My Kindle experience (I sent it back)

Johnny Storm

Bit of an anti-Kindle Rant:
The Kindle undoubtedly has a lot of good features, which are well known so I wont repeat them.
Bottom line: I got a Kindle for Christmas and I already it back.
Main reason: there are feck-all books available for it in Ireland.
I'm not talking about super-obscure books; I'm talking about fairly recent books by middle-ranking genre authors.

Here are some specific examples: -

Author: Rudy Rucker. Type his name into Amazon.com and you get 800+ hits. Obviously many of those hits are duplicates or irrelevant. Number of books available to buy on Kindle in Ireland: One (not even his latest)

Author: Neal Asher. Number of books available to buy on Amazon: 12+
Number of books available to buy on Kindle in Ireland: Zero

Author: Sue Grafton. Number of books available to buy on Amazon: 20 -ish
Number of books available to buy on Kindle in Ireland: two

Author: Donna Leon. Number of books available to buy on Amazon: 25
Number of books available to buy on Kindle in Ireland: zero

There's really no point in having a Kindle if you cant get the books you want for it. If your entire reading experience is drawn from the "NYT best seller list" then you may be OK with the Kindle, otherwise beware.
It seems that many of the books that are actually available via Kindle in America are not available in Ireland for "contractual reasons". When you go to download, the Kindle knows what country you are in so using a US address does not help.

Some other bad points:-
The way the screen "refreshes" is very slow and reminds me of the 1980s Compaqs with plasma screens. Oddly this does not seem to impact the reading experience.
It’s heavier than an ordinary paperback. (Amazon site flat-out lies about this)
The screen is smaller than a paperback.
The contrast between the ink and the paper is less than a paperback
The screen is not backlit.
If the light is coming from behind your head there can be glare on the screen.
The first sentence in the manual is "Your Kindle can be charged from a US compatible electrical socket" - way to localise, Amazon!!! In fact if you read on, which I eventually did, it can also be charged from USB, although that is VERY slow.
The Kindle store shows you how much you are "saving" on each book you buy electronically - however, the price they compare against was higher than the actual price on Amazon.com for every book that I looked at.
One last complaint (!): The packaging is unbelievably stupid. The Kindle is placed in an open cardboard tray, which then goes in a jiffy bag. When you pull it out of the jiffy bag there is a 50/50 chance than it will be upside down.
The first time I laid eyes on my Kindle was as it was bouncing off the floor. (Good point: very strongly made!)

As I said the Kindle has plenty of good points, which I do not intend to re-hash.

If you are thinking of buying one, log into amazon.com with your Irish address and search for your favourite authors using "Kindle Books" in the drop-down box to see what is available first.


Anyway my intention, is to buy one of the these again in a few years time when they will be great because they will be cheaper, lighter, have a bigger and better screen and will have some books available for them.

Accountsplus

In fair to Amazon, you left out a major good point - their no quibble returns policy.

The lack of books is a problem but, for me, not as much as I expected. More publishers are coming aboard every month. A lot of new books were added just before Christmas. It is a publisher issue, however. I am sure Amazon would love to have more books to sell. I have not yet met a retailer who deliberately refused to stock a good seller.

I am surprised at your comments on packaging. The packaging mine came in was excellent - a custom made cardboard box which opened upwards so the reader had no chance of falling out. There was no Jiffy bag. Mine arrived mid December.

You say it's heavier than an ordinary paperback. I hadn't noticed the weight so I went and weighed mine - about 300g. The nearest paperback to hand was Gilead by Marilynne Robinson - a smallish paperback with about 260 pages. Weight about 260g. Not a huge difference and, on that basis, bigger books will be heavier than the kindle.

By the way, no backlight is a feature. Reading on a backlit screen for long periods causes eyestrain, which is why e-ink was invented. As far as I know the bestselling ereaders have no backlight. If you want to get a backlit screen, download ereader software for a laptop/netbook.

I am very happy with my kindle - sorry to hear you were disappointed. I hope that whatever you get next will be more suitable for you.

Johnny Storm

Thanks for your comments.
I've seen that cool packaging on a web-site about "unboxing" the Kindle. I have no idea why mine was not packaged that way.
I'll post in future and let you know how the return process turns out.

Edit to add: PS the next ereader I intend to buy will be a Kindle c. 2013

Accountsplus

for your next purchase - I hope you haven't given up on ereaders entirely - you should look at www.mobileread.com.
There's a wealth of information there that will help you familiarise yourself with all the options. There's one thread comparing kindle v sony - mainly us posters, so book selection is not listed as a big problem. There's strong opinion on both sides!
http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=64202

parsi

A few points -

- not being backlit is great - it reduces eyestrain , in comparison try reading on an iPod touch - the light will get to you,
- mine also came in the trendy packaging,
- you can get books from other places (assuming that they are out tehre somewhere)- I've only bought 4 books from amazon,
- the weight is fine - I bought a silicone skin on ebay and it makes the whole thing easier to hold.

The Kindle is like an iPod in so many ways - dead easy to load from its own store and it does a good job in pretending that its own store is the only store.

Waterstones are selling an Elonex reader at the moment for €149 but their ebook store is hellishly expensive.

liamog

parsi wrote: »

Waterstones are selling an Elonex reader at the moment for €149 but their ebook store is hellishly expensive.

I've got the Sony PRS-600 and have been using their eBook store. I've not seen any "hellishly expensive" books. I've bought a few Tom Holt novels for around €7 each and whilst its not cheap it stills feels like an acceptable price for me.

I would like publishers to provide eBook versions of books when you but the hardcover version. I think this would be great for those of us who like to purchase books and keep on them on a bookshelf but allow the convenience of eBooks.

parsi

The Lost Symbol is uk£13.59 - dearer than the Hardback or the Audio CD. On amazon it's $13.09 which works out at around 9.35 - still a bit on the dear side/

Your Tom Holt reference sent me to amazon and they're around the same price but I can download a sample. Are they good books overall ?

I note that the two books I bought for the Kindle last week for $2.30 have gone to a rather hellish (I like that word) $13 ..

Johnny Storm

OP here. I said I said I would post here you let you know how the returns process turned out.
Well I got all the money back except for what it cost me to mail it back (I'm OK with that)
There was, in fact, a certain amount of quibbling about the USD60 Import Duty Deposit which slightly soured the experience but it all turned out OK in the end.
FYI to contact Amazon you phone the US and they put you onto people in India, when they escalate problem they put you onto people in, of all places, Cork. I got the impression that the Cork guys were allowed to make decisions while the Indian guys were only allowed to read from scripts.