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.

Android fans have been eagerly waiting for the Samsung Galaxy Nexus because it is the first device on the market powered by Android 4.0. Otherwise known as Ice Cream Sandwich, this new version of Android merges the tablet (Honeycomb) and smartphone (Gingerbread) versions of Google’s popular OS into one version that will be used across both types of devices. I was lucky enough to get my hands on this phone for a few days, so let’s take a look at one of Verizon’s latest Android smartphone.

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

Before I begin, I will mention that I do not live in or very close to an area with 4G LTE coverage. I was only able to test the phone with a 3G connection.

Hardware Specs

OS: Android 4.0, Ice Cream Sandwich
CPU: 1.2GHz Dual-Core Processor
Memory Internal: 32GB
Carrier: Verizon
Network: CDMA/PCS/1xEVDO Rev. A: 800/1900 MHz,LTE: 700 MHz
Data Speed: LTE, EVDO Rev. A
Display: HD Super AMOLED™ 4.65” contoured display, 1280×720 pixels
Rear-facing Camera: 5.0 MP
Front-facing Camera: 1.3 MP
Bluetooth
WiFi
Battery: Lithium Ion, 1850mAh
Battery Standby 150 hours (6.25 days), Talk Time (hours) Up to 12 hours
Dimensions: 5.33” x 2.67” x 0.37” inches
Weight: 5.1 ounces

As you can see from the image above, the Nexus is a big boy when you compare it to an iPhone 4S. Although it is a large device, it doesn’t feel or look out of place when used as a phone.

The Nexus has a gorgeous 1280×720 resolution display that is bright and crisp. It has vivid colors but isn’t cartoonish like other Samsung Android phones that we’ve seen in the past. The 4.65 inch display takes up almost the entire front surface of the phone. A strip at the bottom of the display is devoted to 3 (and sometimes 4) touch sensitive buttons. From Left to Right, the buttons are Back, Home and Task Switcher. When appropriate, a 4th button will appear on the Right that has three small vertical square blocks. This is the Menu button.

While the phone is in idle with the display turned off, there is a status LED that will slowly pulse when there’s a new email, text message or you’ve missed a call.

Above the display is the front facing camera.

The back of the Nexus has the camera lens and LED flash. It’s a little disappointing that Samsung opted to use a 5mp camera instead of an 8mp camera which seems to be the norm these days. That said, the camera captures decent pics and is crazy fast with no shutter lag whatsoever.

The back of the phone has a thin piece of flexible plastic that is easily removed to reveal the battery compartment and 4G LTE SIM card slot. In my short time with this phone, I found battery life to typical in that I would need to charge the phone once a day with light to normal use. It’s tough for me to offer concrete data about battery life since I’ve only been using this phone in an area with 3G and absolutely no 4G coverage. In my experience with other smartphones, I would say that the Nexus used power slightly quicker than HTC Rezound that I tested last.

You’ll notice that the Nexus does not have a microSD card slot. That’s a bit of a bummer, but the phone does have 32GB of storage, which makes the lack of a flash card slot less painful.

If you look closely at the side of the Nexus, you’ll see that the display is slightly curved. Samsung claims that this will make the phone more comfortable against your cheek when you’re on a call. Hmmm… I don’t know about you, but I’ve never noticed my flat phones as being uncomfortable against my face.

The Left side of the phone has the volume rocker button which has good tactile feedback and sticks up high enough that your thumb tip can easily find it when you’re on a phone call.

On the opposite side you’ll find the Power button and electrical contacts for an optional dock.

On the bottom edge is a micro USB connector for charging and connecting to your computer. You’ll also find the microphone and headphone jack.

I had a rude awakening when I plugged the Nexus into my iMac to transfer some files and found that the phone does not support the USB mass storage feature that I’ve been accustomed to using with every Android phone that I’ve owned over the years. At first I thought it was Android 4.0′s fault because it uses the MTP (Media Transfer Protocol) file transfer standard which is plug and play compatible with Windows machines, but not OS X machines.

In order to transfer files to and from the Nexus with my iMac, I had to install a special file manager app. Bleh! After a bit of research, I came to learn that it’s not exactly Android 4.0′s fault. Other 4.0 devices will support USB mass storage. The reason that the Galaxy Nexus does not support USB mass storage is because it does not include a microSD slot. As long as an Android 4.0 device has a removable flash card, it will support USB mass storage.

In hand, the Galaxy Nexus is comfortable to hold due to the rounded sides. Although the phone is light weight, it is solid and easily passes my patent pending gadgeteer squeeze test with no flexing, creaking or cracking. It’s a big phone though, so it’s not really pocket friendly.

Performance wise, this phone is very snappy. That shouldn’t come as a surprise since one of the best things about the Nexus is that it hasn’t been “polluted” with a lot of carrier bloatware and interface special sauce like HTC’s Sense and Motorola Blur.

Let’s take a look at a few of the new features that Android 4.0 offers.

The default lock screen isn’t too different, but you do have the option to use the front facing camera and your own face to unlock the phone. It’s kind of fun to play with and worked well for me. It falls back to a pattern matching unlock screen if the stored face isn’t recognized.

The app view scrolls left to right instead of up and down. In the image above you can see all the stock apps.

Here is the 2nd page of apps minus the Tiny Tower and Where’s My Water games that I installed. There are only two apps that have been added by Verizon and if you don’t want to see them you can actually disable them. Disabling does NOT uninstall them though, it just removes them from the app view. But, I was happy to see that Android 4.0 offers easier app removal now. Instead of having to go into the settings/applications area to uninstall an app, you can just tap and hold the icon for the uninstall option.

Also added to the app view are your available widgets. You can scroll through them just like you can your apps.

There is also a button in the top right corner for quick access to the App Market.

Here we see the dialer interface.

Your favorites dialing screen reminds me of the Windows 7 phone interface.

I didn’t have any issues using the Galaxy Nexus to make and receive calls. I’ve read that it can have problems with 3G connectivity, but I didn’t find that to be the case during the time I’ve been using the phone. In my area, 3G coverage is very good, so I rarely experience problems with dropped calls and the Nexus was no different in that regard. Call audio was clear and volume was very good even when I made calls from my basement with only 1 bar signal strength.

Browsing the web on the Nexus is a joy. My iPhone feels pretty cramped after using the Nexus! The browser feels pretty snappy too… even under 3G.

Another cool feature that I haven’t been able to test because I don’t know anyone else with a Nexus is the new Beam feature.  It will let you easily share contacts, websites, apps, maps, directions and YouTube videos with other people close by. The phone has NFC (near field communication) and when held near another NFC enabled Android 4.0 phone you can touch to beam and share. It kind of reminds me of the good old days when you could beam contacts and even apps back and forth to Palm OS devices.

All in all, I like the Samsung Galaxy Nexus quite a bit. If I were in the market for an Android phone right now, it would be the one I would probably buy even though it lacks a microSD card and I would have to deal with the annoying lack of the USB mass storage feature. Except for those 2 things, I love the huge display, snappy performance and quick camera. It’s definitely the phone to have right now due to the latest version of the OS and pure Android goodness.

Filed in categories: Android related, Featured Items, Reviews

Tagged: Android, Smartphone

Samsung Galaxy Nexus Smartphone Review originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on January 13, 2012 at 11:00 am.

It’s the beginning of a new year, which for a lot of people, means that it is time to start a new journal or diary. I’ve been wrestling with the decision of whether to stay traditional and keep my journal in a Moleskine, Rhodia or similar notebook, or go digital and use a diary app on my iPhone / iPad. Both formats have their own set of advantages and disadvantages. Is one way to better than the other? In this two part article, I’m going to try to answer that question for myself and maybe for you too. Part one covers traditional journals.

My journaling background

I’ve been an on again off again diary keeper since I was a kid. Back in the 70′s and 80′s when I was growing up, the only way to keep a record of your thoughts, memories and events was by writing them down on paper. I had several anything books as we used to call them… blank unlined hardback books meant to hold “anything”. I also had a couple classic lock and key type diaries that offered one page for each day of the year. I was even into 3×5 inch index cards way before they were cool. I used to keep a metal index card box labeled “Julie’s Secret Files”. Yep, I was a dork even back then… Nothing has changed folks

Childhood diary entries

The sad thing is that I can currently only find one of my childhood journals. I know the others are around here somewhere (hopefully). I just don’t know where. I sat down with that one diary this past weekend and reading it from cover to cover gave me quite a few laughs. 90% of it was filled with entries talking about how big of a pain my younger sister was and all my attempts to find and read her diary. Come on, that was very important stuff to a 13yr old! But mixed in with that silly stuff were a few nuggets that triggered long lost memories. Reading it made me wish I would have continued to keep a journal all these years. I especially wish I would have kept a journal this past year to record my cancer adventure.

Sticking with it…

Why haven’t I been able to keep a journal over the years when I’ve tried countless times? Lots of lame reasons that tend to run in a continuous loop as an internal dialog in my head:

What I write is complete drivel, so why write it down?
My hand writing is messy and I make too mistakes.
I don’t have time to write today, I’ll do it tomorrow.
My doodles are crude and pointless.
I haven’t written in months, so why start again?

I now have answers and comments to those questions and statements that are helping me make journaling a habit that I will stick with.

Q: What I write is complete drivel, so why write it down?
A: Yes, it probably is, but who cares. It’s your drivel and mixed in with it, will be valuable memories that you’ll be able to enjoy later.

S: My hand writing is messy and I make too mistakes.
C: You’re not being graded on your penmanship, so who cares.

S: I don’t have time to write today, I’ll do it tomorrow.
C: That’s fine. You don’t have to write every day, or even every week or month. Write when you feel like it.

S: My doodles are crude and pointless.
C: You’re not being graded on your artistic abilities, so who cares.

Q: I haven’t written in months, so why start again?
A: Why not? Don’t feel like a failure when you don’t write for long periods. Think of it as a break so you can store up memories to write about later.

Once I flipped the switch in my brain that makes me want to write things down all the time, I encountered a new problem and the reason for this article… It’s my struggle to choose between keeping a traditional paper journal or keeping a journal on my iPad. Analog vs. digital? That’s the big question. Let’s consider the analog journal…

Going with paper and pen

Analog journals come in all manner of sizes, shapes and colors. I have to admit that I’m a sucker for Moleskine, Rhodia, and similar notebooks. There is something very romantic about writing your thoughts in a bound book. It’s as if those thoughts are more important just because they are inscribed in a physical book. As you can see from the image above, I have quite a collection of empty notebooks to choose from. The stack on the Left includes a Quo Vadis Habana journal, several blank and lined Moleskines, a San Francisco Moleskine travel journal and a Rhodia webbie. On the Right are a bunch of a Field Notes notebooks and Moleskine Cahiers and Volants. On the bottom of that stack is a Wreck This Journal book by Keri Smith. It’s a journal with all kinds of prompts that are designed to help you be more creative and not worry about screwing up your journal. I found it to be a cool concept, but it a little too juvenile for my taste.

My favorite notebook is currently the 3.5 x 5.5 inch unlined Rhodia Pocket webbie in Orange. I love the soft almost padded feel of the cover and that I can write and draw with markers without too much fear that they will bleed through the page. I do wish that the webbies had white instead of the cream color. I like Moleskine notebooks too and prefer the Sketchbook Pocket version for the thicker paper. Markers and some inks bleed through the regular Moleskine notebook paper too easily.

I am also more than a little obsessed with finding accessories for my notebooks. Notebook covers, pen holders, bookmarks, pens, pencils, you name it…

What do you write in your journal?

There are a million different types of journals. Art journals, gratitude journals, dream journals, trip journals, workout journals, food journals etc. I’m usually pretty traditional when it comes to what I write in mine. I don’t use it as an appointment or to-do book. It tends to be a dated entry with a synopsis of my day. I might include a drawing if the mood strikes and I sometimes tape or glue ticket stubs or other small paper items pertaining to the day’s events.

I recently purchased a Polaroid Pogo Mobile Printer for the sole purpose of making 2 x 3 inch prints to add to my journal entries. Although the print quality isn’t spectacular, it’s good enough for this task. The printer itself is less than $40 and doesn’t require any ink cartridges. The only consumables are the special photo paper that is required for it. They also offer photo paper with a peel and stick backing, which makes adding pictures to your journal very easy. I have some on order

The big downside for me is that this little Bluetooth printer isn’t compatible with the iPhone. Apparently you can get it to work if you’re willing to jailbreak your phone and load a special Bluetooth app. But, at the moment there isn’t a way to jailbreak an iPhone 4S. As soon as there is, I’ll be doing it just so I can use it to print pics to the Pogo. The Pogo does work just fine with my iMac and also worked great with a Samsung Galaxy Nexus Android 4.0 phone.

Finding inspiration

I love seeing pictures of other people’s journal entries and will sometimes go on Flickr and do a search on the word “journal”. It’s a cool way to find ideas for my own entries.

For example, if you want to be inspired, go check out The Hike Guy’s journals of his 1700 mile trek along the Pacific Crest Trail. They are fantastic and make me want to get a backpack and set off for an adventure in the woods right now. Or maybe when it’s warmer… and I have an RV… with a satellite link.

There are also many journal related sites that I love to visit. Here are a few:

Notebook Stories
Journaling Saves
Recording Thoughts

Privacy

Keeping a journal on paper means that someone will probably find and read it long after you are gone, if not sooner. Some people might consider this a terrifying possibility. It’s something I really don’t worry about. If someone wants to read one of my journals, it’s probably going to bore them silly very quickly.

For those of you that do worry about the uninvited sneaking a peek at your innermost thoughts, does that make digital journals more attractive since it is easier to secure / hide them?

Some advantages of keeping a paper journal:

• Electricity or a connection to the internet is not required to write an entry
• Dropping a journal on the floor will not break it or cause it to lose entries
• A Moleskine will never crash or need a firmware upgrade
• Paper journals allow much more freedom and customization than their digital equivalent
• They cost much less than a smartphone, tablet or computer

What are some other advantages that you find with paper journals vs. digital journals?

If we’re going to talk about advantages, we have to talk about the disadvantages too.

Some disadvantages of keeping an analog journal:

• It’s easier for someone to find and read your journal when it’s a physical object like a book
• There’s no spellcheck for a Moleskine
• If you write an entry with sloppy penmanship, you’ll have to live with it
• It’s difficult to find a specific entry in a journal
• You can’t easily backup an analog journal like you can a digital journal

I actually have one way to take care of the last two disadvantages on that list.

Using Evernote to back up your journal

If you haven’t heard of Evernote, it’s a free (there’s a premium version too) note taking, web clipping, archiving tool that you can use on your desktop or your iPhone, Android and Blackberry devices.

It makes a great analog journal backup tool and search tool. Just snap a picture of your journal page and upload it to your Evernote account. You can create an Evernote notebook to store all your journal images. You can then sync your Evernote notebooks between your desktop and your phone, which means you’ll have a copy of your analog journal on your digital device. Cool right? It gets even better though…

You can search for words in the images you’ve uploaded to Evernote. Just type a word in the search box and Evernote will give you a list of all the entries where that word shows up. Even your hand written words are searchable. I’m not just talking printed words – even cursive! That makes it super easy to find a specific entry. It doesn’t work 100% of the time as in it sometimes will show you words that don’t match your search criteria, but it works well enough to be a super useful tool. Evernote is also an excellent companion to one of my favorite iOS journal apps. But more about that in part 2 of this series where I’ll talk about digital journaling.

In the mean time, I’d love to hear from you about your journal preferences. What is your favorite brand of notebook? Do you include drawings? Do you add photos? Write in code so people can’t read it?

Filed in categories: Articles, Featured Items, Miscellaneous

Tagged: Gear Diary, Journal

Starting a New Journal – Which Format Do you Use, Digital or Analog? originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on January 7, 2012 at 5:53 pm.

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.

I’m sure I wasn’t the only person who was disappointed a month ago when Apple failed to announce the iPhone 5 after many months of rumors and speculation. Instead, we were offered the iPhone 4S – an evolutionary instead of revolutionary update to the one year old iPhone 4. Even though I wasn’t eligible for an upgrade, I went ahead and purchased one because I’m crazy like that. Am I glad that I spent way too much money for it, or do I have buyer’s remorse? Keep reading to find out.

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

Hardware Specifications

Operating System: iOS 5
Processor: Dual-core A5
Memory: 16GB, 32GB and 64GB versions available
Display: 3.5-inch (diagonal) widescreen Multi-Touch retina display, 960-by-640-pixel resolution at 326 ppi, 800:1 contrast ratio (typical)
Wireless: World phone
UMTS/HSDPA/HSUPA (850, 900, 1900, 2100 MHz);
GSM/EDGE (850, 900, 1800, 1900 MHz)
CDMA EV-DO Rev. A (800, 1900 MHz)4
802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi (802.11n 2.4GHz only)
Bluetooth 4.0
Digital Camera: 8.0MP, Video recording, HD (1080p) up to 30 frames per second with audio
Battery: Rechargeable lithium-ion, Talk time: up to 8 hours on 3G, up to 14 hours on 2G, standby time: up to 200 hours
Internet use: up to 6 hours on 3G, up to 9 hours on Wi-Fi
Video playback: Up to 10 hours
Audio playback: Up to 40 hours
Size: 4.5 x 2.31 x 0.37 in (115.2 x 58.6 x 9.3 mm)
Weight: 4.9 ounces (140 grams)

Package Contents

iPhone 4S
Apple Earphones with Remote and Mic
Dock Connector to USB Cable
USB Power Adapter
Documentation

By all outward appearances, the iPhone 4S looks and feels almost identical to the iPhone 4. The only notable exception is that the 4S has a SIM slot on the right side for world phone capability. But other than that, they are dead ringers for each other.

For that fact, I’m not going to go over the buttons, switches, display and body details. You can go read my iPhone 4 review if you’d like more info on those features. This review will focus on the main updates to the 4S, which are mostly under the hood and include:

• Updated processor
• Updated antenna design
• Updated camera
• Siri voice assistant

Processor

Let’s start with the brains behind the iPhone. The CPU has been upgraded to an A5 dual-core chip, which is said to deliver up to two times more power and up to seven times faster graphics than the iPhone 4′s single core A5 chip. I’ve been using the 4S for the past month and so far I really can’t tell THAT much of a difference in speed between it and my 4 for every day tasks.  I did some side by side testing of both phones and found that booting from power off and launching all my normal apps was only about 1-2 seconds faster on the 4S. This wasn’t something I even noticed until I did the side by side comparisons. I’ve actually never had a complaint with how fast apps launch on iOS devices, so if they are now 1 second faster, it really doesn’t make me want to jump up and down with glee.

On the graphics side of things, I purchased a couple games to do some more side by sides between the 4 and 4S. I decided on Modern Combat 3 and Infinity Blade just because they are both high end games that are very rich in graphics. It’s crazy how large mobile games have become. Modern Combat 3 requires a little over 1GB and Infinity Blade takes up almost 600MBs!

Since both phones have the same resolution displays, the games look the same at first glance. But upon closer inspection, the biggest difference that I noticed were that objects on the 4S are brighter and have more reflections. Here are a couple examples.

Modern Combat 3 on the iPhone 4. Notice how dark the soldier is.

Modern Combat 3 on the iPhone 4S. The soldier is quite a bit brighter. And yes, I had both phones set to the same brightness level when I did these comparisons.

Another example shows a screen shot of Infinity Blade on the iPhone 4.

Here’s Infinity Blade on the iPhone 4S. Notice the highlights, brighter armor and reflections?

Game play also felt a little smoother when panning around a detailed screen. I think it will really depend on the games themselves to be optimized for the 4S. You’re only going to notice improvements on high end type games though. Titles like Cut the Rope and Angry Birds, which have simple graphics will not feel or look any different on the 4S.

When it’s all said and done, the speed and graphics updates on the 4S are nice, but the improvements aren’t so great that the performance gap between the two phones really makes that much of a difference in my opinion. After playing games on the 4S and then playing the same games on the 4, I didn’t feel like the 4 was too slow.

Antenna

The iPhone 4S has a new antenna design which is supposed to improve call quality and download speeds even though the 4S isn’t a 4G phone.

“iPhone 4S is the first phone to intelligently switch between two antennas to transmit and receive, so call quality is better. It also doubles the maximum HSDPA data speeds to 14.4 Mbps.8 Which means faster connections, faster loading and reloading, and faster downloads.”

It’s nice to know that this new design has solved the whole death grip issue. But I’m not so sure it improves call quality and / or download speeds all that much - at least not for me. I’ve not had any issues with call quality on the previous iPhone once I switched from AT&T to Verizon and am not noticing any significant changes with the 4S.

The same is true for download speeds. I really haven’t noticed any significant difference on the 4S. Even when I have full bars and a 3G connection, updating the weather, reading news via the USA today app, checking for app store updates, downloading mail, etc all seem to be just as fast or slow as before. 3G speeds via Verizon have never been all that consistent for me in the first place. I can do speed tests using the free Speedtest.net app every hour and see wildly varying results each time.

Camera

Honestly, the reason why I decided to go ahead and splurge on the iPhone 4S purchase, was the upgraded camera from 5MP up to 8MP. Resolution isn’t the only upgrade though. The whole camera has been redesigned with a  custom lens that has a larger f/2.4 aperture to allow for better low light photos.

Here are some sample images comparing the iPhone 4 and 4S.

iPhone 4 picture

iPhone 4S picture

iPhone 4 picture

iPhone 4S picture.

Video recording has been improved from 720p up to 1080p. That’s 1280 X 720 lines of resolution vs. 1920 X 1080 progressive lines of resolution. More lines means a sharper picture. Here are some sample videos.

iPhone 4s video sample. Max the gadgeteer mascot makes a few cameo appearances.

iPhone 4 video sample.

If all you ever do is view your pictures and videos on the iPhone’s display or your computer’s display, the upgrade from 5 to 8 megapixels and 720p to 1080p probably won’t seem like a big deal. The increase in pixels is helpful if you ever decide to print the images or watch the videos on a larger screen though.

Siri

Besides the upgraded camera, the other feature that I was most anxious to try on the 4S was Siri. In case you’ve been living under a rock, Siri is a built in personal assistant that listens to your voice commands spoken in regular words. Here are just 2 quick examples of things you can ask:

The quoted text in each screen shot is a question that I have asked Siri. You can get Siri’s attention in several ways. If you hold the phone up to your ear when you’re not in a call, she’ll ask you what she can help you with. You can also hold down the Home button to talk to her. If you use earbuds with built in microphone, you can hold down the mic button to talk to her. Bluetooth headsets can also be used by holding down the call button for several seconds.

In addition to asking questions and getting answers like the ones shown above, you can also say things like “set the timer for 5 minutes”, “wake me up in an hour”, send a text message to Jeanne saying I’ll be late getting home”, “remind me when I get home to call Dad” and lots more.

In actual usage, I’ve found that my voice commands are recognized pretty well as long as I speak slightly slower than normal and remember to enunciate instead of mumble. Siri is fun to play around with… and that’s the problem, I seem to only use it for entertainment, just to see what she’ll say to kooky questions. I’ve spent way too much time asking things like “Do you love me?”, “what’s the meaning of life?”, “open the pod bay doors”, “are you real?”, etc. I wonder just how many “real” commands Siri responds to every day vs. silly questions. I ask this because on numerous occasions, I’ve asked a question only to be told that the network couldn’t be accessed.

After some initial testing / goofing around with Siri, I find that I almost never use this feature. I definitely do not use it at work or in public because it just seems way too dorky to talk to your phone like it’s a person. In the privacy of my car or home, it’s another matter though. But even so, I just don’t seem to use the feature much at all. I’d like to start using it to dictate news and/or reviews while I’m driving to and from work. So we’ll see…

Battery Life

So far battery life on the iPhone 4S has been somewhat disappointing. I seem to be charging my phone more often than I did with the iPhone 4. Even after updating to iOS 5.01, which was supposed to fix battery issues, I’m not seeing much of an improvement. I’m still usually able to get through a day without charging, but my old iPhone 4 was able to last at least 2 days or longer. I am almost always close to a power source, so it’s not a big deal for me, but of course I wish it was better.

Bottom line

If you’ve read this far, you’ve probably already figured out the answer to the question in the first paragraph of this review: Am I glad that I spent way too much money for the iPhone 4S, or do I have buyer’s remorse? The answer is that I’m suffering from a moderate case of buyer’s remorse. It would have been different if I didn’t already have an iPhone 4 and/or I had been eligible for an upgrade through Verizon. But neither of these cases were true and I spent $649 on a 16GB iPhone 4S that has only a slightly better user experience than my perfectly fine iPhone 4. Oh well, that’s one of the down sides of being a gadget freak. It’s just too hard to resist the lure of a new device.

Those of you that don’t already have an iPhone 4 and are considering the 4S, go for it. It’s a great phone (and will be even better once they get the battery life issues sorted out). But if you already have the 4, my advice is to wait for the mythical iPhone 5. You’ll be glad you did. In the mean time, anyone want to buy a month old iPhone 4S that is in mint condition with no contract? Seriously…

Filed in categories: Featured Items, iPhone, iPad, iPod related, Reviews

Tagged: Apple, iOS, iPhone

Apple iPhone 4S Review originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on November 18, 2011 at 11:00 am.