Amazon Kindle Touch : My Review

A couple of months ago, a colleague at work asked me about eBook Readers – he was planning to get one for his wife. His requirements were something that was primarily an eBook reader, with a color display interface, could handle a bit of multimedia, and was inexpensive. He had narrowed down on the Kindle Fire that was launched fairly recently and wanted my opinion on it.  For his requirement and use, it seemed fine. I was looking up reviews and product information about it on the internet, and I got very strongly tempted to pick one for myself, but my requirements were slightly different – I wasn’t too concerned about a color display or the ability to handle multimedia – I just wanted something with which I could read eBooks (which wasn’t very expensive), and the Amazon Kindle Touch seemed to fit all those requirements very well.

Now came the problem of sourcing what I needed – the Kindle Touch wasn’t available for delivery in India, however, the new Kindle priced at $79 was. I figured out it would be a pain to enter text with something that didn’t have a keyboard, and that didn’t have a touch interface, and decided to stick with my decision to by the Kindle Touch.

I asked around, and a friend was just about to travel to the US and graciously offered to pick one up for me. I asked him to order Kindle Touch [Ad Supported version] and Kindle Zip Sleeve [Charcoal color] [I notice that the price of the Zip Sleeve has fallen down by $10 now ]. Now remember this if you’re asking someone else to order and buy the Kindle – ask them to mark it as a gift, else Amazon automatically registers the Kindle to their account before delivering so that you’re all set to go. Deregistering and changing the account settings isn’t that difficult, but when it’s just a check box away and costs you nothing, as compared to doing it on the new device, may well be worth it.

A few weeks later, when he was back, I had my Kindle and the sleeve.

[Excuse the quality of the photograph - shot with my mobile phone]

The last few weeks, I’ve been regularly using it and here’s what I feel, along with a few things that may be of use to someone who’s planning to get a new Kindle. 

The Good:

1. Length and width are just about the size of an average book – it comes equipped with a 6″ display. Thin enough to easily hold – 0.4″. At a little over 200 grams, weighs a lot less than the average 300+ page book too.

2. Amazon boasts that they use the revolutionary E Ink technology for display, which is appears looks like real paper – I agree. Except for the part where you feel (or smell, for those who like the smell of paper), they’ve got it right. There is no strain on the eyes when reading for long duration. Do note that there is no backlighting, and you will need a source of light (just like a paper book). This also means you can read the book even under direct sunlight – something that you can not do with devices that have backlighting.

3. The manufacturer claims that the battery is built to last for two months on a single charge (with Wi-Fi turned off). I have been unable to verify this claim at the moment – but I can safely say that after a month and a half of use, with Wi-Fi on and off intermittently and 2-3 hours of reading a day, there was enough charge left to support this claim.

4. The device comes with 4 Gigs of storage – Imagine carrying 20 books with you when you’re traveling and you will realize how big a boon this is. (Personal experience – when I visited China in 2010, I was warned that it is difficult to get English books, and I carried a few, left some of them back there. This device would have saved so much of space in my luggage and the pain of leaving books behind)

5. Neat, uncluttered and easy to use interface – You do not need to be a gadget wizard to start using this device as soon it is out of the packaging.

6. Integration with Amazon Store – this is a huge boon. Once you register your device, you can buy stuff (not just books) right there on the Kindle. You can also browse on a computer, and buy eBooks which automatically get delivered to the Kindle when you sync-up using Wi-Fi (or 3G, if you have the 3G version)

7. Additionally, it comes with an experimental Audio player, and a browser – I have no idea how good the audio player is, since I am already equipped with enough devices to deliver music. However, for those who like audio books, this could be useful. The browser is quite decent, but remember that this device does not display color.

8. If you already have a collection of eBooks, this device can be used to read them as well. When you plug it in to the computer, it uses a Mass Storage Media profile. To read your personal files, just copy them to the /Documents folder on the Kindle and you are all set. As such, the Kindle supports a wide variety of documents. If you need a document converted, Amazon’s WhisperSync feature allows you to eMail the document (or documents bundled together as a Zip file) to an eMail address. If you use 3G for delivery, Amazon will charge you for it. If you use Wi-Fi, use the eMail address <your_user_name>@free.kindle.com and the Kindle syncs only when connected to a WiFi network – and there’s no charge.

9. Any document that you request to be converted stays on Amazon’s Cloud free of charge, accessible to you anytime. Amazon allows you to store up to 5 GB of data. This is applicable for documents that you convert. If you buy a book, it stays in the cloud and does not add up to this space. You can delete these book on your device and my understanding is that they will still be accessible.

10. Selecting a word will look it up on the in-built dictionary. The dictionary, by itself, is available for use.

The Bad:

1. As with all products that use software, there are bugs. My Kindle was responding very badly after 3 weeks of keeping it powered on – it was way too slow to operate and needed a reboot to get back to normal. There could be a memory leak that may need fixing.

2. Not a real book – This is not my complaint, but I’ve read this complaint on several forums. If the way a book feels is important, this may not be the best choice.

Amazon publishes a list of eBooks that they provide for free for a short duration from time to time on this RSS link. You’ll have to use your discretion on what to get, even if it is free

For my personal use, this has been a big plus – I’ve been reading more, it’s a lot easier to carry books when traveling, and when time is right, the Amazon Book Store gives me a great deal on books that I need. I can also read other books that I already have (PDF, mobi, epub, doc formats to name a few) on this device and the storage it offers is good enough to carry more than what I can read.

If you have an eBook in a format that is not recognized by the Kindle or WhisperSync service, you may find this software (which is free of cost) quite useful to convert books to a format that is recognizable by the Kindle.

If you have any other questions, ask them in a comment.

Addendum : Almost missed mentioning – it’s very easy to perform the basic operations with one hand, which is a big plus. I’ve read about a lot of people complaining that most of the older eBook readers are a pain to use since you can’t go to the next page without holding it in one hand and using another to navigate – that operation, is easy. For word lookups, using the menu, annotating – you will need to hold it with one hand and use the other.

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