The Kindle II—

A Low-Tech Look At A High-Tech Toy

By Nancy K. Crevier

I have more than a thousand books stacked on the nightstand next to my bed, and I can lift them with one hand. Okay. I could have a thousand books stacked there. It is only a matter of time before my Kindle II is fully loaded.

The Kindle II is an electronic reader, barely larger than a paperback book, and infinitely lighter. Thinner than many magazines, the Kindle II is a portable way to download books, magazines and newspapers using wireless Internet service that is provided free through Amazon with the purchase of the Kindle II.

Well over 250,000 titles are available for purchase at the Kindle store, with current hardcover books generally priced at $9.99, and paperbacks and older titles at a substantially lower price. It truly does take under 60 seconds to download a book from the store to the Kindle, as promoted, and subscriptions to newspapers and magazines are updated just as soon as the publication is available.

When Amazon introduced the Kindle II electronic book in February, I was excited. The original Kindle had limped along in popularity, but early reports were that the quirks that annoyed people (like bumping the rocker button and shooting back or forth a page, and a distractingly slow page turn) had been ironed out. Best of all, the Kindle II was said to be so user-friendly that a person could take it out of the box, turn it on, and be ready to go. That appealed to me. No computer interface, no hooking up this or that. Just flick the switch and get ready to download books. Could it be true?

I was sure that a few other people in Newtown wanted to know, too, so The Newtown Bee requested a Kindle II for review. I know this is hard to believe, but The New York Times and a great number of other techie magazines and columns all ran reviews of the Kindle II…. while I patiently waited, and waited, and waited for the promised Kindle II to arrive at the doorstep of The Bee.

I knew there was a waiting list when I spoke to Kindle, but when February and March came and went with only weak promises via email that our Kindle II was going to be delivered, my excitement definitely died down. In April I impatiently said that yes, we were still interested in reviewing the Kindle II when I received a query… Then nothing.

So how do I come to have (the potential of) more than a thousand books at my beck and call? It is thanks to my family who pooled their resources and, no doubt tired of listening to my lament about never getting the review Kindle, wrapped it up so nicely and presented it to me for my birthday.

My friends know that despite the high-tech toys that populate my home, I am notoriously low-tech. I have owned cellphones for years at a time before discovering basic capabilities, and my computer once terrorized me when I accidentally turned on the “narrator” and had it whispering letters to me. I often mistake call waiting for a low battery warning, and hang up on everybody.

Our television has three remote controls and I have to turn it on manually. I have been reduced to tears trying to watch a DVD without a teenager present to get me through it.

I still do not completely understand my Prius.

Out Of The Box

An electronic reader, therefore, was another mystifying oddity that I had to explore, even though I love my books. I love turning the pages and looking at the cover art. I like to trade books with friends and family and I even enjoy the smudges of ink left on my fingertips from browsing the paper. But the instant gratification lobe in my brain lit up when I read about the simplicity of ordering and having a book immediately on hand with Kindle, and I felt a need to challenge the assertion by Amazon, the sole distributor of Kindle, that it was ready to go out of the box.

It is necessary to charge the Kindle upon arrival, but the clear directions left me no doubt (unlike my cellphone) as to which port was meant for the charger cord. Then it truly was a quick flick of the switch and the Kindle was ready for business.

There are only a few buttons, to my great relief, to navigate the Kindle and even without reading the directions (something I always advocate) I quickly figured out the five-way navigator to move the cursor up and down, back and forth, and for selecting. The home page includes more detailed directions for using the Kindle II, as well as “My Clippings,” a depository of bookmarks, highlights, and notes the reader makes. And no messy pens are involved.

There is a little keyboard on the lower half of the Kindle. This is for the electronic equivalent of writing in the margins, or for typing in questions to Wikipedia. I find the keyboard a little clumsy, but usable.

Bookmarking and highlighting are also features of the Kindle II, and perhaps not as intuitive as just plain reading. I apparently have highlighted many more phrases than I planned, and I have to say that it is not clear to me how to erase these bookmarks.

On the home page, purchased book and publication titles appear, as well as The Merriam-Webster Dictionary. I clicked on a title thoughtfully purchased by my gift givers and began to read. Turning the page took only a quick depression of the “Next Page” button located along the right side, and there was no more of a noticeable lag in turning than I experience with traditional books. There is no chance of messing up and flipping the page backward, as the “Previous Page” button is located on the opposite side. Feeling ambidextrous? There is a “Next Page” key on the left side of the Kindle, too.

Sad to say, this was one of those birthdays where another feature of the Kindle II has appealed to me. At the bottom of the keyboard is a button with a capital “A” and a lower case “a.” Press the key and the print gets bigger….

Reading my first book on Kindle felt a bit odd, but within minutes I was enjoying the experience. Any book I read on my Kindle II, though, will be measured in percentages and locations. I can no longer tell my friends that I have “this much” of a book left to read, using my fingers to measure out the thickness in the air. Nor can I flutter the remaining pages past my fingertips as I slog my way through a book club selection that is not enthralling me. I have to click, click, click. (Although, I could be wrong on that; remember, I haven’t really read the directions yet.)

I checked out the “read to me” feature with no trouble at all. If I am ever feeling just too lazy to open my eyes and read, I can indulge in having the Kindle II read out loud to me. (I’m trying to imagine when I would want an electronic voice to read me a story; maybe in the car? ) I opted for the male voice over the female voice, and was pleased at how unrobotlike the voice sounded. He does have a tendency to rush the punctuation, but it is possible to control the speed of the cadence; so if Mr Kindle and I ever get cozy, I might play around with that feature.

Electronic Ink

Kindle uses electronic ink, involving negative and positive charges or tiny capsules containing even tinier rotating balls — none of which I really comprehend — but it is very much like reading regular ink on paper. And unlike looking at a computer screen, there is no back light to irritate the eyes. The Kindle can be comfortably read indoors or out. E-ink also requires power only when the display changes, so the battery charge lasts longer. If wireless is not turned on, a charge should last well over a week. My initial charge lasted nine days. There is no warning that the battery is planning to die imminently, so keep the charge cord close by when the battery shows a low charge. I was disappointed when showing off my Kindle II to my book group and the charge gave up the ghost with no warning.

A feature that I do like is the dictionary. Just placing the cursor in front of a word and clicking brings up the definition at the bottom of the page. So for those words that cannot be figured out in context, this look-up aspect of the Kindle could be very handy.

The lightweight of the Kindle II, only a bit over ten ounces, makes it easy to carry around and comfortable to read. Imagine reading War and Peace in a slim, one-third -inch thick volume, or Gone With the Wind without becoming winded from lugging it about? There are no book bindings to break, no pages to tear, no covers that rip.

There are also no pages to dog-ear my spot in the book; but Kindle has that covered. Close the book, then “wake it up” (the kinder, more gentle term for turning the device back on), and the book “opens” to whichever page was last read. I will admit I goofed up my first book by hitting the “Back” button instead of the “Previous Page” button at one point and spent a bit of time recovering to the page I wanted.

With the wireless Internet connection turned on, I can search Google, Wikipedia, and the web. I can also use the Search mode to shop for books and other publications in the Kindle store.

It is also possible to search a particular word in the book to bring the reader back to a location. That was convenient when I started book number two, a book I had started reading in hard cover, and wanted to pick up on Kindle. I typed in a key word from one the last page I had read in the print version and voila! I was on the right page on my Kindle.

Any Negatives?

Are there technological negatives to the Kindle II? None that cannot be overcome, even by me, so far. For some of the Kindle II’s capabilities, such as adding email addresses or setting up an account, it is necessary to log into the Amazon website for managing the Kindle, but how often would one do that?

I will not be abandoning my paper books and newspapers entirely, though. There will always be a place for print in my life. I do not think the beach or the tub are Kindle-friendly environments and there is bound to be a book that is not available at the Kindle store. Would you throw a Kindle on the floor to potty train a new puppy? Can a Kindle be crumpled and used to polish the mirror? The thought of trying to fold a Kindle in half to swat a fly horrifies me.

I am also experiencing a weird guilt. There was an underlying sense as I recently browsed the selection of books at Borders, that I was cheating on them. I was harvesting titles while my daughter shopped for a genuine print book, plotting behind the back of one of my favorite bookstores to return home and load the books onto my Kindle II. I also had the feeling that employees were watching me, as though I was some sort of bibliophilic stalker, scoping out the books, but not buying a single one — not even a magazine.

The other downside to being a Kindle II owner is that I am a little dismayed to think that if I read an excellent book on Kindle, I can only recommend it to my friends, not lend them the book. If I subscribe to newspapers at a greatly reduced cost from having it delivered to my home, only one of us can read the paper at a time. There is no divvying up the sections and carrying them from one part of the house to the other. So Kindle is a selfish techie toy, to some extent.

Rumor has it, though, that other Kindlers (that’s my term, by the way) can share books between them. All I need to do is get my friends and family members to indulge themselves, or get lucky, like me.