4 posts tagged “review”
I know lots of people have reviewed the Kindle, but I don't care. I'm reviewing it as well.
So, I finally got my new Kindle (2) from Amazon.com on Friday, April 3, after waiting more than a month for shipping (not Amazon's fault). It's the first Kindle I've used, and, yes, it's the new version 2, which is why I put the 2 in parentheses because if it's new, then it's redundant to say that is version 2, since that's all they're selling these days. Anyway, I love it! I can't use the wireless service, but I am able to read the books I bought off Amazon and also any docs, PDFs, etc. I send to my free account. What happens is, you email your PDF or Word doc to an email address that is designated for you, and they send it back to you to download in Kindle format. I haven't tried any PDFs but htms work okay. I tried a Russian language web page, to see what would happen, and, unfortunately, it came out in all gobbledygook, and not standard Cyrillic gobbledygook. (And, yes, that is a real word (in Wiki, at least), although my usage of it is not the standard, precise usage of the word.)
As far as size, it's great. It's just about the same size as a Moleskine; about the same width, too with the standard cover. I'll try and post a picture with it compared to a normal book, since it seems like it's not common for such pictures to be in reviews (this one either for now). For weight, it's probably a bit heavier than a standard paperback book, but not overly so, and maybe not heavier than a hardback book. It's definitely more wieldy than either. One of the reasons I bought it is so I can read during lunch--normal paperbacks can't sit flat. You can one-hand it for awhile, but unless it's resting on something else (e.g., your lap) your wrist will get tired.
So far, I've read two short stories, including Stephen King's UR, and a complete book: The Tourist by Olen Steinhauer (great spy novel) and that was in three days. I've also been reading The Next 100 Years, A Forecast for the 21st Century by George Friedman, but that's kind of boring, so I read that in between the more fanciful stuff, or when I want to go to sleep. :) I've also got The Russian Debutante's Handbook by Gary Shteyngart, which I haven't started yet, but thinking about it. I started The Idiot Girl and the Flaming Tantrum of Death by Laurie Notaro, who is hilarious and from Arizona. I also have Accelerando (in html format), by Charles Stross, which I bought in paperback before I decided to buy a Kindle. I found out online that he released it for free online! After that, I'm thinking of reading The Accidental Time Machine by Joe Haldeman. What's great is that I have all those books (except the last) already on my Kindle, so if I feel like reading a different one at lunch, I can do that. No more deciding which of the 3 or 4 books I'm reading I'll take with me on vacation.
I haven't really used the text-to-speech feature, but I tried it, and it is surprisingly clear. I don't know how understandable it is in context, since I haven't really used it, but I think I'll try it on the drive home today.
Stuff I don't like about it: It has shortcuts to a few key features, but they aren't easy to find in the manual nor in the menus. Somebody borrowed it to look at it, and somehow changed the Home setting to only show my personal documents, of which I didn't have any at the moment. I had to hit the Back button until the Kindle manual came up and then search for the solution. Annoying!
The buttons are mostly good, but when I put it under my arm, it accidentally pushed some of the buttons, which, though annoying, is understandable.
It's a little slow. If you want to look at the cover, it takes a few clicks (menu, click up or down to "Cover"); if you want to look back at a bookmark, also a few clicks (menu, my notes, click which one): much easier with a real book, if you fold corners for bookmarks. Some people bemoaned the keyboard, but I like it. For instance, in the spy novel, they mentioned a name, and I thought, when did that name come up, last? So I typed the name in, and, whammo, there were the times it was mentioned, and I clicked on it, and I remembered how the name was used in the past. It's great for that.
Another thing I don't like is the powering. If you just leave it be for awhile, then it goes to stand-by, displaying an author's picture or some such. It would be better if it displayed the cover of the book you're reading. If you leave it for longer (not sure how much longer), then it will go completely off. You can also turn it completely off by holding the power button for about 10 seconds. The horrible part is, sometimes, when you turn it back on, you'll just get the beginning of your book. If you didn't put a bookmark on your page when you turned it off, you'll have to either remember the location that you were on (these books go by locations, and The Tourist has just over 4000 locations), or go through chapters, or search to a key word that you remember from the passage you're reading.
As far as a charge goes, I charged it when I got it, and it took about 2.5 hours. I didn't mess with it much while it was charging. Since then, after using it for several hours a day for 3 days, it's got about a 60% charge left. To me, I don't think I'll normally have this much time to read, so a charge should normally last me an estimated 10 days.
All in all, despite the gripes I've listed, the Kindle is the best gadget I've ever bought, so far, and I hope I still feel the same way in six months, and I'm optimistic that I will.
I have had problems posting lately...been busy. In short, this is a good book. It's about Edgar A. Poe's death. If you like fiction that has a lot of historical details, this is a pretty good one. I'm still reading the extras that the author posted online. Poe's death is still a mystery...and a quite interesting one to me. Check out the details at Matthew Pearl's site.
I saw “The Number 23” this past weekend. I thought it was pretty well done. It was a bit scary, and bit thrilling, but there’s a point in the movie where it turns a corner from being goose-bump-producing to being curiosity-inducing and then flows fairly smoothly into bring-us-into-a-satisfying-ending mode, which it does, in my humble opinion. There are some people who can’t stand Jim Carrey, but I like him all right, and I thought he did a passable job in this role. It’s worth a rental and a couple hours of your time, if what I’m describing sounds good to you.
I also saw “Hot Fuzz.” If you’re not familiar with it, it’s by the same guys who did Shaun of the Dead, which I thought was very funny. This is the story of an outstanding police officer in London that does such a good job that he gets promoted to Sergeant and sent to a quiet little town with virtually no crime because he’s making all the mediocre police officers look bad. There are plenty of funny moments, and this one turns a corner from funny situations and light comedy to bad-boy-cop-movie parody; two completely different feelings, but both funny in my opinion. Once the corner had been turned, though, my fiancée couldn’t stand it, and left the room to do something else. If you haven’t seen Shaun of the Dead, watch a trailer of that and watch that first if you think you’ll like it. If you liked Shaun of the Dead, you’ll probably like this.
I just finished Expiration Date by Tim Powers. Let me start out by saying that the other three books of his that I've read, I've loved. This one: not so much. I didn't really like it, actually. I was disappointed. First of all, since I expect a lot from this author because the others were so good. Second of all, it was kind of creepy, but more made me a little nauseous. Some books may describe something gross or sickening and it may intrigue or add suspense or evoke emotion, but the stuff described wasn't really gross or sickening in a usual way, but made me feel a little queasy and the only emotion it evoked was apathy. (Very weird to have apathy evoked.) It was slow. It seemed like the same stuff just kept happening and there wasn't much of a point to all of it. I wasn't too sure where he was going to go with all of it, and I didn't much care.
It takes place in Los Angeles, which I've been to, and maybe that was part of the problem. I don't know what it was, really. The plot consists mainly of characters going to places getting chased and escaping, sometimes with other characters. That's about it. If you're thinking of reading a Tim Powers book, read the Anubis Gates if you like 19th century England and time travel, the Drawing of the Dark if you like 16th century Europe and a little fantasy, or Last Call if you like Las Vegas and poker. Those are all excellent books. I flew through those books. I could hardly put them down. It took me ages to read Expiration Date, which is supposed to be kind of number two in a loose trilogy with Last Call as the first book and Earthquake Weather as the last one. I saw some similarity with Last Call, but if Earthquake Weather continues the trend in declining quality of the the trilogy, I'm not going to get a quarter of the way through that book, which is currently sitting on my shelf, and will continue to sit there until I get up enough courage to risk getting badly disappointed again.
Right now, I'm trying out The Historian; started it last night in fact. It's got a great hook and I'm liking it so far. It is a little freaky. I think it's kind of like The Ring in a way. I'll tell you what I think after I've read some. I heard it's slow in parts and maybe it is, but maybe after the endurance test I just went through with Exp. Date, it will be quick & easy by comparison.
