What Did Santa Bring You?

Santa was very good to me this year. He brought me a shiny new Kindle. No longer will I feel like I'm out of touch, a step behind everyone else.

Who am I kidding? I will probably always be riding the coattails of trends instead of leading the charge. It's how I operate. Weigh, assess, gather data...think about it some more...and then, maybe, cave.

But, back to the Kindle. I have to say that having the e-ink is wonderful on my eyes. I have my laptop and I have my Ipod touch. Both of which have backlit screens. And while they work to read ebooks, they aren't very comfortable to read from for long periods of time. I've read 4 books since Christmas. And my eyes aren't tired. That's saying something!

There are a few things I'm not so fond of with the Kindle:

I miss my covers. Kindle books do not show the covers! At least not that I've found so far. They show in the Kindle store, but not at the beginning of the story as I've grown used them doing on my Ipod. And not on the home menu either (If I'm wrong, someone please point me to the setting to change this!)

I don't like shopping from the Kindle. I prefer the Ipod/browser interface to the one on the Kindle.

And I have to say, I've finally discovered how fast EDGE coverage is (the secondary coverage outside the Sprint coverage map). It's slow. As in...dial-up slow.  Maybe slower. At home I have the Kindle set to use my wifi network. Which, even as slow dsl, is way way faster than EDGE. But I'm glad I have it anyway, given my husband's chatty nature. I can sit there and buy books while waiting on him wherever he decides to stop and chat in the car. It's awesome.

One last gripe: battery life. They are smoking dope on their specs. Granted, I've been playing Scrabble, have the wireless ON, and have been reading nearly nonstop. But the charge was halfway gone within 2 days. No way would it last 10 days on a single charge. Uh uh. I'm going to experiment with turning the wireless off for battery life to see what the real life range is.

Next up is figuring out how to use Netgalley with the Kindle.

Thank you Santa!

What the Heck is EDGE coverage for Kindle?

I've been quite vocal about my irritation with Amazon and their Kindle device. Mainly because it runs on the Sprint network. And the Sprint network is practically non-existent in the rural, mountain west.

But, you say, the coverage map shows a much larger coverage area using EDGE wireless.

But what the heck is EDGE?

According to the AT&T guy I spoke with yesterday, EDGE is a wireless network acquired during the purchase of the small wireless carrier back in the late 1990s. And, according to a few sources, I have discovered the answer to the question that has thus far prevented my purchasing a Kindle: Just how fast (or slow) is the EDGE coverage compared to 3G Sprint?

The answer? It's about 1/6th as fast. When it's working at top speed.

Which means that it might take a few minutes to download your book instead of the 60 seconds or less Amazon's advertising focuses on. Books are relatively small files, so that's good news for download speed.

Still better than being chained to your home network via wi-fi. Still better than trying to find a hotspot. Trust me, if you live in an area without 3G, hotspots are rare. And definitely better than having to download to your computer first then transfer to your Kindle.

(Yes, I know, there is a Kindle wi-fi only version, but the ability to buy books on the go --away from the often elusive hotspots-- is a large part of the appeal of the device for me.)

So...am I going to break down and buy a Kindle? I'm still undecided. The idea of spending that much money on a device that is vulnerable to my klutzy, accident prone kids sends shivers down my spine. A ruined mass market will cost me about $8 to replace. A ruined Kindle? *shudder*

But at least I know that the wireless capability of a Kindle IS available for most of my area. Even if it works at a fraction of the speed urban readers experience.