Review: Kindle (Global Wireless)

Well, I've had my Kindle for a number of weeks now and I can definitively say that I made a good call in purchasing it. Currently, I have 200+ books stored on it and I've still got about 80% free space left, so I expect I shall run out of e-books before I reach its storage capacity.

I had my reservations about the black-on-grey e-ink screen. I am partially visually impaired so a high-contrast screen is a matter of necessity. Fortunately, the contrast is fantastic! Yes, the grey background took some getting used to but I think I actually prefer it now to the stark whiteness of fresh paper. Now that I've had my Kindle for a while, I find reading on white paper tiring, a case of having too much contrast.

I've been using e-readers for well over a decade now, pretty much when they first came out. I can remember when I first encountered a brand-new e-reader called Mobipocket on my Palm PDA. :) One thing that surprised me was just how comfortable a non-backlit screen was for reading. I can read for far longer with less eyestrain on my Kindle than on any of my backlit PDAs. I have heard that that was the case before my purchase but even so...wow! Radical difference here. Of course, this also means I can't read in bed with my lights turned off, so I purchased an e-Luminator2 booklight which allows me to read in the dark again. My first one was a dud (the parts kept separating) but when I called their customer service, they sent me another one with no fuss at all. So, two thumbs up for M-Edge - a company has good customer service is a company that cares for their customers and I shall definitely put them at the top of the list should I ever need products like that again.

Oh, I also bought a Latitude jacket for my Kindle which does its job of protecting my Kindle marvelously. I especially like the fact that they've got good, heavy-duty zippers on the thing. Zippers appear to be the first point of failure for most of my items, so it's one worry off my mind. The Latitude won't help if you drop your Kindle or hit it with anything pointy but it does prevent incidental damage from tossing it into your handbag. I don't know about you but I have tons of odd bits in my bag, ranging from harmless items like Pokemon books for the kids to sharp, poky hairpins for ballet. So, having some decent protection does matter in my case.

Back to the Kindle: the battery life on it is amazing. The caveat is that I have to keep my wireless turned off if I want that kind of battery life. I've had it for about half a week now and it's still on the 75% charge marker although I think it'll drop to 50% charge soon. For my usage patterns, I will probably be able to go a full week without charging and I'm a fast, heavy reader. There are many cases on the forums of other folks going nearly a full month without charging. I think that's a bit extreme and probably works for people who read slowly and infrequently. The Kindle draws power when either indexing books, using the wireless or changing pages. I read very fast and I read for long periods of time now, at least an hour a day, easily 3-4 hours on the weekends. Therefore, I draw more power from my Kindle than your average user. A week between recharges is very acceptable for me.

Being a Canadian resident, this means that many features of Whispernet (Amazon's wireless delivery service) aren't available to me. Things like the web browser and blogs, for example. The web browser is terribly slow, if accessing Wikipedia is any indication (yes, Canadians still do have access to the Wiki) so I can't say it's a major loss. Not being able to subscribe to blogs does hurt a bit though - I'm a heavy blog reader, which I use as colour commentary to supplement my daily morning scan of the newsfeeds. Amazon has a $2 surcharge for non-US residents when purchasing any books from their Kindle store. There's no way around it, even if you choose to download the purchase via your desktop Kindle. I just purchase the books and send them wirelessly to my Kindle as I might as well enjoy the convenience if I'm paying for it. I'm a bit miffed with Amazon over this. $2 per purchase seems a bit high even with wireless charges. I don't mind paying a yearly subscription fee for wireless Whispernet service for my Kindle though, should they ever change over to that scheme. Fair's fair - someone's got to pay for the wireless charges and I don't mind doing so if it's fair. Still...$2 per book (about 20% of the typical paperback price) is on the high side and I'm definitely not a fan of this surcharge.

The main thing I'm miffed about is the fact that US and Canadian publishers license their products differently. Finding an older book in Kindle format is tough enough. Unfortunately, there are many books on the Amazon store that are restricted for sale only in the US. I'd say that 3 out of 4 times I actually manage to find a book that I like in Kindle format gets stopped abruptly when I get the "not available in Canada" message. This is why I buy heavily from publishers like Baen books who are smarter than these ones who prefer that their product not be bought than to reform their policies. Let me be clear here: Amazon isn't the issue, it's the publishers of the titles themselves.

Insofar as I know, almost all Kindle purchases are DRM-protected, so they'll work on your Kindle and nowhere else. Should Amazon go belly-up and your Kindle dies, so do all your purchases. This is the major drawback between protected e-books and normal dead-tree books. There are apparently ways around that DRM but I will not comment on that rather contentious issue.

When you first drop books on Kindle either via the USB link or Whispernet, the Kindle will sense a new book and begin indexing it. When you drop a lot of books on it the first time (like I did, about 200+ books), the Kindle's responsiveness drops. I'd recommend loading all your books on it and then leaving it connected to external power for a couple of hours the first time you do so. After that initial indexing, everything is great.

The Kindle does have some weight to it but I got accustomed to it very quickly. The buttons get too loose too fast - most of my buttons already have some wobble to them and it's been less than a month. The buttons depress with a satisfying but quiet thunk sound. The screen flickers black when it refreshes but you get used to it. The 5-way thumbstick controller is responsive and very usable. The UI is decent but takes some getting used to. In short, the Kindle is functional with a very small learning curve, perfect for a consumer device.

Text-to-speech (for the books that have it not disabled) is decent albeit robotic. It comes in handy as the Kindle keeps pace with the vocal output. This means that I can read a book, switch it over to TTS then switch back to reading without losing my spot. Whoever designed this put some thought into it - well done, Amazon!

Bookmarking and locating sections in the books is...odd. The Kindle uses some kind of indexing system that uses two numbers. It's a bit confusing but as long as you remember the first number, you'll get close to where you left off. You can definitely bookmark pages and that's pretty easy to use.

In addition to books, you can also get magazines from the Amazon store. I have been less than impressed by the content. Not all magazines contain the entire print-version of the magazine, only selected articles. You don't get ads...but you also don't get any graphics at all. No charts, no pictures, no diagrams, which makes some content hard to follow. This may not be the case for all magazines but is true for what I've seen. Buyer beware.

Lastly, I'd like to call your attention to two things, dear readers: calibre and Baen books. If you haven't been to either, please do check them out as it'll be worth your time. Calibre is the best e-book management system that I've found so far. Baen is an excellent science-fiction/fantasy publisher that treats their readers with respect and doesn't price-gouge. Plus, they offer their books in multiple formats, all DRM-free. I love that...and I buy a disproportionate number of books from them. If you're an author, especially a new author, please take note: there are many who think as I do. If you want to gain a following quickly, go with a publisher who's smart enough to have an open policy like Baen. I, for one, will take a chance on a new, unknown author on Baen simply because I trust them more than others. If their customer policies respect me enough not to slap DRM or regional restrictions on their books, it stands to reason that they care enough about their customers to only publish the best. So, I buy...from Baen. And I have never regretted even a single purchase after all these years.

Classmates

Just for kicks, I decided to look up several of my childhood classmates, none of whom I have been in contact with for at least a decade or two. It appears that while the superachievers have gone quite far, most of us ended up being typical working stiffs. :) None of us have moved past being upper middle-class and very few of us appear to have permanently escaped our birth country (I wasn't born here). Most of us did study overseas but the majority returned home* or to the neighbouring country to their south.

Compared to the norm, I'm undereducated with just a Bachelor's degree whereas a surprising number went on to their Master's. Practically everyone is or has been married and successfully procreated at least once. Everyone seems to be working in one of four industries: medicine, information technology, law or business administration. Very few of the men still have a full head of hair. :) Most appear to have either gotten pudgy or gaunt. It's a little shocking to discover that most of us look so...worn out. I didn't manage to track down any of my women classmates except for one. I suspect that's because they've gotten married and settled down as homemakers. From a casual glance, I'm behind the curve compared with these folks. They're better educated and have probably accumulated a very respectable pile of savings.

However, it's not quite so clear-cut if you know that part of the world. They're probably working their fingers to the bone. Getting a postgraduate degree was probably a prerequisite for senior positions within most companies. That pile of savings? Most of it will go to their kids, who they will send to study overseas in the hopes that they will emigrate elsewhere. Decent healthcare there is practically non-existent although the ones who became doctors will disagree with that.

I'm amused by the results of my casual search. It reminded me just how different the two cultures are. I'm quite happy just having a Bachelor's degree although I shall be resuming my postgrad work when time and money allow me to do so. Most companies I've worked for here are meritocracies; your paper qualifications might get you a job in the company but if you don't perform above and beyond the norm, you'll never rise up the corporate ladder. We do have savings for the education of our kids, but there are student loans here if necessary. Over there, there are no student loans and if you can't pay your way, you won't be accepted no matter how bright you are. We have provincial healthcare here and the standards of care are, well, at first-world levels as compared to third-world back there. Lastly, I'm female...which means I have a snowball's chance in heck of making it to upper or even middle management over there regardless of how good I am.

Yes, folks - it's a very different world back there. Did I mention I love Canada? And that I am eternally thankful to have had the opportunity to remain here and be a citizen of our amazing country? Had I returned, I would not be alive right now. Let's just say that the standards of medical care back there would not have accommodated my medical needs.

A slightly disturbing note: my circle of friends and acquaintances back in school were the leaders of our student body. Practically all but one of us were prefects, which was significant back then. Compared to the rest of the student body, I suspect each and every one of us did amazingly well. How do I know this? Well, I couldn't find the rest of my classmates, the ones who I wasn't close to. There are many reasons for that, the primary one being that they simply don't have an online presence or breadcrumbs of any kind. Being disconnected in today's world is...fatal.

*My home is Canada, the country I grew to love and swore allegiance to, not my birth country.

Bicycles

I'm still dreadfully sick with some kind of nasty cold/flu/alien infestation. I haven't been this ill in quite a while. I lost my voice over the weekend although I'm recovering somewhat from that. I hope I get better really quickly - I'm due back at work tomorrow.

I did a wee bit of coding today. I haven't done any spontaneous fun coding in a long time so I was a little surprised that things went as smoothly as it did. I wrote a quick, tiny little utility app that would help me solve a small crypto problem I've been thinking about. It still needs some optimization but so far it seems to run tickety-boo. I guess coding is like falling (sic) off a bicycle; once you know how to do it, you'll retain that knowledge for the rest of your life.

Sometimes, I miss the good old days when I was still writing Z80A machine code trying to get smooth scrolling to work for my games. Or poring over well-nigh indecipherable pure math textbooks on transformation matrices left behind by my brother, trying to figure out hidden line removal for my wireframe flight simulator. I can remember that surge of satisfaction when I finally got it working, derived from first principles. Not too shabby for a 14-year old. Of course, I've never heard of rounding errors accumulating every time I called a trig function, so all my objects kept shrinking with every iteration. It was a very short-lived flight sim as my virtual world quickly shrunk to a point source. I didn't figure it out until I got to university. Oy.

Wow, I've been at this for a quarter of a century now. I feel old. :(

Y'know, if I passed on from this world tomorrow, I wouldn't say that I would be terribly content about it but all in all, it hasn't been a bad life, not this one anyway. Mmm.

Regrets

We all have regrets in our life, some of which we just can't change but that doesn't stop us from regretting it nonetheless. I think it's part of being human, to have unrealistic aspirations that are unachievable. You see, every now and then, that impossible dream does become achievable by dint of hard work. It's how we grow as a species, by reaching for the stars and refusing to be held down by the ground beneath our feet.

Of course, for every one Edison or Einstein, there are several thousand nutjobs out there. That's why tinfoil hats are still so popular.

I have been introspecting a lot lately and I realized this morning that even my regrets have changed between this life and my previous one. I used to regret many things, all self-centred and focused on wealth, power and influence. I'm not knocking the old me - if I wasn't as much of an anal-retentive detail-oriented Type-A bleeperty-bleep as I was, I doubt I'd have the trappings of comfort that my family and I enjoy today. However, there is one distinct difference between my regrets then as opposed to now. Don't get me wrong, it's still awfully self-centred :) but instead of regretting the lack of opportunities afforded by my place of birth, I regret not having the cultural latitude to study music or the arts. I now regret not being able to sing rather than not advancing in my career fast enough. I regret not being graceful enough to dance ballet well rather than not being ruthless enough to become an executive.

I'm starting to regret I went down the science stream rather than the arts stream. I know it's silly, because had I gone down the arts stream, I'd never have made it to Canada and most likely be dead by now due to untreated medical conditions. Even if everything went well, I'd not have the wonderful, loving family that I now have. That I do not regret, even though it's been a very rocky road to get where we are now.

*sigh* Of everything personal that I regret, I miss being able to sing most of all. That was part of the cost for me to be who I am today, one which I would pay all over again if I had to. Still, it hurts like the willies and well-sung vocals will make me cry every time.

Conversely, there was one thing I regretted in my previous life but never did anything about for a myriad of reasons: having a greater part and interest in the children's lives. Why I didn't do so in my previous life could fill a year's worth of therapy sessions so let's just leave it at the fact that I was a stubborn idiot. The chance to change now that is something I am eternally grateful for. Case in point: we just finished watching the new Star Trek (I skipped over the gory bits) and the cheeky squeals of delight and fun reverberating off the walls of our cozy home as I chased after the kids with a pencil sharpener whilst threatening to turn them all (or at least their ears) into Vulcans is...priceless.

I regret many things, most of them improbable. But I do not regret my life now. Perhaps there is hope after all.

Drifting

It's great to be given the gift of a second chance at life. I'm quite aware of that and how fortunate I have been. However, it isn't without its quirks.

I've been unwell lately, a nasty cold that seems to be dragging on and on. I've had a chance to introspect which may or may not be a good thing. The truth is, I'm slowly being drawn back to my old interests of my former life, which is definitely NOT appropriate for who I am these days. It's not just the social conformity aspects for someone of my station but it's because I know where it will all end up. No, definitely not where I want to go.

Now that I've decided that, I'm left with an emptiness that needs to be filled with new interests and I'm drawing a blank. Paradoxically, the life I devote to my loved ones is vibrant and colourful even though it's only for short periods of time. For the parts that are truly mine, they are often flavourless and grey. My Kindle has helped a little with that as I can now escape into imaginary worlds written by my favourite authors far easier. I do realize it is merely an escape and that my problems will still be there when I put my Kindle down.

I hope I find a way out soon, somewhere that will lead me to a place that I belong. It used to be that I didn't feel right with myself and that I didn't fit into this world. Now, I feel right as rain but I still don't fit into this world. Disquieting feeling, that.

Ping

It's been strongly suggested that I spend more time out and about with other people, so that's what I've been doing lately. I'm not sure I'm exactly comfortable with it but it does appear to be bringing more positivity into my general outlook and that's nothing to be sneezed at.

It's been 2 weeks since I last posted an entry and yes, I'm still in hiatus. It feels as if I've reached the crossroads for many aspects of my life, both private and public. In my previous life, I would have chosen a path and bulldozed ahead. It's not so easy anymore. I don't think I've become indecisive, only more...sensitive to the cause and effect of my actions on others around me. Paired with my decision to resume climbing the corporate ladder once more, this makes for interesting choices in the near future.

I've resumed ballet. Yes, I still suck at it. It doesn't help that my balletmistress now carries a Nerf gun that she shoots at people who fail to perform by her standards. It sounds a lot worse than it really is. She's a sweet old lady who's done more for her art than I've been alive, so she's definitely earned the respect she gets the hard way. Of course, she's also a merciless taskmaster who expects nothing but the maximum effort from her students. I haven't been shot at yet. I hope to retain that status if I can.

I'm facing the fact that my health is deteriorating without any discernable cause. I think I'm just generally worn down. In that respect, my Kindle has been a great help in reducing my stress. There was a time back when I was a student where I would go to the library and check out a pile of books then lock myself in the room for a weekend with nibblies and bottles of Coke for a marathon session of sci-fi and fantasy goodness. I can't afford to do that anymore, but reading the Kindle in bed with a hot cup of tea next to me every night is probably the closest I'll get. I'll work on eating better and getting more sleep next.

The kids have been fun lately as I spend more time playing games with them. One of them is turning out to be quite tactically-minded so I'm introducing him to basic wargaming. I'm trying to be your typical good, logical, warmongering aunt to the kids. I'm not sure if I'm succeeding all that well, at least on the warmongering part.

And on that note, I'm going to disappear again. Thank you to those who wished me well in my previous entry. It made a difference.