Review of the Kindle (4th gen / 2011)

I bought a Kindle (the newest version) about a month ago and decided to do a review of it.

Parts:

1. Technical details
2. The user experience
3. Getting books to the Kindle
4. Summary
5. Extra: Where to get books
6. Extra 2: Which books to get

Technical details

• Screen: 6" E-ink display
• Size: 166 mm x 114 mm x 8.7 mm
• Weight: 170 grams
• Storage: 2GB / 1 400 books
• Cost: $109 (711 SEK) / $79 (Ad supported, US only) + shipping
• Battery time: Approx. 1 month 

The user experience

The unit is small (but not tiny), about the size of a normal pocket book (but much thinner of course). It's very light and sleek. I haven't experienced any strains on my hands or wrists (like I can with books). The screen is the same as on the bigger Kindle (now called Kindle Keyboard), it's slightly smaller than a page of an pocket book. But that fact isn't an annoyance. Books from Amazon isn't formatted with pages, so the text flows and adapts to your screen settings. But even books in the form of pdf (which have pages) usually looks fine. The background of the screen isn't white, but more milkish grey (with a slight yellow undertone). It's a bit darker than normal book pages, but personally I find it pleasing to the eyes.

Via the settings you can change the font (typeface, size, etc) that suites you best, from pretty small to rather large text. You can also change the screen rotation to your fitting. Personally I've set it to the smallest font, others might prefer a larger font, which isn't an option that you have with normal books. As PDFs have built in fonts and fixed pages, the normal font settings doesn't apply to them. Instead you have an option to zoom (fit to screen, 150%, 200% and actual size) and to change the contrast. Setting the zoom for PDFs to anything other than "fit to screen" isn't recommended if you are reading a book, since you will be forced to move around each page to read.

This version doesn't have a physical keyboard, so when you need to enter some text, you need to use the on-screen keyboard and the 5-way controller (unless you buy the touch-version). It's a bit of a hassle, but it's not that often you need to enter text. When you first start the unit you need to enter the details for your Amazon-account, after that you only need the keyboard if you're visiting the Kindle store (which will be talked about later), creating collections or adding notes (or using the built-in browser, which you don't..). So, without a keyboard the unit has 9 buttons plus the 5-way controller. To turn on and of the device you use the power button at the bottom. The button is "single touch" and pretty sensitive, it will turn on/off as soon as you touch the button, which can be a bit irritating if you like to hold your pinky under the bottom. On the front there's four buttons for: going back, home screen, menu and the keyboard. On both sides of the device (to suite both left and right handed) there's buttons to change the page.

The page buttons is set in the middle on the sides, with the next page button twice as large as the button for previous page. The page buttons can be a bit squishi and hard to press down if you don't hold your thumb right. I would prefer if the buttons was a bit taller, especially when you use a cover, since a cover makes the footprint slightly bigger and your grip it a bit lower than otherwise.

Getting books to the Kindle

So, how do you get books to your Kindle? The easiest way is to use the Kindle store by Amazon. The Kindle store can be accessed on the Kindle via WiFi (you need to register a debit card with Amazon first) or via the computer. Using store via the Kindle is quite easy, but as you don't have keyboard (or mouse) it can be a slow process, using a computer is much more pleasant experience. After you've bought (you can also get some free books from Amazon) a book from the store it will be automatically download to your Kindle (or Kindle of choice if you have multiple Kindle's registered to your account) when it has a connection to the internet (via Wifi). So as long as you only use the Kindle store, you wont need to connect the Kindle to your computer.

Is there any reason to not use the Kindle store? Yes! First off, the Kindle store only sells books in English. Some of us that don't come from English speaking countries might prefer books in our own languages. And there's another, more compelling, reason to not limit yourself to the Kindle store: it's free books. Although you can get some free books from the Kindle store, most of them are by unknown authors. If you look at other sites (use Google or see my recommendations bellow) you can find classics (like 1984, Robinson Crusoe etc) for free. Kindle can handle several formats (like PDF), as long as they aren't DRM-protected.

To transfer your (non-Kindle) e-books to your Kindle you can use Explorer/Finder (as you would transfer files to a memory stick) or a software like Calibre. Calibre is a great tool that lets you organize your books and can convert the files to formats that suites your e-book reader (and it's free!). Just look out for e-books that have watermarks embedded in them (like from some book shops), it's likely that the watermark will be converted to plain text and inserted into the text of the book (which is annoying).

Summary

So, what's the verdict? I haven't regretted one second that I bought this Kindle. It isn't extremely cheap, especially if you compare it to a book. But it's worth every penny. It's small, not much larger than a pocket book, but a lot thinner, it's lighter than a pocket book and it can hold more books than you can fit in a normal book case. It also have an advantage over physical books in that you can change the font and font size to fit your liking. All that results in less strain on your body (eyes, wrists etc), if you hold it by one hand you don't need to find an awkward position for your fingers to hold the book open. Another plus for the Kindle is that the e-books, generally, is cheaper than physical books from the book store, this is especially true if you, like me, like to read books in English but live in a non English speaking country (books in English can cost 2 - 3 times, or more, in a Swedish book store than books from the Kindle store). Add to that the fact that you can download free books (legally) to put on your Kindle, and nothing can beat free.

The battery doesn't have an extreme capacity, since a smaller device warrants a smaller battery, but you can easily manage a whole month without charging (if you limit the use of wireless network, which you only need to get books from the Kindle store to your Kindle). The long battery life is thanks to the low power e-ink display, which is very pleasant to read on. A display on a tablet device (like the Kindle Fire or IPad) is backlit, this actually strains your eyes, which makes it tiresome to read lon text on. As the display on the Kindle isn't backlit (and thanks to that you can change the font to something that fits you) you can read in longer sessions.

So, that's a lot of pro's, is there any con's? Yeah, some minor (at least in my opinion). The main thing is the buttons that you use to change the pages, they are little tss thin and "squishy", which means that it can get annoying to change pages sometimes. But that's my only real problem with it.

So, should I buy it? Yes! If you have the money to spend and like to read books, I highly recommend that you buy it!

Extra: Where to get books?!

Extra 2: Which books should I get?