Kindle Tips

The most exciting new feature for me from today’s new Kindle announcement is Whispersync for Voice.  This is a feature that seems natural for Amazon.  It allows you to listen to an audiobook, and then pick up your kindle and read, and then return to the audiobook again.  As someone that listens to a lot of audiobooks and loves kindles this is a perfect idea.

And Amazon is well positioned to make it happen.  Amazon is the largest ebook seller.  Audible.com (owned by Amazon) is the largest digital distributor of audiobooks.  This just makes sense for Amazon to try. Here is the Amazon commercial about it.

The flagship product for this will be the new Kindle Fires.  With the Kindle Fire you can alternate back and forth between professionally narrated Audiobook and the kindle ebook on the same device.  And for those that are interested, you can actually have the ebook be highlighted as you listen to the narration.  This might be good for younger readers that are trying to read a book that is a bit too hard for them on their own.

Update: The Kindle 3 (or Kindle with Keyboard) just got a firmware upgrade that makes it the only eink Kindle that will allow you to listen to the audiobook and read the kindle book on the same device.

However, you do not have to buy a new kindle fire to make this work.  All you need is any Kindle device (eink, any kindle app, computer or kindle fire) to read the ebook, and listen to the audiobook on an iPhone, android phone or any Kindle Fire.

You can try it out now if you like.  There are just over 13000 books that are currently read to work with Whispersync for Voice.

Amazon has a couple dozen public domain books where you can try it out for free.  I picked up The Three Musketeers.  I checked the book out from the library earlier this year and did not finish it before I had to return it.

Summary:

New E-Ink Kindle (Paperwhite) with higher resolution screen (212 ppi).  A whiter screen, new fonts and a lighted touch screen.  The battery (with light) on will last 8 weeks at a charge.  Paperwhite 3G (free worldwide) version will be $179 and the Paperwhite wifi only will be $119. They new kindles can be ordered today and will ship on Oct 1.

The current Kindle 4 will be now $69 (ad supported).  The new lighted kindles do not seem to be ad supported.

Kindle Fire HD – 7 inch version for $199 (ships Sept 14), 8.9 inch version $299 (ships Nov 20)

Kindle Fire HD 4GLTE – $499

Slightly updated Kindle Fire – $159

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I love ebooks.  I primarily read digital formats.  But there are a couple of things I miss about physical books.  One of them is the ability to give books to friends and family.  Of course you can give a Amazon or Barnes and Noble gift card.  Or you can ‘gift’ books using an email address on Amazon.

But Livrada has new idea.  They are physical gift cards that are for a specific book that can be redeemed for either Amazon Kindle or Nook books.

Right now they are exclusively sold at Target in the electronics section near ebook readers.

This is a good idea.  The cards have the cover of the book and the back has the description similar to the back cover of a paperback.

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One of the most unused, but nice features of the Kindle with Keyboard 3G is that it has web access.  Web access on a Kindle is not easy.  It is fairly slow, static, cannot handle modern web standards well.

But it is free, and it works almost anywhere in the world.  My sister-in-law brought her kindle to Kenya last year and was able to send us messages via twitter from out in the middle of no where.

But there are a few people that have really tried to break the system.  The Kindle is fairly hackable.  A few people have even tethered their computers to their kindle to try to obtain free internet access.

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Summary: A very good eink reader, highly recommended.

Last week on Amazon Local (Amazon Local is Amazon’s Groupon/Living Social competitor) there was a deal for the Kindle 4 (or Kindle Basic) for only $49. I did not really need another Kindle, but it was only $49 and I figured I could give it away to someone.

I have written about the Kindle 4 before, but I have not actually used a real one. After four days, about 700+ pages of reading I am thinking about making it my main kindle and using my Kindle with Keyboard to loan to friends.

What I Like

I am amazed how small and light it it. It is 1 inch shorter, .3 inches narrower and nearly 1/3 lighter than the Kindle with Keyboard. The screen is the same size and maybe a slight bit better (in the side by side comparison picture below, the darks seem a bit darker).

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One of the biggest promises of digital books is the ability to continuously update, correct and improve the text.  The author catches a typo after the book is published, they can correct it without waiting for a new edition of the book to be published.  A fact is discovered to be wrong (or changes after the book is published), it can be changed.

Unfortunately, the way Amazon structured it book updates means that up until now, when a book was updated the reader lost all notes and highlights from the old edition of the book.  Amazon learned that they need to ask for permission to update a book because of that.  So this is what the email used to look like from Amazon

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