Kindle 3 after a week in the real world. My Review

Chillaxing by the pool

I’ve had my Kindle 3 for a full week now and have had a fair amount of time to get to know it. I took it with me on my run to Vegas and it was perfect for reading in the room, by the pool and on the plane. It starts up instantly, the screen is crisp and easy to read in any decent lighting, the page turns are quick. It’s so small it is easy to carry anywhere, the Amazon (non-lighted) leather case makes it feel exactly like a real book. The wireless works fine with my Verizon mifi. (I purchased the wifi only model, not the 3G)  The design is just about perfect, the page turn buttons are right where they need to be. It’s light enough you can hold it easily with one hand and no support without any issue at all. I played with the text to speech on a book and it’s okay, but it butchers uncommon words badly so I wont be using it much. 

Reading on the plane

So far so good, right? Well not exactly, the Kindle 3 has had some issues the past week, and they are serious enough to distract from the positive points I mentioned above. I have had it randomly “reboot” or restart itself at least a dozen times. It has happened while trying to use the browser, reading PDFs, highlighting books, or just sitting on the counter, powered off. It’s not something I can replicate, it is purely random from what I can tell. Apparently this is a known issue and Amazon is working on a firmware update.[UPDATE: Amazon just released a firmware update that will hopefully address these issues]

 [01-30-2011 UPDATE- AMAZON HAS ACKNOWLEDGED A PROBLEM WITH THE NON-LIGHTED COVERS CAUSING REBOOTS]  

I am disappointed they shipped a device with these issues, it’s widespread enough that they had to know about it. When it happens the screen goes blank, the kindle boot up screen flashes on and you have to wait a minute or two to get back to your main menu. And you have lost your place in your book, and if you were not synching with a wireless network you can’t synch the device and find your last page. Highlights are lost. It sucks. In addition to that the clock will randomly lose 3-6 hours and display incorrect time. Why the kindle will not synch with Amazon’s server and get the correct time each time it pings the service is beyond me.

All those issues aside, it is still an amazing e-book device. I tried reading some on my iPad this weekend and the difference is more dramatic than I thought it would be. The Kindle is much easier on the eyes and when reading for more than 20 minutes it blows the iPad away for eye strain reduction.

If you love reading books I recommend you check the Kindle 3 out, hopefully it gets a firmware update in a few days and it will be almost perfect.

© 2010, Bill Gillam. All rights reserved.