My first week with a Kindle DX

I’ve had a Kindle DX for about 10 days now and thought I would jot down a few thoughts about it.

A couple of friends have said “Uh…you chose a Kindle? Really?” in a way that sounds like they’re asking “So you bought the whole Britney Spears back catalog on vinyl? Really?” – as if there’s something simultaneously uncool and outdated about the choice.
What lies behind the question is the imminent availability of the iPad, and the question is really “why buy the big Kindle, when you don’t have long to wait for the iPad to be released?”

In a word – the screen.

I had high hopes for the iPad. I really thought it would be incredible. I thought it was going to be the most sci-fi device you could have until robot girlfriends and flying cars are available. I was deeply disappointed.
No multitasking. No cameras for video conferencing. No direct file access to the device (iTunes only). And the most disappointing – a plain old, 1024×768 LCD screen with a backlight.
In other words, the iPad is a giant iPod Touch. I can’t really see it fitting in to my life when I already have a powerful Macbook Pro and I have an iPhone – what I really wanted was a device that I could use for long reading sessions.
I’m studying at the moment, and I cart around a backpack full of files containing material printed from PDFs. My eyes can’t take an LCD screen for a whole day at work and then still look at one in the evening.
Working at a laptop is different from reading on a laptop – when you work you actually look all over the place – different windows, your keyboard from time to time, around your desk etc.
 Reading 100′s of pages on an LCD screen doesn’t work for me.
 So it had to be e-Ink or a hybrid screen.
The choice was pretty simple for me – Kindle DX was the best way to get a high-resolution e-Ink screen with native PDF support for documents that were designed for A4 printing. 
I would have preferred a Que or an iRex device with built in Wacom tablet for note-taking, but then the price would double.
If the iPad had used a next-generation screen from Pixel Qi, Liquavista or Mirasol then it would have been an obvious choice, but not with an IPS backlit LCD panel.
I’m glad I made the choice I did – the Kindle screen is amazing. At this point, I think I prefer reading on it to reading on paper. The soft grey screen with crisp text is extremely easy on the eyes, and it’s absolutely flat, unlike a book or magazine page that seems chaotically bendy and unstable after using the Kindle.
On the down side, it’s difficult to manage files on the Kindle. Although you can simply connect it to your computer via USB and create folders and documents on the device, they all appear in one flat non-hierarchical view. I have about 200 documents stashed on mine, and it means scrolling through 13 pages if I want to browse the whole collection. I’ve been assured that a software update is on the way, but until then it’s an interface failing.
Overall, I’m super-happy with the device. It does exactly what I wanted it to do, and it reminds me a lot of my first monochrome iPod in it’s focus on doing just one thing very well. No regrets on the Kindle, and I’ll take a closer look at the iPad when it hits version 2.

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