It’s not a battery problem, the battery is lasting for about 15 days using TTS. The problem is with Amazon and how they market the device but more so myself.

Amazon claim that you can read for 30 days without charging (and that’s true), and that you can read for 10 days with WiFi enabled (and that’s true). The problem is that it’s a gadget, and with all gadgets you need to charge them. The way Amazon market the device makes me think “I don’t need to charge it today” because it has a lot of battery power remaining. The next day I look at the Kindle 3 and say “Still doesn’t need charging”, and the next “nope, don’t need to charge it” and I eventually get to the point when the battery is run down. The problem is that Amazon have conditioned my brain to think it doesn’t need charging, so I keep running the battery down. I need to somehow get into the daily routing like with the rest of my gadgets to put it on charge so I don’t run the battery down. Last night I crawled into bed, went to turn on the Kindle 3 to find the screen saying the battery was critical again.

Amazon have created a wonderful device, but unfortunately you do still need to charge it

Kindle isn’t new, there was the Kindle 1, Kindle 2 and Kindle 2 DX and also the Kindle app for Android, iPhone and iPad.  I should add a note here that I have not previously used the Kindle 1, Kindle 2 or Kindle 2 DX but I have had the Android, iPhone and iPad apps and have been reading eBooks more recently in the Kindle iPad app.

The entire purchase from start to finish is pretty easy with Amazon, like with purchasing anything from Amazon, it’s a 1-click system, just buy and it arrives delivered wireless to your device over WiFi or 3G if you have the 3G model.  It also can be downloaded free to all of your Kindle devices that you have or devices you have the Kindle app installed to, e.g. iPad.  The purchase process has been improved a little for non-USA customers (e.g. us UK users) because you can now migrate your Kindle account to an Amazon UK account (more Amazon country accounts coming soon).  This means you can now be charged in the Queens British pound and not that US dollar.  price wise the conversion doesn’t vary that much so it’s not really a problem either way unless you hated seeing US dollars appearing on your credit card statement.

Out of Box
I’m amazed at the size of the Kindle 3 – the TV adverts and Amazon images online really don’t do it full justice.  If you thought it looked thin, it’s wafer thin.  At this size you find it hard to believe there’s a battery inside the device and even more so that the device will last for 30 days without a recharge.

Screen technology
The screen comes with a new technology (well okay not new new, but fairly new in the past few years) called e-ink.  E-ink basically makes the screen look like a piece of paper, there’s no back light or lighting in any way.  The text then is charged to the screen and it doesn’t use any power once the text is on the screen.  It only uses power when it needs to clear the screen and refresh or repaint the screen.  This means you get oodles of battery life.

The beauty of the screen is that in normal daylight or even on a sunny day you have no problems reading the screen, there’s absolutely no glare on the screen unlike (dare I say it) the Amazon TV ad shows in comparison to the iPad, which is great.  The problem comes with where you want to read it.  If like me, you do most of your reading in a slightly darker room – say at night, then unless you are in a mega bright room or under direct spot lights, then you’ll start to find reading slight difficult.

So I joked on Twitter that there’s a way around this – to use one of these LED head bands .  Actually, it works pretty well – although as the light source is close you do get a little reflection from the LED lights.

The other way is to listen to the built-in Text To Speech reading, which I found was pretty good and at night it also didn’t have the effect like reading in general does with me by tiring my eyes.

How many eBooks can the Kindle 3 carry?
Well, it comes with a 4gb built-in flash disk for storage, 3gb is available for eBooks.  Amazon suggest that it can hold around 3,500 books, which even in 10 years for me (as a casual eBook reader) means it would take me 100 years to read through all of that.  So don’t worry, 4gb is more than enough for eBook content!

How is the reading experience?
The reading experience is good – providing you have a good light source.  If you don’t, then a head torch (although you look a little silly) would be a requirement.  I haven’t tried reading it on a train but I could see that this might be a problem, especially that light levels are constantly changing and going in and out of tunnels.  That said, if you get on well reading a paper back book on the train then maybe you won’t experience a problem.

What I do find annoying is the 2 seconds it takes to change the page by wiping the ink off the screen and then re-charging the next page worth of ink.  I understand from previous Kindles that this has been improved upon but it’s still slow, too slow for me.  I’ve been using the Kindle app more recently on the iPad and it’s instantaneous page transitions.  Once you get into reading a book you’ll probably not notice this so much but it’s something that still frustrates me with the e-ink technology as it currently stands.

Social Networking
The best thing I like so far about the Kindle is that you can not only highlight any section of the book (paragraph) but you can also then tweet the paragraph or even post it to your Facebook account.  This to me from a Social Networking perspective is very valuable, for one it tells your followers which book you are reading immediately and it also allows you to share funny or important parts of the book.

Specification

Newspapers
You can also subscribe to newspaper or magazine periodicals although Amazon do charge a monthly fee for these, usually around £1.99 a month per newspaper or magazine. This although was something that originally interested me and drew me to the Kindle, I don’t think I’d be paying a monthly fee for text that can be read on the Kindle, I think I’d get it free using my iPad or iPhone.

Web Browsing
The Kindle 3 does also sport a web browser, but it’s slow and tedious. If you wanted to check a website quickly then I guess it’s okay but again like the Newspapers feature, it’s not something I’d want to use that often due to the screen refresh slowness. I think I’d rather use my iPad or iPhone for web browsing.

Carry Case
There’s a number of different carry cases you can purchase direct from Amazon, this was the case that I purchased.

It took me a while to work out how to get the Kindle hooked into the hooks on spine but once I had worked it out it’s easy to take it in and out of the case.

Conclusion
So would I prefer the Kindle 3 to an iPad?  Quite simply it depends on where I’m reading.  If I were to be reading outside on a bright or sunny day then the Kindle would win over.  Likewise if I didn’t want to lug around my iPad and wanted a thin, lightweight eBook reader than the  Kindle 3 would also still win hands down.

Now if I mostly always carry the iPad with me (which I do) then I already have the Kindle reader app inside the iPad anyway, so that means lugging the Kindle 3 around as another device, so the iPad wins hands down, plus I do most of my reading in a darkish room which means I get a great back light to the iPad in which to perfectly read my eBooks.

So in conclusion it really depends on what your tastes are and how you read books and where you read them.  There’s both heavy pro’s and heavy con’s against the Kindle 3.  Personally I like it, it’s an additional device but if I want to read in bed or read when I’m out waiting to meet someone then it’s a nice lightweight device well ahead of it’s game.  Kindle 3 isn’t an iPad killer and likewise the iPad isn’t a Kindle (or eBook killer), it really depends on how you go about life and how you read books.

Kindle 3 Price
The price of writing this review (November 2010) is currently £109 for the WiFi model and £149 for the 3G model (that also supports WiFi)

eBooks get bad publicity because for the most part you can’t share them although some libraries that support eBooks are letting you do this now, but with Kindle whatever device you have, you’re never without your book. It goes to show that DRM can work if it’s implemented correctly for most people. The best part is I don’t even own a Kindle device, but if I were to then the eBooks would sync to that too without a problem.

The first good thing about the app is it’s free. Unfortunately though you’re not able to browse through Audible’s selection of audio books or purchase books directly. This still has to be done from the website. Audible claims to have over 75,000 titles available.

You do have to be connected to a WiFi router to download files larger than 20mb as there’s a cap on large downloads. Although this limit isn’t a surprise to most as most applications have a similar limitation imposed by Apple.

Audio book playback is where the new app really does come in great. The app provides a much better experience than listening to audio books through the iPod player and with the newly released iOS 4 multitasking, this gives you the ability to mutlitask and listen to an audio book whilst running another application at the same time (providing that both apps are iOS4 friendly of course).

The app has some great features like a bookmark system, ability to set a sleep timer so that the book pauses at a desired time and rewind and fast forward functions.

The Audible app also works with the other audio books you have previoulsy purchased and synced from iTunes.

Currently there are only a small selection of free public domain books available, but hopefully this will change over time. If apple embraces ebooks like it did music, the iBooks will hopefully succeed into the main eBook supplier. Lets hope they also provide availability for the iPhone and iPod Touch, and similar to Amazon’s Kindle app where you can sync the books so that you get the last read page when you move to another device.

This is mostly to demonstrate how ebooks or etextbooks could be used on a daily basis by students, but equally this translates well into the business world and that’s where it would first start off.

Think about it for a second, if you could have not only a 8″-10″ tablet that works great for ebooks and etextbooks, but also allows you to look at PDF’s, work on word or excel documents, perform annotations on books, take lecture notes, record voice, this could be pretty cool.

Let me set the background, I’m in the UK, I have been purchasing ebooks from eReader.com since the company started back in 2000 when they were called Palm Digital Media.  I have invested a huge some of money in eReader’s (now owned by Barnes and Noble) ebooks with their DRM (Digital Rights Management).  I like liked eReader, and have purchased 133 ebooks in my library.  At an average of $10 an ebook, that means I’ve spent around $1,330 to my collection, approx £1,000!  It has DRM which means you can’t share ebooks easily, as it uses your credit card number to unlock the book along with the name on your card, but I don’t mind that, providing I can install it onto multiple devices that I take with me, I don’t care.  I’m really not into sharing ebooks.

Nearly every book I now try to purchase from eReader.com comes back with  ”Warning: The eBook you just added to your cart has geographic rights restrictions“.

This message is unfortunately complete BS from eReader.com.  There are no geographic restrictions for most of these books, and I’ll tell you why.

Try to purchase  Dan Brown’s “The Lost Symbol” outside of the US and you are greeted by the same message – GEOGRAPHICALLY RESTRICTED!

Okay, now let’s go to Audible.com, I can add Dan Brown’s “The Lost Symbol” to my shopping cart and check out just fine.

Let’s go to the iTunes App Store, and I can purchase Dan Brown’s “The Lost Symbol” just fine as an ebook, I can even download a free sampler of the ebook!

Now let’s go to Kindle on the iPhone, and I can purchase Dan Brown’s “The Lost Symbol” here too, and like with iTunes, I can also download a sampler version of the ebook!

So unfortunately eReader.com are simply not telling the truth about the geographic restrictions on purchases. I’m not sure if this started happening since Fictionwise.com purchased eReader.com or since Barnes and Noble acquired eReader.com through Fictionwise.com.

I wanted to purchase around $80 of eBooks this Christmas from eReader.com but they won’t let me do so. So now I’m going to go and spend it with Amazon! At this point I’m not going to spend any more money with eReader.com, Fictionwise and Barnes and Noble and that includes the new purchase of the Nook that I was about to purchase. Really….What’s the point? I’m going to have the same geographic restrictions imposed on me by Barnes and Noble.

I welcome any feedback from eReader.com, Fictionwise and Barnes and Noble on the topic of Geographic Restrictions on Purchases and why they are hiding behind this charade and not telling the truth to their customers.

[UPDATE]
More links on this subject…
Geographic Restrictions at Fictionwise
eReader.com Limits E-book Sales To US Citizens
eReader enforcing geographical restrictions

It is the lightest on the market -only 5.3 ounces! Over 1,000 books can be stored in its 1 GB of internal storage memory.

The Cybook Opus boasts a 200dpi ePaper screen which provides a paper like high contrast appearance and ultra-low power consumption on the revolutionary eInk Technology. With its accelerometer – screen position can switch from portrait to landscape mode automatically.

With the Cybook Opus, you can access more than 200,000 digital contemporary books from hundreds of publisher sources like Random House, Simon & Schuster, Penguin, Harlequin and much more. These digital books are in Adobe secured format (EPUB or PDF), the available catalogue continues to grow and gain hundreds of titles per month.

Price in the UK is £200 available from Bookeen.com.

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Kindle customers won’t have to send their devices in for upgrade or download or manually update the Kindle, Amazon will be deliver the firmware update via the Amazon WhisperNet service in the background.

The firmware 2.3 upgrade applies to both Kindle DX as well as the U.S. and global versions of the Kindle, the battery-life upgrade applies to just the “Global Wireless” version of the Kindle.  The upgrade extends the battery life of up to seven days even with wireless turned on, a significant improvement from its previous four day lifespan with wireless turned on.

The Global Wireless and U.S. Wireless version of the Kindle receives the PDF reader upgrade.

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Currently supported devices include:-

• HTC Dream
• HTC Droid Eris
• HTC Hero
• HTC Magic
• HTC Sapphire
• HTC Tattoo (formerly HTC Click)
• LG GW620 Eve
• Motorola Calgary
• Motorola CLIQ
• Motorola DEXT
• Motorola Droid
• Motorola Milestone
• Samsung I7500
• Samsung Galaxy
• Samsung Moment
• T-Mobile G1, G2
• T-Mobile myTouch 3G
• T-Mobile Pulse
• plus any other devices running the Android OS (Android 1.5 or later recommended).

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The enTourage folks aren’t skirting around the desire users have for using such a reader for web work, and as such have chosen Android. They are touting the ability of the eDGe to surf the web, work with email, play MP3s and even check Facebook. Connectivity is done over Wi-Fi or optional EVDO/HSPA 3G. That big, color touchscreen with resistive digitizer would be nice for web work, but is likely hard on battery life. The eDGe looks a lot like that mythical Courier device on which Microsoft is reportedly working.

The eDGe will ship in February 2010, but you can pre-order one now. If you can get past that $490 price tag, that is. More information available at Entourage Edge website.

Source: JK OnTheRun

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It’s not the first group to complain about Amazon’s vice-like grip on the Kindle, not to mention its supporting services and customer information, but the Norwegian Consumer Council is able to impose fines against any company trading illegally in Norway, and believes that Amazon might just fit the bill.

The Norwegian Consumer Council has been trawling through Amazon’s terms and conditions for the Kindle, and notes that the very language used is probably illegal, as Norwegian law requires such contracts to be clearly written.

Beyond that there are the usual complaints about Amazon locking content to the device, and concerns about privacy (specifically as reading habits are warehoused in the US, outside the jurisdiction of EU privacy laws). The Council also notes that the Kindle comes with a one-year warranty, compared to the five years mandated by Norwegian law.

But more generally the Council is concerned about device manufacturers imposing unreasonable restrictions on users, and would like to remind everyone that, in Norway at least, the rights of consumers will be protected.

Source: The Register

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The second screen is an entirely self-contained Google Android device. Alex includes a Wi-Fi radio, as well as internal 3G support on both EV-DO and GSM networks–assuming Spring Design can find carrier support for the thing. Could they actually be the manufacturer behind the B&N Nook?

Alex also includes earphones, stereo speakers, an SD card slot, browser bookmarks and history, and the ability to transfer content from the touch LCD to the e-ink display for easier reading. Spring Design said it’s currently in talks with said carriers, and is targeting a release before the end of this year.

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