$249, and now you can have one anywhere in the world.
Right after I bought TWO, of course.
If you’d been on the fence, maybe you’ll decide now (we really love ours, it turns out - thanks everybody who said I would. Wish it were more black and white than gray and white, though.)
If you bought one recently, contact customer service - I’m getting a credit to my account with no problems, but I’m sure they’d be perfectly happy to not do anything for you if you don’t ask.
It isn’t anywhere in the world. They still aren’t selling to Canada. I went clicking randomly in their “check your region” thingy and they’re only selling to about 1/3 of the countries I clicked on.
How good are they? I’m not entirely sure I’d be comfortable with reading a book on an electronic screen. The AU dollar has (almost) parity with the US dollar at the moment so now would definitely be a good time to buy one, if I decide that way.
Well, I like it, partly because of the immediate delivery thing. I just finished the first book I’ve read on it and enjoyed the format, although I admit it was a little weird not having the “how much is in my right hand” gauge of how close it was to the end. Contrast could be a little better, and it’s obviously not what you’d call really mature technology, but Himself and I have been using them a lot.
Really, no Canada?
Really. And I emailed amazon asking if they’d sell the kindle and ebooks to Canada a few weeks ago and their reply was a not particularly encouraging “hopefully someday” type of thing.
Glad you were able to get the new price. Amazon seems to be good about that (if you contact them), they credited me for a game that lowered in price right after they shipped my preorder.
In the future, you might want to check your credit card boilerplate to see if they offer price protection.
I just went to Amazon.co.uk and there it was on the first page! Very tempting! Does anyone have any thoughts about how it compares to the Sony e reader. I know the Sony doesn’t have the wireless download capability but what about other points of comparison?
The whispernet is a huge selling point for me - it’s free, and you just get books on it like <snap!> that! You can get a sample chapter of anything for free, it beams it to your device absolutely instantaneously, it’s like magic!
It is sort of an optical illusion, but if you put an all-black skin on your Kindle, it will make the contrast seem greater. Or, the black darker. Or something. Anyhow, it improves the reading exerience.
You can get a solid-state black skin at DecalGirl which is easily applied and only costs $15. Go to http://www.decalgirl.com/
Is the Kindle format still propietary? That was the original deal breaker for me. If I can only read books that I have to buy from them, then no thanks.
Sorta: but I understand it comes with a converter you can use on your computer. And you can use it to read html and txt files off the Internet.
We bought ours long enough ago that the price change doesn’t bother me. It was inevitable, like everything else. I’ve probably read 30 books on it by now and think it’s the shizzle.
Is a shizzle a good thing or a bad thing?
Not really - though Amazon will convert documents sent through them. What most people do is use freely available tools like mobipocket reader and creator and calibre to do document conversion.
Also, there are many sources of content that serve the Kindle - you aren’t limited to Amazon at all.
From what I understand Amazon only(or at least mostly) sells books in .azw format which is a renamed version of mobipocket and DRMed. The Kindle will also read non DRM mobi files though(typically .mobi or .prc) as well as .pdf(for the Kindle DX at least, I’m not sure about the other versions, I would hope so). You can use free software(such as Calibre) to convert pretty much any non-DRM format to any other non-DRM format. And it’s fairly easy to find software that strips the DRM from mobi files, though that’s probably illegal depending on where you live. As far as I’m aware no other readers are capable of reading Amazon’s .azw files but I believe the python script that’s used to strip the DRM from .mobi/.prc files also works on it so it should be convertible to other formats if you’re willing to go down that path.
We love them.
I’ve had mine for about four months now, and I do love it. During my cataract problems this summer, it was the only thing I could read, due to the font size selector. I do have one question for other users, though. I find myself not getting as emotionally engaged in books when I read them on the kindle.
Has anyone else noticed this? It may just be the books I’m reading, but I’m about halfway through Pterry’s latest, and I’m not anywhere near as engaged as I have been with the Disc World.
Thoughts?
What he said.
I have the Kindle DX and love it.
The large screen alone pretty much sells it, but I also like the auto orientation, allowing me to read in portrait or landscape on the fly. I love the native PDF reader, and that it holds more books than I will ever own. The Internet feature, although somewhat cumbersome, is great and useful in a pinch.
I have the version 1 and I’m not a huge fan.
The pros are that you can carry dozens of books easily, that it is a mobile webbrowser of last resort, and that you can (fairly easily) pull lots of free and open content from the web and read it on the go with little battery power.
The cons are that the screen is too small and low-contrast for my taste, I hate the buttons, and changing pages flashes and has enough of a lag that it’s disruptive.
I’m also not a fan of Amazon’s DRM, and haven’t bought anything from their store.
I bought it for a trip, because I didn’t want to carry all the books I might want to read. It worked well for that, but I don’t see myself using it much when not traveling.
I understand that some of this has improved in later versions.
I also have (or rather, had) a version one. I’ve enjoyed it for a year and a half.
Today I recharged it, turned it on, and got a black screen. Tried all the troubleshooting recommendations and nothing. Called the 800 number, went through it all again with the unit plugged in.
The verdict? Yes, the Kindle has died. My options? A replacement for a cost of $99 or a brand new one for $249. I took the “neither” option and will read good old paper and ink books for a while. Or switch to a different e-reader with better customer service.