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Amazon Kindle
Amazon Kindle is an eBook reader designed with the aim of providing an excellent reading experience. Amazon was Kindle was first released in 2007. All the devices were sold out within 5 hours of its launch. Amazon was able to re-release the stock only on November 2008 again.
Amazon kindle is an extremely efficient eBook reader with numerous with numerous additional facilities and excellent performance. The very fact that it gives access to Amazon library's book collection itself created a lot of curiosity among the users. However added to this there are interesting features like blog subscription and newspaper subscription too.
Design and Features
Amazon kindle weighs 10.3 ounces a little more than your mobile. The dimensions of the device are 7.5 x 5.3 x 0.7 inches. It has a traditional 6 inch screen for display. Below the screen we have a fully functional keyboard. On the top right corner of the keyboard we have a select wheel. It is used to scroll up and down and make a selection.
If you want to select a title of the book from the list of books displayed in your home screen, use your thumb to rotate the select wheel which will move the cursor up and down and press the select wheel when the cursor points to the title you wish to make a selection.
We have a previous page button on the left top corner and a next page button below that. In the same way we have a next page button on the right top corner and a back button below that.
On the keyboard we have special keys like Home, SYM, Search and Text. They are used to search for a word in your documents, change their font size. There are six font sizes to choose. We have two volume controls, a USB port, a power jack and a Headphone jack on the rear side.
We have a SD card slot at the back and two slider buttons. One slider is used for on/off function and other button to switch the wireless on and off. Battery life of Amazon kindle is wonderful. If wireless is switched on and we hear a lot of music we have to charge it in every two days. Else if we use it mostly for reading purpose, the battery will last for one week's time.
Kindle Screen
The traditional 6 inch screen uses E-Ink technology. The screen is monochrome and has 600 x 800 pixel resolution at 167 ppi. The screen reflects 4 different grey scale levels. Hence it gives us an exact replica of newspaper print.
Reading in this screen does not strain our eyes as in our system or mobile, partly because of their huge size and partly because they do not have a backlight. But still we can read books in bright daylight also.
Storage
Amazon kindle has 250MB internal storage. More than 500 novels could be stored in it. Further we have SD card slots. So memory could be expanded at any time.
Customer Kindle Review
Amazon Support
Amazon Kindle gives access Kindle store where we have nearly 400,000 books, newspapers, magazines, and blogs. Since it uses Whispernet 3G technology books purchased from the kindle store are delivered within a minute to your kindle directly. Most of the new books released are immediately available for $9.99.
One drawback is that it supports limited number of eBook file formats. Txt, HTML and PDF file formats are supported. But no support for DRM or ePub files formats. So downloading random stuff from internet is restricted.
Kindle store lists a number of newspapers. You can subscribe to any of them after going through a two week trial and get it delivered directly to your kindle. You can get your favorite RSS feeds regarding news, sports and other areas of interests from the blogs also in the same way.
Kindle Image and Music
All image file formats like BMP. JPEG, PNG and GIF are supported. Image rendering is excellent. Audio file formats like MP3 are supported. They can be used to hear audio books and to play songs.
Transferring data on the Kindle
Transferring data to kindle could be done in many ways. If you want to transfer data from your system, a simple USB connection is enough. Files could be transferred through drag and drop method.
If you want to transfer your emails, contacts or personal documents, you should email it to Amazon and it will be sent wirelessly to your kindle for a small fee. If you want to download contents directly from the net, first you should register your kindle and set up a payment method. You can or use the kindle store for purchases only after this. This prevents usage of any non-copyrighted download.
Performance
Performance of the kindle is amazing in certain aspects and disappointing in others. The outer appearance itself looks so different. However the controls are very easy to use and are extremely responsive. But the user interface takes a bit longer to get used to.
The display is excellent and soothing to the eyes, but could not be used when it is dark as there is no backlight. Access to kindle store and amazons numerous connection is good, but we have to pay $1 for each RSS feed.
In the same way most of the advanced file formats like DRM are not supported. This restricts the internet usage. If you want to buy anything it has to be thorough Amazon. Or else its format is not supported. However Whispernet data network works absolutely fast and its receptions is excellent. We can buy or newspaper from almost anywhere in the world.
Special features
There are so many special features. If we lose track of our reading at any time, kindle auto saves the page. We can bookmark the pages we are reading for further usage. If we want to find the meaning of any word we can use the built-in dictionary function for that.
If we want to add our comments regarding any article, we can create notes, add our views and save it. It will be displayed the next time we come that page. Google and Wikipedia could be accessed at anytime for free.
Before purchasing any book from kindle store you can go through the first chapter of the book which is available for free and then decide whether to purchase it or not. All your purchases have a backup in Amazon library. If you lose your kindle or damage it by any chance these data could be automatically transferred to your new kindle for free.
Verdict
Amazon kindle is the most advanced and versatile eBook reader in the market. But users definitely expect it to support a few more file formats. We would also expect some minor faults like slow performance of the device to be rectified in the upcoming versions.
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Amazon Kindle is an eBook reader designed with the aim of providing an excellent reading experience. Amazon was Kindle was first released in 2007. All the devices were sold out within 5 hours of its launch. Amazon was able to re-release the stock only on November 2008 again.