John Hathaway

There’s no bookstore on Vieques. Shipping takes an extra day or so to get here. We don’t have extra space in the house to store a lot of books. And I read a lot. So a Kindle from Amazon.com seemed like a good solution to try.

I got it a couple weeks before we left SF, so haven’t had tons of time with it yet. But so far, I’m a fan.

The e-paper screen very easy to read. I’d probably like it better if the background was actually white instead of gray, but not a big deal. The interface is very simple and intuitive. The little wheel for selections works well and I LOVE the silver look of the “cursor” along the side. It looks like a little mirror or square drop of mercury. The keyboard isn’t great, but it’s used rarely enough that it doesn’t really matter.

I’ve been using it so far just for books and think it’s great for that. I haven’t tried news papers yet. And I really don’t get reading magazines on it. Big color photos are such an important part of most magazines that I think the experience would be really diminished on a small, black & white Kindle screen.

The service side of it is a joy in that you don’t really need to know it’s there. My Kindle arrived already linked to my Amazon account. There’s no sign-up or fee for the wireless service. I just turned it on, clicked on the Kindle store, looked at my personalized recommendations, clicked Buy, and was reading about a minute later. Probably the best out-of-the-box experience I’ve ever had. I was nervous about if/how it would work in Vieques, but my signal is actually stronger here than it was in SF.

I’ve seen people complain about the battery life, but I’ve been happy with it. With the caveat that I do some basic power management by turning the wireless off unless I’m actually shopping/buying and turning the unit completely off when I’m not using it rather than letting it go into standby mode.

What I’d really love is a stripped down, ruggedized version that I could take to the beach! I’d be perfectly happy to dump the keyboard and manage everything on my laptop. I know they’re planning 2 new versions before the holidays. But I’m guessing the beach friendly version won’t be one of them.