New Toy – Kindle E-book reader (and why I didn’t get a Nook)

Apart from shopping, I have one other high volume hobby – reading. I love to read, and I read alot.  A few months ago I got my hands on the Kindle for iPhone application and became addicted to the ease of e-books.  And now, after a few weeks of SSR (serious shopping research) I’m impatiently waiting for my new Kindle to arrive!

Now, some of you are probably sitting back thinking ‘But nothing beats the feel and smell of a good book’, and I do understand. That was me, several months ago.  But I ask you to think on these points:

• Ebooks don’t need bookshelves to be stored (more space for shoes, less chance of being killed by triple stacked bookshelves when trying to find space to shove the latest purchases)
• When on the go, especially on a shopping related holiday, you don’t need to choose the thinnest book to ensure you are not charged excess lugguge fees – you can take half your library if you so choose
• There are oodles of resources for free ebooks (a serious bonus when you read quickly, as book buying can seriously impact the shopping budget)

I’ve been using the Kindle for iPhone application (US itunes account only) and Stanza to read on my iPhone, and have completely and utterly converted to ebook format, but one disadvantage of reading on the iPhone is that it is a bit hard on the eyes.  That little LCD screen, whilst wonderful, is not made for reading severl hours in a row.

E-book Readers use e-ink technology, which basically means reading an ebook reader is as easy on your eyes as reading paper and ink. There are heaps of different ones on the market – as long as you live in the US, or are prepared to outlay quite a bit more to buy yours in Australia.

The Amazon Kindle wasn’t my first choice for an ebook reader, it was actually Barnes and Noble’s soon to be released Nook. It’s got better tech specs than the Kindle (you can use an SD card to get extra memory, reads more formts than the Kindle, rechargable battery, a touchscreen,  I could connect it to my home wireless network and, lets face it, its veeery pretty looking with the nifty LCD screen down the bottom.

On the downside, it appears Barnes and Noble are taking their ‘US Only’ stance very seriously. I tried to order a Nook using my US address. Without a word (or answer to my order follow up emails) my Nook order was cancelled. From the research I’ve done it appears you need to use a proxy to hide your IP address and appear in the US, use a US issued credit card and  a US address. Okay, I thought, I can do 2 out of 3, but how do I get around having a US issued credit card? Since you can buy Gift Certificates with an international credit card, I figured I could buy myself a gift certificate, and use that to purchase the Nook -but you can’t buy ebooks from B&N with a gift certificate and B&N customer service won’t answer any of my customer service emails about whether the Nook device can be purchased with Gift Certificates, and I really don’t want to get stuck with $300AUD of Barnes and Noble store credit. Plus, what if I do want to purchase an ebook from B&N? Also, no-one has actually used a Nook at this point, so what if I buy it and it doesn’t work like I expect? At this point, the lack of response from B&N whilst I was trying to spend money with them (yes, I know, I’m not supposed to order a Nook, but a simple response would have been nice) , plus the fact that the Nook doesn’t begin shipping until November 30 and now that I had decided I wanted an ebook reader NOW, meant it was time to look elsewhere.

(One point I should make is that if you really really need a Nook, you could easily get one to Australia by getting Price USA to purchase it on your behalf – my only reason for not doing this was my irritation with B&N and need for instant gratification)

Okay, so what else is on the market? Sony has a heap of readers, but they’re not available in Australia.  Astrak looked good because a) they happily ship to Australia and b) they have a pink ebook reader and c) the price was great ($199US) but their e-readers only support 8 shades of greyscale, while the Kindle and Nook both supported 16.

It was at this point I started looking back at the Kindle again. Firstly, it’s available internationlly. Check. Secondly, its very  easy to set up a US based Amazon account. I already have one which I’ve purchased ebooks on, so geographical book restrictions (and higher book costs because I’m in Australia) aren’t a problem. Check. Thirdly, I discovered Calibre, which is basically itunes for ebooks and will convert my many and varied ebook formats into Kindle format (plus it has a nice ebook cover flow as part of the library management tools). Plus, everyone that has a Kindle seems to love it. Thats always a good sign.

All that left was the tech specs. Not much we can do to get around those. I finally decided that the lack of SD card support wasn’t a major issue – the Kindle has 1.4g of storage memory, and thats a LOT of ebooks. I don’t need to store every ebook I’ve ever read on the Kindle, I’d struggle to find the ones I was currently reading.  Being able to connect to my home wireless would be nice, since then it doesn’t matter if I can’t lay my hands on my USB cable, but again, I could live.

Ultimately, it came down to this: For me, the Kindle has about a 2 year life span before I’ll upgrade – eventually I’ll want a colour ebook reader so that I can download magazine subscriptions, and the technology and prices will have changed completely in two years and I’ll be urgently lemming something new. That’s not to say the Kindle doesn’t have some nice features – text to speech (will be interested to see how well this works), some pretty covers (yes, I am shallow, I want a pretty pink cover) and the fact that since I won’t be using the 3g wireless on my Kindle, I’ve got 14 days of reading time between charges. And the best bit? I expect to have it by Friday!

Ebook Reader Product Pages:

Kindle Wireless Reading Device (6
Nook
Astrak Ebook Readers

Ebook reader resources:

Mobile Read Forums – absolutely chock full of ebook reader information, this was my best place of information
Amazon Kindle outside of the US
Calible Ebook Software
Stanza Desktop for the iPhone