
Review: The 2011 $79 Kindle with ads and buttons - revorad
http://www.marco.org/2011/10/07/review-79-kindle-with-ads-and-buttons
======
achompas
_The lock screen shows a giant ad whenever the Kindle is off. Previous Kindles
show tasteful pictures of classic authors when they’re off._

This comment says more about how Marco sees technology than anything else. I
can understand complaints about the page buttons, the cheap cable, and no
power adapter.

But tasteful pictures of classic authors? You're telling me that a creepy-
looking picture of Emily Dickinson is a large improvement over an AT&T ad?
Look at these screen savers and tell me any of them is worth paying an extra
$50:

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LasvphqtfV0>

I agree with the sentiment: ads can be disgusting. I just don't understand how
someone could complain when ads mean _savings get passed on._ Ads make the
Kindle more affordable and take us a step closer to a future where everyone
can afford technology. That's a trade-off I'm willing to make.

~~~
RexRollman
I don't understand why, at least on the non-ad banner versions, why Amazon
doesn't allow people to load their own images for use as screensavers. B&N
allows this with the Nook and I think that it's pretty cool.

~~~
joebadmo
Yeah, there are quite a few options that seem like they should be native, but
I had to hack the device to get. Custom screen savers is one. Another is force
left-justify on everything.

~~~
RexRollman
I didn't realize the Kindle could be hacked to do that. Good to know.

~~~
joebadmo
There are entire forums and blogs dedicated to it:
<http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=128704>

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acabal
It's too bad that the Kindle is getting so much attention (even if some is
negative, like this piece), when there are many other better options. I had a
Kindle 3 until I bought a Nook Simple Touch, and the NST blows the K3 out of
the water in every respect: build quality, software interface, reading
experience and options. The only downside might be the in-store selection, but
for geeks like us (and increasingly regular folks, thanks to Calibre) it's a
simple matter to break Amazon's DRM and convert to Epub.

B&N has got to step up their game, because if sub-par products like the $79
Kindle keep stealing the limelight, they're never going to get anywhere.

~~~
ansy
The Kindle has one feature that the Nook does not have: Electronic delivery of
personal documents. You can't email a word doc or PDF to myname@bn.com and
have it converted and delivered to your device. You have to save it from a
computer, convert it, plug in the Nook, and copy the file over.

For book readers that might not matter. But it can be pretty attractive if you
go beyond reading books by using something like Instapaper to "bookmark"
articles throughout the day, then have them all automatically on the Kindle.

This can be the feature that makes a huge difference once you start to use it.

~~~
WalterBright
I wish the Kindle (and ipad) could browse the shared file directories on my
LAN. This is a glaring and inexplicable deficiency.

~~~
rmc
You can browse website and download files there. So you could set up a simple
web server on your machine (since this is HN I going to assume this is easy
for you!) and download files there.

It's great that you can browse Project Gutenberg on the device and download
the Kindle formatted .mobi files directly and import them. It's like a Free
(as in Public Domain) book shop!

~~~
losvedir
Ha, yeah, I'd assume Walter Bright would be able to do that... :-)

But he shouldn't have to! We want him spending less time fiddling around with
a home network and more time working on cool things like D.

------
Hominem
I got one, this is my first Kindle.

I am incredibly impressed than they produced something like this proced at $79
dollars. Instant delivery of thousands of book, supposed 2 months of battery
life, extremely light, fits in my pocket. This is star-trek technology.

And it costs $79.

~~~
guywithabike
Minor correction: the base Kindle only advertises 1 month of battery life.
Although, for most practical purposes, the difference between 1 month and 2
months is orders of magnitude less important than the difference between 1
week and 1 month.

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OpenAmazing
The ad-to-purchase flow is the killer feature of this device.

(1) These are pre-loaded with your Amazon.com account (the one you bought it
with). You don't have to sign in to it, it already knows who you are.

(2) The first ad I saw was a "local deal" for a massage near where I live (for
Ballard, in Seattle). This is minutes after first turning on the Kindle. No
data entry. I was curious what the user experience was so I opened the ad.
There was a Buy button for the massage ($26 for a 20 minute massage). I'm
working on an order path / checkout flow for work right now so I was curious
to see how they did it on the Kindle. I clicked the Buy button (again, I have
yet to do any keyboard data entry on the device) and... I had bought. "Thanks
for your purchase" read the screen and my iPhone beeped with the confirmation
email.

The Kindle comes pre-loaded with your Amazon account and everything is set up
for one-click purchasing.

Genius.

(I debated forward the email to my wife, but just cancelled the order
instead).

------
bryanlarsen
"but you’ll regret purchasing an alternative the first time a book isn’t
available there but is available for Kindle, which happens a lot."

This has never happened to me. Everything I've encountered that's not
available on Kobo is also not available on Kindle. Is this because I don't
live in the US?

~~~
RexRollman
Probably. Sadly, the book, music, and movies industries don't seem to be
keeping up with the changes globalization have brought.

~~~
TheAmazingIdiot
Not true.

Globalization works well for the media (books, music, movie) industry. They
can stratify and adjust rates to the destination country. Doing so, they can
maximise profits for each area.

Doing so also requires that users do not share amongst other areas, so 'zone
controls' along with ill-suited laws are passed.

Who globalisation does not work well for when concerning media is the rest of
us. With exception of piracy _, we are prevented from easily using
globalisation in our advantage.

_ Piracy is the great equaliser. It alone has scared media companies from
releasing on a 2-3 year theater-to-public to as little as 1 month turnaround.
And it is the ideal method to use to play your media format on any system
(unlike restricted legit formats).

------
gfunk911
I bought the $79 Kindle the first day it was available. It's my first Kindle.

I have an iPad, and I never felt like the Kindles were worth the money for the
marginal additional benefit over an iPad. But for $79, who cares. I use it
before bed and to carry around when I'd be worried about the iPad

~~~
bad_user
The iPad is terrible for reading books.

I was on a plane and got a headache while reading on the iPad - the screen
glare is unbearable - I could see the reflection of the above light-source and
my ugly face. And the device itself is a lot heavier than a Kindle, so you
also get tired from holding it.

After 2 hours of struggling I took out my netbook, which at least can sit in
my lap.

~~~
ugh
Terrible for some people. I have no problem at all reading long texts on the
iPad. It’s an ok compromise for me.

------
rgbrgb
I really hate the idea of buying semi-disposable items, particularly
electronics. It just becomes one more item in the landfill, one more thing to
replace with a newly manufactured version. We're seeing that with computers
and it's becoming a real problem. It isn't that I don't love new things but
part of the reason that new things are so nice is because the things we're
manufacturing are not designed to last. If only there was more money in
environmentalism. Then maybe some smart hackernewsers would produce solutions.

~~~
tsotha
>I really hate the idea of buying semi-disposable items, particularly
electronics.

There's no reason for a Kindle to be "semi-disposable". There isn't anything
so cheap that it's going to wear out or break in a short period of time, as
long as you take care of it.

~~~
rgbrgb
The review explicitly stated that the low end kindle was worth it because you
could just buy another when it breaks.

~~~
tsotha
Yes, it does, but there's no reason this one is more likely to break than the
others. The low end kindle may not last if you mistreat it, but that's true
for just about anything.

------
saturdaysaint
I concur with his disappointment regarding the buttons. It's incredibly
awkward to use with one hand, especially when lying down, which is a major
design flaw IMO.

~~~
sp4rki
This is a complaint I've been hearing from the majority of in real life people
that own a Kindle3. Interestingly enough, I do own a Kindle3 and have used the
previous versions and I like the next/prev page buttons on the Kindle3 better.
I find that they're harder to press by accident, and although at first I found
them awkward to use in the beginning, after going through half of the A Song
of Ice and Fire saga I find them perfect for the way I hold my Kindle. I'm a
big bookworm though (I spend from 8 to 16 hours a day programming, ie. looking
at a screen... therefore I'm not really interested in watching TV and use
books as my daily escape from reality mechanism) and going through three of
those books, which by the way are humongous compared to "regular" books, took
me about two weeks at about four hours of usage a day. The point being that I
believe that after you have been using a Kindle for 60+ hours, I think that
this type of buttons kind of grow on you.

The statistician in me kind of want's to know what are the usage statistics
for people that dislike the buttons and people that love them, though that
could also be because I want confirmation that I'm not just a dude with a
weird hand anatomy! In any case, how long have you been using your Kindle and
what are your usage patterns?

PD: I can't believe I'm so damn interested in freaking usage statistics on
Kindle buttons...

------
shuttlebrad
We geeks typically place too much importance on the fidelity of the
experience: on the idea that the kindle itself feels cheap, or the music from
the (standard) iPhone headphones is poor quality. Most people just don't care
- they want to listen to the same music as their friends, or get on with
reading lots and lots of books. The fidelity of the experience is totally
unimportant in 90% of cases.

------
brudgers
> _"Honestly, once I got into what I was reading, I forgot about the cheap,
> crappy page-turn buttons and the tacky ads on the sleep screen. Even the
> distorted unblinked text isn’t very noticeable when you’re engrossed in a
> book."_

A hardware implementation of the used paperback principle.

As I've said before, ebooks are the killer slate application

------
RexRollman
I'm not surprised by the ghosting problems as I've read about this on Nook
related forums as well. Maybe both companies should consider allowing people
to alter how often the unit refreshes (although I believe this can be altered
on the Nook STR if the unit has been rooted).

~~~
bwooce
Kindle Firmware v4.0.1 gives you this.

------
reaganing
I have switched from the 3G+WiFi Kindle 3/Kindle Keyboard to the new $79
Kindle and am pretty happy with it. Gets rid of the stuff I didn't use (Audio
playback, speakers, keyboard) to make a device even smaller. 3G is something I
used so rarely I don't think I'll miss it.

I decided to order the ad-supported model because I knew I could just pay
Amazon $30 to turn them off if they bothered me. But it turns out I'm fine
with them. They're not egregious and I only see them for the couple seconds it
takes me to wake the Kindle and select a book.

The ghosting is something I have noticed but it's something that is just as
easy to ignore as the full-flash-every-turn issue on the prior models.

------
wilder
Does anyone know the mechanics of how the ads are pushed to the Kindle? Does
Amazon observe user behavior and content of the ad supported Kindles in ways
they didn't with the Kindle 3?

~~~
adestefan
Your Kindle is tied to your Amazon account so the ads are based on your Amazon
browsing and purchasing.

------
avolcano
This is kind of disappointing. I broke the screen on my Kindle 3 the other
day, but wasn't too worried because I was planning on getting either this
Kindle or the Touch anyways. I was thinking of buying the $79 Kindle today,
since I didn't want to stop reading on the go for a month (I really don't like
LCD screens) while waiting for the Touch to come out, but now I'm definitely
rethinking it, especially due to the ghosting - sounds like it would get very
annoying.

~~~
bwooce
The Kindle 4.0.1 software update (
[http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html/ref=hp_l...](http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html/ref=hp_left_sib?ie=UTF8&nodeId=200774090)
) lets you control this.

~~~
avolcano
Oh, awesome! Definitely takes away one of my major worries about the new
Kindle.

------
ZeroGravitas
Doesn't every iPod or iPhone charger since they ditched firewire for USB work
with the kindle if you swap the usb leads? I'd have thought Marco's house
would be overflowing with such USB power adaptors. The cable even seems color-
matched for this.

------
ChrisLTD
Sad to see that the two most important buttons on the device haven't been
improved. I'm glad I still have a working Kindle 2!

~~~
adestefan
I think this is one of those times where what you've used first is what you
like best. My first Kindle was a version 3 and thought the buttons were weird
when I handled a relative's version 2 last Christmas.

~~~
ChrisLTD
Good point!

------
jamii
$79 in the US. £89 (~$140) in the UK. That's far a far bigger markup than can
be explained by import tax / VAT. Anyone know why we have to pay almost
double?

~~~
jamesgeck0
You can't get the ad-supported version outside the US, so that's an automatic
$30 markup.

------
danso
From the article:

    
    
      The Kindle 1 was $400. This one’s $79 with ads.
    
      Knowing that this new Kindle costs less than the cover for my Kindle 2 is freeing: 
      I can just carry it around uncased and unprotected in a (large) pocket, use it anywhere, and not worry about damaging an expensive electronic item, because it’s not.

\---

Astonishing how far prices and production have come down since the first
Kindle, which still seems relatively new.

Also, he paid $70+ for a Kindle case? I'm planning to buy a Kindle Touch and,
being someone who carries his iPad and Macbook Air because, what the hell,
they both fit easily in my DSLR camera bag, I'm going to really like carrying
$400 less in electronics (I almost never use my ipad if I have a laptop with
me, out of the home). But even if the Kindle Touch cost more, I wouldn't pay
$70+ for a case...I don't think I've ever spent that much on a laptop or ipad
case (I currently carry my Air in a padded Fedex envelope).

~~~
savramescu
The ones with back-light are really helpful if you want to read in low-light.
Generally those are the ones that cost more. If you do such things than they
become quite useful. I own one and I use it all the time. It's way better than
turning on the light in the bedroom and bother my girlfriend. Now she doesn't
realize that I don't fall asleep until 3-4 AM. :)

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joejohnson
I hope the Kindle Fire is better than this :(

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AmazingBytecode
$80 Ad-subsidized e-book reader feels cheep, has ads.

