FAQ

Ok, so if you leave the Kindle lying around in a geeky environment, you will get a lot of questions. Here are some common ones I came across:

What's all this then?
Amazon has recently released the Kindle 3, the latest version of their e-book reader. I bought one and am very happy with it - in fact, I am convinced it has a big future ahead of it.

What's so great about it?
Well, a number of things really. But the killer features I found to be:

• The e-ink display. It really looks a lot like a piece of paper. Apparently, it is now faster and has better contrast than in earlier Kindles. It also has a very high resolution, and you can read in the sunlight with it as well. Reading is much easier than on a computer screen, and it takes very little energy (if you switch off the wireless features, the Kindle should last for a whole month)
• Free 3G Internet! This is one many people find hard to believe, but you just switch on your Kindle and it will go online (in large parts of Europe, the US and many other countries - see map)
• The whole ecosystem - the Kindle is a very mature product, and Amazon has put a lot of effort into making the Kindle experience seamless and enjoyable. E.g. you can buy books before your Kindle even arrives, sync between different devices (there are also Kindle Apps for iPhone and Android). Everything just works.

Can I surf the web with it?
Yes! There is a webkit-based browser on board which lets you surf to wherever you choose (you can also search Google or Wikipedia from within your books). Of course, there are limitations (after all, the display is greyscale and a bit slow e.g. for video).

What formats does it support?
Bit of a rub here - Amazon's default format is .mobi, whereas the quasi-standrad for e-books seems to be .epub (e.g. Google Books uses this). There are ways though to get other files on it - you can email them to an address that Amazon will set up for you, or use an external tool like Calibre.

Where do I get it?
Ah. Only at amazon.com/ at the moment, or amazon.co.uk/ if you live in the UK (they don't deliver to e.g. Ireland). Delivery is super swift though - I ordered mine at amazon.com, and it arrived within two days (plus I could track its journey online).

How much memory has it?
4 GB, which should be plenty. The website says you can carry 3.500 books on it.
battery?

By the way, Wired had an excellent blog post recently called "How to do (almost) everything with a Kindle 3". Check it out!