Amazon Kindle Review - Can the Kindle become the Ipod for ebooks?

Ebooks have never managed to grab the attention and admiration of the public in the same way as mp3’s and to some extent video downloads have. Could the Amazon Kindle be the killer device that puts ebooks mainstream? Obviously here at thinkeink we love all things using eink tech - especially ebook readers but so far they have failed to convince Joe Public that he needs a new device to carry around to take the place of the book. The smell and feel of a good book certainly seems to exert a strong hold on us but then again, some people still hold on to a love of vinyl dspite mp3 laying waste to CD. Electronic ink technology is certainly the ideal candidate to make the perfect ebook reader, high contrast, low power consumption etc but what does the Kindle offer that other ebook readers don’t?

First impressions, I have to say are not good. It does however look better in the flesh than in the pre release photos but this is not a thing of beauty. It certainly looks “clunkier” than the sony reader or Irex Iliad. The main reason for this is the full qwerty keyboard situated in the bottom half of the Kindle (something which sets it apart from other ebook readers on the market). This extra functionality provided by the keyboard could be critical in the success of the Kindle as Amazon has created a very different product from the others on the market. As the Kindle is meant for use on its own, all actions like buying a book, checking a word in the dictionary or searching wikipedia need to be done on the device itself hence the need for a full set of keys.

Perhaps the biggest selling point of the kindle is it’s wireless connectivity, called whispernet. With EV-DO from sprint built in the Kindle can go to the Kindle Amazon store wherever you are - in the garden on a sunny day or laying in bed at night. The kindle store has over 100,000 books already available and after choosing what you want to read its delivered to the kindle in around a minute and best sellers cost around $9.99. And books aren’t the only thing you can read, newspaper and magazine subscriptions are available as well.

The kindle also features a web browser to view websites and blogs and limited e-mail functionality (Amazon charges $0.10 to convert your e-mail to the kindle).  The web browsing is free however and although some sites won’t function (flash for instance) most text based sites are pretty readable especially if you use an rss client like the excellent google reader.

So how does the Kindle stack up?  Well it certainly brings a lot more features to the party than any other Ebook reader has to date, the wireless connectivity for buying books and browsing the web.  An A for effort then but what really lets this product down is the design.  I just don’t think it looks like a product people want to buy despite the good functionality.  So maybe it’s not the Ipod for Ebooks but it could well be the first step in that direction.