So far no complaints, other than u can't use it in the dark. I'm using it right now as I type, so it can be slow going.

So no reading in bed? Well that's a bummer! :whip:

Not unless you have a light! Seriously though I love it.

My understanding is that it's like the Sony e-Reader (which is what I am drooling over). It uses e-ink. Basically the same ink used in books and can be read in full sun. Like a book, you need a booklight to read it in the dark because you cannot backlight e-ink.

I spent a LOT of time at the Sony table at MakerFaire.

Yeah I have really no complaints so far. You can download from your pc to the kindle mp3s and listen while you read. You can get on the internet also, which is what I did from my kindle to this message. Plus it already has some sites bookmarked for you like weather and stuff.

I have some preview chaps of books I might think I'd be interested in, but as you all know I wanted to get the hard/soft back stuff read first.

Oh and I saw a preview of The Other Boyelyn Girl in the movies the other day (when I saw Fool's Gold) and it looked good!

can you load your own ebooks on it? or only ones you buy from Amazon?

Is it comfortable to hold? is it light? do you accidentally hit the page forward/back buttons often or hardly ever? Since it's meant to be roughly the size of a MM paperback, it'd fit in a small purse or some jacket pockets, yes? How's the whisper downloading via sprint working out for you? Do you find you are able to connect most anywhere?

I'm so frightfully jealous :lol:

I unpacked my Kindle this morning. Played with it just a bit and then went to the Amazon Kindle store to download Stone Cold by David Baldacci. I'm starting Chapter 29 (of 99 chapter) and enjoying the reading experience as much as the book.

I haven't tried to access this forum using the Kindle's browser yet. I did go to Feedbooks and downloaded their Kindle guide so that I could download a free (classic, copyright-free, creative commons) book or two. The immediacy offered by Kindle -- think about a book, buy a book, download a book, start reading a book; all within 5 minutes -- could wreak havoc with my budget! So I'm going to focus on low-cost books as much as I can.

Biggest disadvantage to the Kindle is that you can't swap the books you've finished reading. Buying a Kindle edition is "for keeps", it appears.

Well, to be fair, all ebooks are supposed to be like that. I mean, you can find sites that swap ebooks but it's illegal the same way swapping mp3s on Napster was illegal.

Still no word on whether you can use Kindle for non-Amazon ebooks? Though from your post it looks like you probably can...

Yes you can use any ebooks you have stored on your computer and download it to your kindle via your USB cord (which it comes with). You can also go to audible.com and download audio books. I'll look later and give you the exact formats it supports.


The kindle is very light, I swear the box it came in is the heaviest thing. After I put the kindle in it's book cover it was actually easier to use.

I took it to my parents house 1. to show it off to my mom and 2. to check the whispernet connection since they live out in BFE where no broadband is available. Although the kindle works on a same connection as the cell phones you just don't ever know.

Anyway I was showing my mom what a sample chapter would look like and she goes.....gosh I can't read that fast. She had her thumb on the next page button and was holding it down. So I had to show her where not to put her fingers.

You can load eBooks from other source on it -- as long as they aren't secured with DRM (digital rights management). The Kindle works with books in Mobipocket format. Secure Mobipocket is encrypted with the PID number of the device and the Kindle's PID is not disclosed. There's a hack to disply the PID of the Kindle, but some of the online stores selling Mobipocket books won't accept the format of the PID used by Kindle.

I have around 100 eBooks -- copyright-free, released with a Creative Commons license, or sold with a DRM-free format -- which work just fine on the Kindle.

Yes, it's comfortable to hold. It is light. You can hold it with the cover attached or not, though you are strongly encouraged to put the device into the cover before throwing it into a bookbag, purse, or other carrier. It took a little while to come up with a comfortable way of holding the Kindle without accidentally hitting one of the page-turning keys. They definitely are too big and take up too much of the left and right edge.

I think the Kindle + cover is closer to the size of a trade paperback than a mass-market book.

I live in a rural area and figured I'd have to drive down to the nearest "big" town to be able to use the Internet feature or download books via the EVDO cell connection. Imagine my surprise when the Kindle connected right away. The down side of this is that it's going to be a *lot* easier to spend too much money!

Those of us that are book-a-holics are the target audience of these devices. They are expensive and there are major competing technologies. I made the wrong choice in the Betamax vs VHS wars. I think I've picked the wrong technology in the BlueRay vs HD-DVD. I'd just *hate* to discover that I've invested in the wrong eBook format, too! :duh:

I make no bones about being a geek. I'm going to enjoy reading books with my Kindle. I'm also going to download the book-making software and see how hard it is to use. There are a lot of books out there in Project Gutenberg that need to be converted from plain text to one of the eBook formats, so I'll pick some books that I'm interested in and share them with the rest of the eBook community.

Amazon Kindle and Sony Reader Locked Up: Why Your Books Are No Longer Yours