2 Kindle or Not(ebook) 2 Kindle

Recently I have been debating on whether to get a Netbook or the Kindle 2. (I am only in this debate because my lovely wife decided to buy a table and chairs, for the house. There is no winning when they buy things for 'the house' or 'the kids').

Anyways, I tweeted up my dilemma and got a huge amount of responses. They came from both sides of the fence. Some said Kindle and some said Netbook, and they all had good arguments. But, being the gadget nerd that I am and having owned a netbook before I started to lean towards the Kindle. Until I looked at the Kindle store..

When you hear about the Kindle you hear about the cheap books (no argument there), the free EVDO (still no argument), and the fact that you can read blogs and magazines. This is where the marketing people caught me. I am a huge blog reader. I currently have 2700+ blogs in my google reader OPML (I can usually hit them all in less than an hour with a process I've refined, so don't think too lowly of me). So the fact that I could read my blogs and the occasional book, and even send pdfs to the Kindle got me excited about the product.

I put the Kindle 2 in my shopping cart at Amazon, added a leather case just for S&G, and looked back at TweetDeck for any last comments people had. @hmjgriffon was completely against buying the Kindle, so I decided to try out sending a PDF to the Kindle app Amazon has for the iPhone. I had installed it a couple nights ago and hadn't tested it.

This is where the charges started rolling in. First I find out that it is 10 cents per PDF that I have converted for use on the Kindle/iPhone App. Then I looked into the blogs, you know, just to try at least SOMETHING out before I bought it. The few blogs that they support are either 99 cents or 1.99 a month. Wait.. so let me get this straight. I have to pay $1 or $2 to view a blog that is free? No thanks. I mean they could do something cool and special with the blog, but I don't see the market. Magazines, maybe, I think I would probably subscribe to CPU or Linux Journal if it came via Kindle (definitely 2600..).

So, I stopped, and complained on twitter about it. Then a couple people started shouting solutions, and @wardspan pointed me towards a Kindle book (and said it contained the secret to using Google Reader on the Kindle free):

The Complete User's Guide To the Amazing Amazon Kindle 2: A Kindle Owners Toolkit Of Over 500 Tips, Tricks, & Links (For Amazons Revolutionary e-Book Reader & Free Wireless Web Browser) (Kindle Edition)

I decided to purchase it (0.99) and read it on my iPhone, for not only the contents of the book, but to kind of gauge the service for myself before I buy. I think that 99 cents is a minimal cost to find out if the Kindle truly is for me.

Hope this helps those of you who are on the fence like me.

Comments

[edsmiley]

I am on the fence like you. What I am looking to do is to get a Safari Bookshelf subscription to have 'all you can eat' Oreilly books. I know that this works on the Iphone and supposedly on the Kindle, but I wonder how well. I activated a free trial of a Oreilly Book and it is readable on the Iphone, not as nice as the Kindle app, but readable. So that is my dilemma.

I am curious as to how well converted PDF's look on the Iphone Kindle app. I don't really think I mind the 10 cents/pdf, but the pay for free blogs is kinda outrageous. Have you converted any PDF's and read them on the Iphone yet?

The Kindle app on the Iphone really made the pendulum swing towards not getting a Kindle because I have my Iphone EVERYWHERE I go. Although the screen is much nicer on the Kindle, still another item to carry around. Instead, I might be looking at a Lenovo IdeaPad S10 instead and saving some coin. :)

Ed

[Angel]

Hi, You said that you have 2700+ Blog that you read everyday. can you give me a list of them. I like to read blog also, but some of thus they dont get update as often as I would lile.

Angel

[disambiguated]

Just use the iPhone app to read Kindle books. I love my Kindle, but if the iPhone app had been around when I bought it, I would've just stuck with the iPhone app - reading books on the iPhone had worked out well for me with Bookshelf, and I've read 1.5 novels via the Kindle app, so far.

[edsmiley]

Can you even send a PDF to the Iphone app without owning a Kindle. Apparently your Kindle is assigned an email address and this is what you would send the pdf to. However, I see no email address associated with the app. Was looking forward seeing how a PDF looked. Would be nice for manuals while in the server room or at a users desk.

Ed

[edsmiley]

I am also curious about the 2700+ feeds you read. My biggest question is how do you deal with duplicates? I have like 150 feeds and seeing post after post of the same thing makes me skip through posts quickly and I am sure miss a lot of information. Have any tips? Maybe another blog post. :-)

Ed

[mubix]

I would be more than happy to provide the feeds, but I have too many that are authenticated feeds. (i.e. the password is in the feed link) that I really don't feel like going through all of them, sorry.

[Angel]

Mubix is ok. I while ago you posted a bunch of website to visit. But some of the site I cant get to them. It would be nice if you can do the same thing but with 2700+ feeds that you get. Something like "TOP 100 blog, i.e"

Thanks anyway!!! Keep the good job man!!!!!

Last hak5 episode was good, thanks for putting it in plain English!! It was nice to see you on the show. You are getting better with the camera!!!!

Angel

[mubix]

I can certainly do that. Maybe a top 20 most visited blogs and top 20 twitter accounts to follow.

[JohnE]

Did I miss something? What option did you choose?

[mubix]

I choose the Kindle. I'll have more during the unboxing.

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