after I read what I’ve written (my apologies to William Faulkner).

Without hesitation though, I highly recommend to anyone that enjoys reading to give one of the popular e-readers a try. They’re all relatively inexpensive and will enhance your reading experience. So much so you might rediscover that reading a good story might just be better than Facebook updates about someone’s kid graduating from preschool, or almost any YouTube videos. Well, except for the videos of people trying to swallow a tablespoon of cinnamon…

While reading those first three books on the Touch, I became frustrated enough to consider returning the Kindle to Amazon…once by using a brick as the delivery method. The great display, Whispersync, and my preference for doing business with Amazon kept me grasping for ways to get past some of its flaws. Mind you, there’s no killer problem with the Kindle Touch, but I have had to workaround, fix, and learn to live with some problems.

I have always enjoyed reading, but being naturally and profoundly lazy there was a period when I chose the ease of a remote control or the challenge of slaying dragons on a computer screen. Traditional books can be cumbersome. Even paperbacks can be hard to slip into a pocket, and carrying several on a trip can get heavy.  There’s also the issue of bookmarks, ripped pages, spills, pizza stains, and fighting with bindings while trying to read one-handed.

A couple of years back my wife gave me a Kindle 2 for my birthday. It was one of the best gifts I’ve ever received, and she enjoyed it too. The Kindle made it easy for me to get back into reading and gave her periods of much-needed relief from my constant babble. I have read over 120 books on that Kindle, mostly trash/bestseller type stuff (please don’t equate the number of books I’ve read with any form of higher intelligence on my part, as my wife and friends, and soon you readers, have more than enough evidence to the contrary).

I have carried my Kindle on several long trips and many short ones, everywhere from Moscow to the pickup line at my sons’ schools (and the bathroom too). The Kindle makes reading easy and portable. I prefer it by a wide margin to paper-bound books. The E Ink screen is easy on the eyes and works well with just about any light source from that of a tiny LED book-light to direct sunlight.

“Books are uniquely portable magic” – Stephen King

An e-reader should be the wand that triggers the magic – a tool that brings forth the pages of a book without getting in the way of the words. While smartphones, tablets, and computers can be used for reading, they tend to treat books like the written warning at the end of a prescription drug commercial. These devices generally have greater weight (or tiny displays in the case of smartphones), highly reflective backlit screens, cutesy page-turning animations, and cackling flocks of unfriendly fowl.  Reading on one of them is something you do as a last resort when you can’t connect to the internet, and you’ve slaughtered enough pigs to make even the most apoplectic bird content.

I didn’t upgrade to the Kindle 3 because I didn’t want to spend $200 on what I believed to be a minor upgrade. I was wrong. When it comes to e-readers it’s all about the screen, and the Kindle 3’s display was markedly better than mine. I figured I’d wait for the 4^th generation expecting the type of technological leap we’ve seen in computers.

The Kindle Touch currently has three siblings at Amazon. There’s the Kindle (starts at $79) a non-touch, non-keyboard e-reader that utilizes page-turning buttons and a “D-Pad”. The Kindle Keyboard 3G (starts at $139) which is really the Kindle 3 re-branded (it appears this model is only going to be offered until supplies run out). My test subject, the Kindle Touch, completes the non-tablet ebook reader family at Amazon, though they do offer the Kindle Fire, which is a 7” tablet with an full-color LED-display and ebook-reading capabilities.

Amazon is still fairly new to the consumer device design marketplace. The Kindle was their first branded device, and while the early Kindles were well-built, the physical controls and user-interface were a bit simplistic, and even rough, in parts. I was hoping that the Kindle 4 would bring an improved display, more comfortable form factor, refinement of the user-interface, better sharing and borrowing features, and a light that drew power from the device itself.

 “If you look for perfection, you’ll never be satisfied.” – Leo Tolstoy

Perhaps I was hoping for too much, and now I’m a bit disappointed in the Kindle Touch. I considered moving to the basic Kindle (non-touch-screen version), but the reports (Tom’s Hardware) of it having an inferior screen kept me with the Touch.

Author’s Note 1/4/2012: I recently purchased a Kindle (non-touch) and spent about an hour comparing text on the two with a magnifying glass. I don’t have a microscope at my disposal, but under a 10x magnifying glass I couldn’t see any difference whatsoever between the two devices on the same letters in the same words with the same font, and sizing chosen. The reviewers at Tom’s aren’t the type to sensationalize so I can only assume they got a bad device, or perhaps weren’t comparing pages that had both received a full refresh. At this time, I have to believe the screens are of the same quality and type.

“As soon go kindle fire with snow,
as seek to quench the fire of love with words.” – William Shakespeare

So, what’s to love about the Kindle Touch? Several things actually…but above all else it’s the fantastic E Ink screen. To differentiate the Kindle from the others, Amazon continues to provide and improve its best-of-breed “Whispersync” cloud service, and the new super-Index tool called X-Ray can be useful, or at least interesting, when reading non-fiction.

Nothing else would matter if the Kindle’s display wasn’t great. E Ink screens have really improved since the first two generations of the Kindle (which is substantially the same as the screen used in the previous model). The contrast, high reflectivity of the text, and slightly off-white background really cause the words to “pop” off the screen. It is the most comfortable, eye strain-free way of reading that I’ve experienced on an electronic device. Unlike its LED-screen based relatives the Kindle screen does not wash out even in the full-on Florida sun. It actually becomes a better reading medium than traditional books when you consider that readers can tailor just about every characteristic (typeface, font size, line, word and margin spacing) of how the words appear on the page.

The Kindle Touch and its major competitors from Sony, Barnes & Noble and Kobo all use screen technology developed by E Ink Corporation. For those of you unfamiliar with E Ink, it employs a magnetic-like process (particles attracted to either positive or negative electrodes) to draw the correct particles to an area of the screen, creating the desired characters/images. These highly-reflective particles make it possible to view the image in many types of lighting. The look is very similar to that of print on paper. The process requires only a small amount of power when first displaying the page, allowing E Ink devices to use smaller, lighter batteries that can go weeks or months without requiring a recharge.

“Size matters not” – Yoda

I’ve got to disagree with the little green guy on this one at least when it comes to e-readers. Size does matter in a couple of ways. The actual screen size of the Kindle (6-inch diagonally) is comparable to the size of many paperback books. That’s fine for general reading, but for those of you who are more interested in magazines, newspapers, or textbooks (unless you’re willing to give up the graphical element of those publications), you may want to consider a larger-formatted reader like the Kindle DX (9.7-inch E Ink monochrome screen) or one of the full-size tablets that come with color LED displays.

But for pleasure reading, you really want as much screen and as little anything else as possible. Or so I thought. The Kindle Touch is three-quarters of an inch shorter (6.8-inches versus 7.5-inches), slightly narrower (4.7-inches versus 4.8-inches) and about an ounce lighter (7.5 ounces WiFi/7.8 ounces 3G/WiFi versus 8.5 ounces/8.7 ounces) than its predecessor. The reduction is primarily due to Amazon’s decision to do away with the physical keyboard, moving it on-screen. The Touch is slightly thicker (.4-inches versus .34-inches) than the Kindle 3 and its non-touch sister model, most likely to allow for the touch-screen paraphernalia.

“You’re holding it wrong.” – Steve Jobs

When I first saw how small my new Kindle Touch was I was delighted right up until I tried to hold it with one hand and read. There is barely an inch of bezel on the top and bottom and six-tenths of an inch on each side. I found it difficult to hold the Touch and not have my thumb or its shadow covering part of the screen. Because it’s a touch-screen with no physical buttons for page-changes, your thumb or one of your fingers has to be close enough to easily reach the screen.

This was never a problem with the older Kindles as they had physical keyboards and buttons on the side bezel. You naturally held them by the side of the keyboard and extended your thumb up to hit the change page button. With the newer non-keyboard models, the best one-handed grip comes from putting your hand along the bottom corner of the Kindle and then extending your thumb along the slim bezel.

Well, the Kindle’s bezel may be slim but my thumb is not. As I tried shifting my grip I was quickly and annoyingly reminded that the power button, which used to be a slide switch located at the top of the device in earlier models, was now positioned on the bottom edge and requires just a light touch to wake or sleep the device.

The proper Kindle Touch grip appears to be to a modified pinch on either of the bottom corners with your thumb laying on the bezel along the side of the screen. That wasn’t all that bad until I added my Belkin “eBook Light for Kindle” to the top of the device. The 2.75-ounce clip-on light at the top of the device made the whole thing feel off-balanced. Coupled with the device’s thinness it became uncomfortable to hold. Amazon did attempt to make the Kindle easier to grip by applying paint with a rubbery-like feel to the back, but for me it isn’t enough.

Fat thumb and thin bezels don't mix well.

I tried to correct the problem by wrapping a couple of wide rubber bands lengthwise around the Kindle to give it a bit more grip along the bezel. This didn’t really do much more than convince my wife that the decline in my cognitive skills was accelerating. I considered Velcro, and even constructing a prosthetic finger. Eventually, as with all DIY projects, I grabbed the duct tape…this time, though, it was to attach the Kindle to a brick and return it via “air mail” to Amazon CEO, Jeff Bezos.

I then realized that it’s a great deal more pleasant reading in my den than a jail cell and decided to search the greatest catalog of “hazarai” (assorted junk for you non-Yiddish speakers) in history, eBay, for a solution. I found a very inexpensive leather case with a cover that wraps around the back. The case gives me something to hold on to, and has made holding the Kindle Touch with one hand much more pleasant.

While I was searching for a solution or at least examples of how others grasped their Touch, I noticed that almost every picture of someone holding a Kindle on the Amazon website featured a female model with slim fingers. Somehow, I don’t think that’s an accident. If you can completely cover a quarter with your thumb you may want to try holding a Touch with your favorite light attached before taking one home.

“It is better to light a candle than curse the darkness.” – Eleanor Roosevelt

Speaking of cases and lights, the Kindle 3 and now the Kindle Touch, both have contacts on the back for the purpose of powering a book light with the internal battery. Amazon has released a case with such a light but its $60 price tag is bordering on ridiculous when you consider that the Kindle Touch pricing starts at $100. Perhaps a third party will develop a clip-on light that utilizes those contacts, relieving us of the weight and replacement bother associated with batteries.

“Don’t judge a book by its cover.” – Edwin Rolfe

Despite the Kindle Touch being lightweight, thin, and constructed mainly of plastic, it has a very solid feel. There’s no discernible flex or creaks when you handle the device.  The Touch’s look is best described as minimalistic, featuring two dark shades of gray. This was a nice choice by Amazon as there’s nothing about the device to distract or reflect light back at the reader.

The screen is inset by about an eighth of an inch below the bezel. The riser up to the bezel can cast a small shadow and is black, making it a bit difficult to see the small font they used on the black status bar at the top of the screen. While you can adjust the size and many aspects of the fonts in the books themselves, the status bar has no such options.

Micro USB, headphone and power button are located on the Kindle's bottom edge.

The Kindle has two ports, a micro USB port for charging and file transfer, and a 3.5mm stereo audio jack grouped together with the power button on the bottom edge of the device. The back of the Kindle features grill holes for twin speakers, and between them sit the aforementioned power contacts. The only physical button other than the power switch is made up of four parallel horizontal lines and is centered just below the screen. Pressing this button returns the reader to the Kindle’s home screen.

What's in the box...

The Kindle Touch is shipped in a box designed to safely deliver the Kindle at a low cost. Inside you’ll find the device, a small instruction card, and a standard micro USB to USB charging cable, but no charger. I believe this was a bit too miserly on Amazon’s part and they make that worse by not mentioning the omission anywhere on their website.

The Kindle Touch is Amazon’s first attempt at applying a touch screen to the Kindle operating system, and it shows. There are several inconsistencies where the same gesture causes different results, and other instances where the reader needs to use a different gesture to accomplish the same task. I hope Amazon recognizes the importance of a consistent user interface and is working towards better incorporating touch into the Kindle operating system.

While touch screens are a necessity when you’re using a tablet and they’ve made smartphones far easier to use, there’s nothing about the touch interface on an e-reader that makes them significantly better than the alternative. Navigating the Kindle’s peripheral functions, like looking up the definition of a word, browsing in the Amazon store, and using the web browser is easier with the touch screen. Typing is certainly better than on the new Kindle (non-touch), but when it comes to that primary function of displaying pages of text, the touch screen is superfluous.

At some point in the future, I expect that to change as publishers begin to take advantage of the touch capabilities within the books themselves. I just can’t wait for the day when each page of my book contains a slew of contextual links granting me important options like the ability to purchase an “actual” replica of Harry Potter’s wand. Actually, I’m sure that incorporating links to peripheral information like diagrams, pictures, or even small apps will add to the value of some types of books, but isn’t that more in the realm of a tablet?

The Kindle uses IR (infrared) touch-screen technology which means there are a number of intersecting light beams over the display (this is probably the reason for the inset screen). This allows for touch (and sometimes near-touch) detection by anything, not just a bare finger like the capacitive touch screens found on most tablets. The downside to this is that almost anything can and will turn pages and sometimes flip through several of them. More than once I’ve had to back-track through several pages after something inadvertently contacted the screen. I don’t recall ever having that problem with physical page buttons. On the upside, it’s now possible to change pages easily with your nose, gloved hand, or the straw from your drink (take that tablets!).

 “A common mistake that people make when trying to design
something completely foolproof is to
underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools.” – Douglas Adams

The older Kindles and the Kindle (non-touch) model utilize page-turning buttons on the sides of the screen. Generally both sides had page forward buttons and there was a smaller page back button on the left-hand side of the device. This allowed the reader to hold the device with either hand and still turn pages. In order to accomplish the same functionality on a touch screen, Amazon developed their “EasyReach” interface.

As you can see from the picture above, the screen is divided into three segments: a large section for paging forward, a slim section along most of the left-hand side for paging back, and a section along the top for calling up the status bar and a contextual menu. Paging forward and back may also be accomplished with the now-familiar swipe in the appropriate direction. When holding the Kindle with my right hand, I touch to go forward, and use my thumb to do a short swipe to move back. On the left side, I just touch close to the margin to go back and reach with my thumb about an inch or so to page ahead.

The most serious interface flaw I encountered is the lack of visual feedback when you touch a screen element. Unlike computers and tablets where pressing a button with a mouse or a finger has the object change state in some way, there’s no similar indication on the Touch. Except on the home screen where touching an option causes the selection to highlight, and user interface consistency connoisseurs to cringe.

There are a few other incongruities throughout the interface and they can be a little bothersome, but the majority of the time Kindle Touch users will be reading books and the EasyReach system for changing pages works quite nicely.

“Much ado about nothing.” – William Shakespeare

Bill and I agree that way too much is made about page changing speed on E-Readers. This measurement is used both to show the improvement in e-readers from generation to generation and as a competitive claim among the various manufacturers. Even the most unhurried e-reader is much faster than physically turning the page of a book. So, while I guess the Kindle Touch is faster at changing pages than my old Kindle 2, I never felt like I was waiting on the older device.

While not as meaningless, Amazon has come up with a method of limiting the page refresh effect when a page change takes place. In prior versions each page change was met with the page quickly going completely black before displaying the new text. The latest generation allows readers to choose between that redraw occurring every page turn or every five page turns. I’ve never found the effect to be bothersome because it happens so fast, but for those that are, things are getting better.

“A wonderful thing about a book, in contrast to a computer screen, is that
you can take it to bed with you.” – Daniel J. Boorstin

Dan, the wonderful thing about a Kindle Touch is that you can bring roughly 3,000 books to bed with you, or on an airplane, a bus, the beach, or the bathroom. When you finish those you can wirelessly connect to a bookstore and have access to millions more. You can also borrow them from libraries and share them for limited periods with your friends. Oh, and should you forget your Kindle Touch, you can access all of those books through any device with an internet connection including computers, cell phones, and tablets. Amazon is one of the largest providers of cloud services in the world and they provide Kindle owners with free storage and delivery of books purchased through Amazon. Once you have purchased a book it will stay in your online library for as long as you like. You can also store up to 5GB of your own personal documents on Amazon’s servers at no additional cost.

Amazon also offers a variety of newspapers, magazines, and blogs via subscription that are delivered to your device on a regular basis..

Delivery is either through WiFi, which is built into all Kindles, or 3G service if you purchase the 3G model. The 3G service is included and unlimited for book transfers and browsing the Amazon store, but no longer allows for unlimited web browsing with the Kindle’s built-in browser. The browser handles mobile sites reasonably well, draws real usability benefits from the touch screen, and deserves to be removed from the “experimental” section it has been buried in since debuting on the Kindle 2.

While there are two versions of the Kindle Touch WiFi and 3G/WiFi, there are four prices. If you’re willing to let Amazon send you advertisements and special offers, the price of the Kindle Touch WiFi is $99. If you’d prefer not to get the ads it will cost you $139. The 3G/WiFi model costs $149 or $189.

I’d recommend purchasing the version with the ads. They do not intrude on reading in any way since they appear as a screensaver or as a small banner at the very bottom of the home screen.. Some of the offers are quite good and if you tire of them you can pay the difference and remove the ads permanently. While you can subscribe to the special offers if you have paid for an ad-free version, it doesn’t appear that Amazon will provide you with a $40 refund.

“Mozart’s music is like an X-ray of your soul -
it shows what is there, and what isn’t.” – Isaac Stern

Amazon’s new X-Ray feature enables the reader to quickly see every reference to a character (historical or fictional), phrase or idea within the book, how often and where those elements exist in the book, and then pull information from Wikipedia or Amazon’s Shelfari service. While I didn’t find a lot of use for this feature with the fiction I read, I can see where it could serve as a valuable aid in reading non-fiction and in fact-checking some of the more “inventive” biographies and books on history.

“I like to listen. I have learned a great deal from listening carefully.
Most people never listen.” – Ernest Hemingway

The Kindle Touch features a couple of audio services. You can use the device as a music player, although the limited memory (4GB) isn’t going to convince anyone to give up their iPod anytime soon. However, for those who like to read with their ears, Amazon owns audiobook retailer, audible.com. You can purchase and have your audiobooks delivered to your Kindle via Whispersync, but only when connected via WiFi. The audio player isn’t bad and the internal speakers are more than passable, although I’m sure most will want to listen with headphones.

The Kindle Touch also comes with a text-to-speech program. When the publisher approves it, you can have the Kindle Touch read the book to you. This isn’t an audiobook; it’s a computerized voice that mispronounces and generally stumbles through the text in your choice of a male or female monotone. Why the publishers ever thought this would hurt their audiobook sales is a mystery to me. You can get a few chuckles out of the capability by having it try to read some science fiction. A Kindle trying to interpret Klingon can either be hilarious or make you want to fall on your D’k tahg (dagger).

“All sorts of computer errors are now turning up.
You’d be surprised to know the number of doctors
who claim they are treating pregnant men.” – Isaac Asimov

My early experience with the Touch was soured by what appears to have been a corrupted system file. I initially loaded three or four books on to the device using a nice e-book management packaged called Calibre to transfer one while retrieving two others from my archive on Amazon. Everything became sluggish, page turns were irregular, and the device ignored some commands. Finally, while trying to open a book, I got an error message stating that the “app could not load”. The Touch then crashed and rebooted, and not long after did the same thing again.

I called Amazon and as has been my experience with them for the past 15 years, the customer service was very good. After a brief attempt at troubleshooting the problem, the rep offered me a full refund or an exchange. I chose the exchange and a new device was shipped for next-day delivery.

Since the device was broken I figured I might as well spend some time trying to figure out and fix the issue. This comes under the age-old male theory of, “If something won’t work, force it; if it breaks it needed fixing anyway.” I connected the Kindle to my PC and began rooting around in the various directories (kids, don’t try this at home especially with your parent’s Kindle unless you intend on getting a place of your own in the very near future). Being far too lazy to actually go through each file and figure out what it does, I decided to delete all the content I had installed.

When that didn’t correct the issue I made the determination that everything had to go (kids, see above warning). I then watched as the device did a complete restart. I have a feeling the Kindle then realized what might come next and formatted its memory and re-created its system files. Whatever the reason, the device has worked extremely well since. I returned the replacement unopened and have been using my Kindle Touch without a recurrence or any other issues.

The Kindle Touch is also capable of loading some game apps distributed through the Amazon store. I’ve never tried them and if that’s important to you I’d suggest looking at the Kindle Fire or another tablet.

“A conclusion is the place where you got tired thinking.” – Martin Henry Fischer

After several rough weeks I’ve grown to like (not love) my Kindle Touch. I like the quality of the display over the older Kindle, I like and dislike the new smaller size, I’m ambivalent about the touch functionality, and I’m happy that Amazon continues to provide a vast selection of e-books and the Whispersync service. Being able to borrow e-books from many libraries and share books (at Publisher discretion) with others is also a nice feature.

There are some interface issues that I hope Amazon will iron out. I am also looking forward to the next generation of Kindles in hopes that they’ll incorporate some form of lighting, perhaps the illuminated optical film recently announced by FLEx Lighting II, LLC. At this time I would recommend the Kindle Touch with special offers for anyone who wants to try out an e-reader, or who has been using the Kindle 1^st or 2^nd generation devices. If you already have a Kindle 3 and can live with the slightly larger size, there’s really not an overwhelming reason to upgrade.

“The end of labor is to gain leisure.” – Aristotle

I’m done for now…gonna go put my feet up and read for a bit.

Filed in categories: eBook Readers and Gear, Featured Items, Reviews

Tagged: Amazon, Kindle

Amazon Kindle Touch Review originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on January 2, 2012 at 11:54 am.

Sakroots is the name for a line of accessories from The Sak handbag company.  Shown here is the Artist Circle E-Reader Case for Kindle, Kindle Touch, and the Nook Simple Touch.  These fabric cases are made of coated canvas, trimmed with polyurethane, and lined with polyester.  The case closes with a zipper, and all hardware is goldtone.  You’ll find organization pockets inside for cards or folded papers.  It’s available in the four prints shown above, and it sells for $34 in stores.  You can also purchase it online at a special web pricing of only $24.

Filed in categories: eBook Readers and Gear, News

Tagged: Cases and covers, Kindle, nook

Sakroots Artist Circle E-Reader Case originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on December 29, 2011 at 12:00 pm.

Here’s another Kickstarter project.  The FLOTE Stand is a floor stand that works with most tablets and eBook readers, with or without a cover.  The all-metal stand is machined by US craftsmen, and it’s available in aluminum, black, or white finishes.  It easily adjusts without having to loosen or tighten anything, and it has a small base that will slide easily over hard-surface floors or carpets.  Be prepared to pledge at least $245 to receive a FLOTE stand if the product is funded.  Smaller pledges will receive FLOTE-branded screen cloths, hoodies, or commemorative steel plaques, depending on the level of support.  Estimated shipping is March 2012, should they meet their funding goals.  They have just under 50% of the required funding, and you have until January 13th, 2012 to help them meet their goal.

Filed in categories: eBook Readers and Gear, News, Tablet Computers and Gear

Tagged: Universal Tablet Stand

The FLOTE Stand for Tablets and eBook Readers originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on December 27, 2011 at 12:45 pm.

FLEx Lighting has created an illuminated optical film that may eliminate the need for reading lights with e-ink readers (amongst other applications).  The 50 micron film is flexible, edgeless, and invisible when turned off and produces a soft, low uniform light when on using a single low power consuming LED .  It can be implemented either as a back-light or a front-light and integrates with touchscreens.

No more heavy lighted covers or external lights in the future?

Check it out at FLEx Lighting

Filed in categories: eBook Readers and Gear, News

Tagged: ebook, eBook reader, LED Light

FLEx Lighting Illuminated Optical Film – A Bright e-Reader Addition originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on December 15, 2011 at 12:00 pm.