I Finally Bought an Amazon Kindle DX
April 7th, 2012In 2007, with regard to the Kindle, I wrote that, “I personally wouldn’t go near that device because it’s brimming with DRM nonsense…”
A couple of years later in, Amazon Deletes Copies of 1984 and Animal Farm from Kindle Ebook Readers, I wrote that, “I don’t understand why anyone would buy a Kindle.”
There’s also, Amazon is Tracking the Most-Highlighted Kindle Passages, which mentions serious privacy concerns related to the devices.
Ok, I recently bought a Kindle DX. What happened to change my mind?
Amazon Kindle DX
I have many lifetimes worth of reading material accumulated on my computer, but I don’t like reading longer works on standard computer displays. For a while, I printed hard copies, but this seemed silly for documents that I only wanted to read once. The costs associated with printing aren’t trivial either. Despite my philosophical hangups and concerns about privacy, I wanted a convenient, high quality solution for reading these digital files. A couple of weeks ago, someone on eBay offered several Kindle DX units for sale at a substantial discount, so I finally bought one.
I’m not going to write a full review of the Kindle DX here. There are at least many dozens of professional reviews out there already, and thousands of customer reviews on Amazon. I mainly want to say that, after several nights of reading on the Kindle DX, I’ve been trying to figure out how I’m going to come clean with you guys and admit that I like reading on the device more than some printed books. Yep. It’s true.
Think of the difference between reading a thick paperback novel, with the (usually too small) text printed so close to the spine that you have to crack it to get the pages semi flat, and a sumptuously designed hardcover, with ample margins and pages that will lie almost flat without much effort. Reading on the Kindle DX is not that unlike reading a nice, hardcover edition of a book. It is very easy on the eyes. Make the text larger or smaller to suit your taste. There’s also some control over the number of words per line.
Unfortunately, the DX does not support leading adjustments, which is weird because other Kindle’s do. Also, with Adobe PDF files, you can’t change the font size. If any area on the page is too small with a PDF, you would need to zoom in on it. (I just mentioned a couple of issues that I’ve noticed, but there are hundreds of one, two and three star reviews on Amazon where people chronicle real and perceived issues with the Kindle DX. Personally, I’d give it a solid four-stars out of five. PDF handling could be a lot better, and the text to speech feature is nothing to write home about.)
Before I pulled the trigger on this thing, I spent a lot of time trying to figure out just how dark the background is. It looked pretty dark grey to me in pictures I saw on the Internet, and I was worried that it might not be contrasty enough. After using it for a while, I have no regrets, but, if I had to split hairs on the matter, I think that I would want the background to be about 10% lighter. I found that reading with a bright light makes the text pop much more than with dim or barely adequate light.
Overall, I’m very happy with the Kindle DX. As someone who reads for a living, it was not smart to have deprived myself of something this useful for so long. I’m glad that I chose the DX instead of one of the smaller Kindles. My vision isn’t getting any better and, given a choice, I’d always picked larger format books to read over smaller ones. That said, the large DX version comes at an astonishing price premium over the smaller Kindles. If you don’t think that you need or want the big screen, save hundreds of dollars and pick one of the standard sized models instead.
Now that I’m using the Kindle DX daily, I’ve come to see the book vs. e-reader debate as pointless. While the device feels sturdy, I get the feeling that one drop to the floor would almost certainly kill it. I’d never just slip the device into a backpack without some kind of protective case because I’d wonder if it would get scratched or broken. So, let’s just forget about comparing this to printed books. In terms of durability, good old printed books win by a wide margin. Nobody in their right mind should see these digital wonders as replacements for printed versions of treasured literature, manuals, textbooks or any other written material that might need to pass from one generation to another. For example, would I keep my gardening books exclusively as digital versions? No way. And never mind that some of them are in full color while the Kindle has a monochrome display.
I want to quickly mention Calibre.
Calibre is an extremely powerful and free utility that is akin to a Swiss Army knife for managing e-books and e-readers. If you have documents in formats that are not e-reader friendly, Calibre can probably help you out. I’m getting fine results by converting PDFs into Kindle friendly .mobi files. Admittedly, these are pretty basic, all text documents. Conversion quality from PDFs decline as formatting complexity increases.
If you’re going to be sideloading your own documents on to your Kindle, you’ll probably appreciate Calibre. I’d say that this program is a must have for the many multi-prop beanie wearers, beardy-weirdies and other non-normals out there in Cryptogon land.
I’m going on much longer than I thought I would. Let’s wrap it up.
Cryptogon readers buy hundreds of printed books on Amazon per month. While my Kindle and e-book sales are growing steadily, they’re miniscule compared to traditional books. So, going by the numbers, the average Cryptogon reader/supporter, wouldn’t touch a Kindle with a barge pole. But I’m here to tell you: The Kindle is a useful tool, and my guess is that you would agree if you try one.
Here’s a link to Amazon’s Kindle Store
Strange But True Afterword: I wasn’t able to buy a Kindle DX from Amazon because, while they will ship them from Albania to Zimbabwe, they will not ship them to New Zealand. Other Kindle models can go to New Zealand, but not the DX. Nobody outside of Amazon seems to know why that is, despite lots of guesses. (I’ve seen threads where Kiwis’ heads were about to explode over this stupid situation.)
If you happen to know, for sure, what the story is with the DX and New Zealand, please enlighten us. Content delivery on the DX works fine in New Zealand over 3G, by the way—even out in the deep wopwops where I live. Unsurprisingly, the free web browsing feature is disabled.
Our family took the plunge last fall after having sworn for years never to allow one in the house. But two of us were going to be spending six weeks out of the country in circumstances that would yield a lot of downtime. No TV, no Internet, no English language bookstores or libraries. The lightbulb went off. Two Kindles were bought, loaded up with mostly free books, lots of them classics that we already have in book form. Problem solved.
As you said, it’s a tool. I use mine mostly for books of mainly topical value, that I’ll want to read but once, won’t want to pass on to the kids, don’t want to clutter up the never-adequate-no-matter-how-many-new-ones-we-squeeze-into-the room shelves with. And there is a feature wherein you can email to your Kindle articles in the “read later” category, either directly or through a service like Instapaper (another great tool, btw) so my Kindle also holds a lot of long form journalism.. It’s a very nice replacement for the huge, heavy basket of books, half-read magazines and newspaper I used to have to carry around with me.
Just a personal note on this..
We own a Nook Color, and “Kindle Keyboard”. My girlfriend prefers the kindle.
I still prefer books, that I can turn down corners, stick post-its in pages for quick reference, etc.
I bought the £89 model early this year and I’m very pleased with it.
I was definitely using that barge pole and putting a distance between myself and it for all the reasons Kevin mentioned.
Yes, I’m still quite ambivalent about technology in general with visions of transhumanism and technocracy fresh in my mind. However, we know that it is not technology per se that is the problem it is the mindset behind these advances that currently has a stranglehold on mass perception.
So, while I love to have a book in my hand I recognise if you travel around a lot as I do the kindle is indispensable. So, I guess being imbedded in this culture you take what the system has to offer and use it to augment and “download” your potential like anything else.
So, that’s the end of my justification lol
Kev,
I applaud your mental flexibility. I liked this blog before and I like it even more now.
The Kindle is a just a tool. Realize its weaknesses and strengths, and act accordingly.
Get some sort of third-party warranty against breakage.
I’m on my third one and I only have the much smaller Kindle Keyboard model.
That DX must be as fragile as spun glass.
@Zenc
I have no idea who would offer any coverage for the Kindle DX here in NZ.
Re: Being on your third one, maybe you’re a Serial Kindle Killer:
http://cflove.org/2011/01/kindle-screen-broke-two-times-within-6-months.cfm