Kathy's Kindle

Well, I have had the Amazon Kindle, Amazon's new electronic ebook, for a week now and will be putting it to the test starting tomorrow on the 10-hour bus ride to Washington, DC with the 8th graders!

I cannot yet comment on the screen for reading for long periods at a time, since I have really spent the week getting to know Kindle. I read the PDF guide (on the computer although it is also on the Kindle in azw format) and tried all of the functions. I read for a bit, and it is comfortable to hold, once out of its cover, and readable outside in the son and under inside light. It took me some time to get over the fact it is not backlit like a computer or my old Rocket eBook. However, once I remembered to treat it like a "real" book, the clarity of the screen was great and the ability to change the text size was neat.

I purchased a few titles from the Amazon Kindle store (Daniel Pink, Janet Evanovich, and Ann Brashares), loaded up some e-texts from the public domain e-text sites, put some MP3's on the SD card to counteract any movie playing on the bus, and spent some time with the Internet access available on the Kindle. Buying and downloading the books could not have been easier or faster, but I was surprised when Collin's "Good to Great" was not available as an e-text to purchase.

I have decided not to take a computer with me to Washington, and have been trying out the experimental Web browser on the Kindle as an alternative. (The Kindle includes no-cost Sprint cellular EV-DO access to Amazon and the rest of the Net for every owner of one!) As one that is used to using the Web on a Windows Smartphone (Treo before and now HTC Touch), using the mobile versions of Web sites comes naturally and I think I will be able to take care of business this week using the Kindle. Time will tell...

Gotta go pack!