Brown Book Loft Blog

There are plenty of reviews on Amazon’s Kindle reader available right now. It’s way ahead of the other e-book readers available right now, and is very much the “must have” gadget of the moment. Most reviews concentrate on the Kindle’s technical aspects, which is quite understandable. It’s a piece of high tech personal electronics after all. Even so, a brief look at the actual user experience with the Kindle might not be a bad idea.

First of all, a very quick look at the spec. The Kindle 2.0 has a ticket price of $ 259. It’s approximately the size of the average paperback and about as thick as a glossy magazine. It weighs a little over 10 ounces and has enough memory to store approximately 1500 books. One of its key features is its e-ink technology display. This produces less eye strain than reading on a PC screen – and has a much lower power requirement.

My first impression, when I got my Kindle a few weeks ago, was that the button positioning wasn’t right. There are two buttons on the left hand side – “prev page” and “next page”. There are a further two buttons on the right hand side – “home” and “next page” (again). At first I thought that one of the “next page” buttons was redundant. I thought that the left hand one wasn’t required.

However, after using the Kindle reader for just a few minutes, it made perfect sense. Sitting propped up in bed, on a crowded bus, in the metro or drinking coffee in Starbucks, it’s ideal. You can easily hold the Kindle in one hand and leaf through the pages, forwards or back, using your thumb. As a matter of fact, it’s much easier to use than a real book.

Before I bought my Kindle, I had tried a display model e-book reader in my local bookstore. I must confess, I didn’t really like the way the page refreshed. Once again, after using the Kindle for just a few minutes, I didn’t even notice this anymore. It’s exactly like flipping the page in a “normal” paper book for me now.

When it comes to the actual reading experience itself, the e-ink display is fantastic. The background is a light grey instead of the traditional white or cream of paper – but you get used to this very quickly. Compared to reading on a back-lit PC monitor, it produces a lot less eye strain. All I can say is that, whenever I’m reading a good book on the Kindle, I’m totally oblivious to the fact that I’m using it rather than reading a conventional book.

The low power requirement of the e-ink display is another big bonus. Although I read a fair amount of books, I find that the Kindle will usually go for around three weeks between charges – that’s with the wireless turned off. I usually turn the wireless connection on only when I’m buying books – which is a very simple process. In fact, it might be just a little too easy – I am very definitely guilty of a few impulse buys. According to Amazon’s official product description, books will download in less than a minute. From my own experience I would say that it’s way less than this. Of course, this isn’t a big deal really – but think about how annoying it can be when you PC takes an extra thirty seconds or so to boot up one day and you’ll get the point. It’s just another positive aspect to the overall user experience.

Just to try to give you some idea of what a pleasurable experience reading on the Kindle is, a few days ago I got an e-mail from Amazon to tell me that my order had shipped. I went to check it out as I knew that I hadn’t ordered anything. I found that it was a book by a favourite author of mine which I had pre-ordered some weeks ago and then forgotten about. Frankly, the thought of going back to manhandling a heavy book – even one written by one of my favourite authors – was less than appealing. Holding a book in my left hand and turning pages with my right seems like something out of the stone age to me now.

Find out more about the Amazon Kindle for yourself and view the wide range of Kindle accessories available to help you personalise your reader.