Using the Kindles
We’ve been using the Kindles extensively for the last five months, and we’ve come to realize that we would prefer the newest version of the Barnes and Noble e-ink reader. We wish we had waited.
Our biggest irritation is how truly awful the navigation is on the Kindle. Granted it’s a bit tough in the touch-screen world to get used to an older style of technology, but that aside, their system is truly unfriendly. I did figure out how to use it, but it’s not intuitive – I still have to remind myself which steps to take every time I want to add a book to a collection, or look up a dictionary definition, or move from my current location. I finally remember how to highlight and how to turn off wi-fi easily.
Finding where you are in the book is a challenge. There’s no page system in most books, there’s a location system instead, and you’d better know how to use it if you want to “flip through the book”. I didn’t understand the system the first time I wanted to flip through, and ended up clicking through at least eighty or ninety clicks to find where I was. Massively frustrating.
Now I know I have to find and note my current location number before going anywhere else in the book, but you better either have a good memory or write it down before you can get back to it! And having to type in the location using the keyboard is slow and painful.
Turning off the Kindle requires holding the key down for a full eight seconds. They say seven, but it’s really eight, or else you’d better make sure you wait through the full seven seconds. It seems like a small thing, but it is incredibly irritating having to hold the dang key down and wait, and wait, and wait. No other technology I own is like that.
Not having time and date and book title and page number showing in a bar across the top or bottom is also really annoying.
There’s no way to know what book you’re reading or where you are in it in most books, except to know that you’re a certain percent of the way through it – there’s no way to gauge how many pages are left or how long it will take you to finish (sixty-seven percent of seven hundred fifty pages is very different than sixty-seven percent of a hundred eighty pages).
On the Kindle there’s no way to know what book you’re reading if you want to go back to the home page and check something for a minute. Once you find the book you’re on, it will take you to the last place you read, but you can’t find the book if you don’t remember the name…and you have to scroll through the list of books to find it and hope you remember. Granted this may not be hard for some people, but we often have several books going at once, with new ones added every day so the names tend to run together in my mind. The most recently opened book does go to the top of the list, but if I open several books in a row, then I’m trouble.
The way the Kindle is designed, it’s very hard to pick it up without accidentally clicking keys on the keyboard or clicking the keys on the side and inadvertently changing pages.
Using the keyboard is annoying. The weight of the Kindle makes it somewhat top-heavy when using the keyboard – you’ve got to have your hands down low on the Kindle to access the keyboard, but then the weight of the rest of it tilts against your balance, so you’ve got to spread your hands widely, balance, and type with your thumbs.
The buttons are easy to click, but I have to very slowly search the keyboard to find the keys other than letters and figure out which one I should be using.
It does have white lettering on the buttons, but the buttons are gray and blend in to the rest of the background. The white lettering is really small, and for those with challenged eyesight, or who are using it in low light, it’s very tough to see what key you need. I can see the lettering being worn off after use, and what then?
Having the PDFs on the Kindle is ridiculous. It’s impossible to read them, so why claim that as an advantage? I was so excited thinking we’d have our pass codes, favorite quotes and so on, on the Kindle, but if I can’t read the document, what’s the point?
Maybe I’m missing something very obvious, given that I did read online what an advantage it is having the PDFs on the Kindle, and how well the Kindle handles them. I just haven’t found the secret yet, and I don’t want simple things to be hard. In contrast, putting the documents on my smartphone was a piece of cake, and they are clear and easy to read.
The battery is not able to be changed out by the user – it has to be sent back to Amazon to be replaced. Can you see us having to find a way to send it back to the US from the jungles of Bolivia, and then figure out a place we could have it sent back to us, given that we’d likely not be in the same place?
Being stuck on Amazon’s DRM system for the format of the books is extremely annoying. (And yes, I know that Barnes and Noble is the same, but Amazon is the most obstructive of all the major players.) It’s like Apple, once you’re in, you’re in. There’s no crossing over, and if you do, you’ll lose your investment unless you’re willing to illegally hack the DRM. (I probably wouldn’t care so much if I were happy with the Kindle.)
If you want to access any other types of formats you have to use a system like Calibre (which is very highly rated) to convert the formats to Kindle’s format. (It reminds me painfully of our Sony SonicStage experience.)
Amazon does not easily allow lending or borrowing, and what they do allow is incredibly restricted. You cannot borrow from the library, which the Nook does allow.
I spent time this morning and over the weekend on various online forums reading up about using the Kindle, and I can see that I will have to invest a fair amount of time learning the different formats, library management systems like Calibre, and tricks to fully utilizing the Kindle. All in all I do love having an e-reader. I just wish the Kindle were easier to use.
Alex got Amanda a Nook e-reader for her birthday in early August, and we think it’s got significant advantages over the Kindle. While we haven’t had a chance to play much with it, we’d be willing to change just on what we’ve seen so far.
It’s got a touch screen, and no physical keyboard, which saves space and weight, and saves us the annoyances of the Kindle keyboard. The page turning keys are located much more effectively. You can just swipe across the bottom of the touch screen to scroll quickly through a book. They allow borrowing from libraries. The navigation system appears to be much easier. It has a user replaceable battery. The pages refresh only about every six to seven pages, making the stuttering less noticeable, creating a nicer page-turning/reading experience.
We can’t wait to have more time to explore it. The fact that CNET, a highly respected review website, recently gave the newest Nook its Editors Choice rating doesn’t hurt either.
(Update: On my birthday I did have a chance to play with Amanda’s Nook and we will switch to it as soon as we can find the money in the budget. I found that using it was a breath of fresh air compared to using the Kindle. The book I’m currently reading is noted for me; the ease of using the touch screen is far superior to the clunky Kindle screen; I loved scrolling though dozens of pages fast, using the scroll bar; I had no trouble at all figuring out where to find things and how to get where I wanted to go.
I did not check out the ease of highlighting or the method of organizing the library, but the ease of the rest of it was so compelling that I would switch in a heartbeat.)
Our final thoughts? Rarely is something just perfect, and the current re-readers are certainly in the imperfect category. I’m sure if we had the Nook Simple Touch we’d find all sorts of things we wish were different.
But we really love the e-readers, even in their current early incarnations. Though we want the advantages of the latest Nook, even if all we are able to take with us is the Kindle, we’d still go with it given the advantages of the number of books we can have with us, and the ease of reading with the e-ink.
And who knows, by the time we leave in a few months perhaps Amazon will have come out with an updated e-reader that leapfrogs the new Nook. If not, we’re going with the Nook.