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Comments (13)
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Save/ShareOne day recently I landed on the shores of the Italian island of Ischia without a guidebook or a paperback novel. I was forced to depend on my Kindle for reading on the beaches, the ferry rides, and around town.
Our editors have road-tested Apple's rival device, the iPad, before, and the iPad is certainly a cool tool. But the Kindle is now less expensive. In the past year and a half, Amazon has dropped the price of its e-reader by 63 percent to a reasonable $139.
THE VERDICT
I'd give the Kindle a B- when it comes to travel friendliness. The latest Kindle with built-in Wi-Fi ($139, $189 for 3G) is quite handy for travelers. But it still has several flaws to fix.
If you're like me, which no doubt you are, you do not like the idea of having to carry huge piles of guidebooks, beach reads, and magazines with you on your trip. When you set out to pack your bags, you want to travel light. The latest Kindle is a neat solution to the weight problem for sure. It weighs a mere 8.5 ounces, or roughly the same as an in-flight magazine.
KINDLE PROS AND CONS
Pro:
You can store up to 3,500 books and documents on it. You no longer have to decide which guidebook to bring with you, the city one or the country one or the restaurants-only guide. Take them all!
Con:
Amazon delivers the Kindle to you naked. Travelers will want to buy a cover for protection during a journey, and that cover will add a ridiculous $30 to the cost.
Pro:
Screen is easy to read both indoors and out in the bright sun. It's not reflective.
Con:
The affordable version lacks color for photos and maps, and it doesn't reproduce maps well. You can't zoom in on a map, which makes it nearly useless for directions.
Pro:
Super long battery life. I used the device for several hours a day for more than a week and didn't need a recharge. Amazon says its Kindles have one-month battery lives if you leave the Wi-Fi turned off.
Con:
The device never "shuts off." It continually refreshes its screen, even when you're not using it. This habit can exasperate flight attendants who don't want you to have any electronic devices operating during takeoff or landing. UPDATE: My mistake, as the commenters have pointed out. You *can* turn the Kindle off with the top button. The battery life is excellent, though, so few people probably do.
Pro:
Font size is adjustable. So if a book's print is too small to read, you can just make the text larger.
Con:
Page size isn't fixed, which means that the index to any guidebook is useless because you there is no corresponding page number.
Pro:
You can search text, such as guidebook, for a word or phrase you want. There's a basic English language dictionary built in, too.
Con:
There's no spelling suggester, unlike in Google search results. ("Did you mean to spell Iskia "Ischia"?) If you don't know how to spell the name of a town or a restaurant, you're out of luck.
(Another problem: Kindle returns search results from the start of the book, not from your current page in the book onward. If you want to find a plaza in a particular town, let's say, your Kindle will search for every mention of the word plaza in your book. Ugh.)
Pro:
Its built-in Web browser lets you surf the Web in more than 60 countries for free.
Con:
The refresh rate was so s-l-o-w that I found the free Web surfing is only useful when you have absolutely no other Internet option.
Pro:
More than 700,000 books are available on the Kindle. Guidebook publishers are increasingly publishing individual chapters from their guidebooks. You can spend less and get precisely the information you want.
Con:
Merely 7,400 of those books are travel-related, and your favorite guidebook might not be available in a digital edition.
MAX OUT YOUR KINDLE
Save magazine and newspaper articles to your Kindle. Whether they're destination planning guides or just something good to read in the ski lodge, you'll want to set up the following process for saving good info for later. (Hat tip to Cool Tools.)
1) Register at Instapaper.com, a free site, via your PC or Mac. Instapaper will let you add a button to your browser for saving articles. Whenever you see an inspiring article, click the "Read Later" browser button and the article will be saved.
2) Write down your personal Kindle e-mail address. It usually looks like yourname@kindle.com. You can look up yours on your Kindle by clicking "Menu" and then "Settings."
3) Download Calibre eBook Manager (calibre-ebook.com/) to your PC or Mac. Let Calibre know your personal Kindle e-mail address.
4) Link Calibre to your Instapaper account. Calibre has easy to follow instructions for doing this. Sign up for a "feed" of all the articles you clip and save to Instapaper as you surf. Be sure to schedule how often you want your clipped articles to download. For example, you can check "autosend" in the sharing preferences on Calibre.
5) Surf the Web. Click the "Read Later" button on your browser whenever there's a travel (or other article) you'd like to read on your Kindle later on. Need something better to read on vacation than Confessions of a Shopaholic Part 13? Visit TheBrowser or LongForm.org and then click to save articles.
[MORE: When you download something other than an Amazon book to your Kindle, and you use a 3G network instead of WiFi, you may be hit by a small charge from a telecom company. Paul Kline has a tip on how to avoid the small fees that telecom companies may charge you. It involves adding the word "Free" to your personal Kindle e-mail address: Calibre + Instapaper + Kindle = Reading Goodness]
EARLIER
Test Lab: iPad as travel tool
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There is one inaccuracy in this article. The Kindle does not "continually refreshes its screen". The beauty of the e-ink display is that it refreshes and draws power only when it needs to redraw the screen, for example when you flip a page. Otherwise the display draws no current and does not refresh. You can receive the Kindle with a discharged battery and it will continue to display the same image you last displayed on it.
Posted By Avi on October 14, 2010, 9:08 PM
If you buy the Kindle version of "The Traveling Professor's Guide to Paris" (see http://www.travelingprofessor.com )there are over 100 links that you can click to get more information on a topic.
So, if you have the book on your Kindle, and you want to know what special events are going on, just click the link. Or, if you see one of the restaurants in the book and want to see the restaurant's website, just click the link.
Posted By Steve From TravelingProfessor.com on October 14, 2010, 11:02 PM
@avi
Thanks for the comment. All true! But if my jargon was wrong, my point still stands.
Let's say the Kindle is on idle. You haven't read anything for ten minutes. The screen changes its image every 40 seconds or so. One minute it's an image of Ralph Ellison. The next it's of Harriet Beecher Stowe. Then it's some random wildlife images. That's what I meant by "continually refreshes its screen."
A flight attendant looking at the electronic screen sees it as just another electronic portable device that's in operation. If you're not supposed to have electronic gizmos operating during take-off or landing, then you're in trouble.
Posted By Sean O' on October 15, 2010, 3:25 AM
Stick with paper books. I don't think you'll be happy with new technology items. Many of the 'cons' you mention sound like they are from someone who doesn't understand technology.
Posted By Jason on October 15, 2010, 8:36 AM
I do not understand your comment that you can't "shut off" the Kindle. The user guide states: "To turn your Kindle off, slide and hold the power switch for seven seconds until the screen goes blank and then release." Are you saying this does not work?
Posted By Pat on October 15, 2010, 3:29 PM
Seconding what Pat said. Sliding the power switch puts it in sleep mode. (Just glanced at mine at 4:20PM...same image that it was on when I put it to sleep at 7:50AM this morning when I stopped reading and got off my train! It's not constantly refreshing images) Otherwise, fair review!
Posted By Emily on October 15, 2010, 4:27 PM
Well how about that! I knew you had to hold the switch to reboot. Didn't know you could turn it off that way.
Thanks for the tip!
Posted By Sean O' on October 15, 2010, 5:03 PM
Have been looking @ both The Kindle & The Nook.
Has anyone done a comparison of these two devices to see which one is the best?
I haven't bought one yet, but am very interested.
Thanks
Ginny:)
Posted By Ginny on October 15, 2010, 8:51 PM
I have a new Kindle with 3G. I bought it to be a book reader. It's a great book reader. I can load my reading before I leave on a trip and I can download a good recommendation while I travel. As far as I'm concerned, this is a great leap forward.
I would also say that I didn't expect to use it for guidebooks. The switching back and forth would seem better does with book in hand but maybe I'll try one and see if it's useful.
I'm not expecting Kindle to do any more than it does. We have a netbook for travel and I really don't think the Kindle replaces it.
What it does replace is half a suitcase full of books. And this is just fine with me. And about that extravagant cover, I actually bought the really extravagant one with a built in reading light. Heaven and worth every penny.
Maybe soon there will be something the size of a Kindle that does it all well but I'll wait.
Posted By Fran on October 18, 2010, 12:04 PM
My sister and I just used our Kindles for two weeks in France and loved the convenience. We brought guide books and novels and I also had French lessons on mine. You didn't mention that music and other audio can be listened to on the Kindle. I also sent myself a list of my hotel and train reservations and important numbers as a backup to my paper and Blackberry versions. Worth the peace of mind. I, too love the cover with the attached light. One less thing to argue about! By the way, we are not young techies, but early baby boomers who love this stuff. Janel
Posted By Janel Bush on October 18, 2010, 1:07 PM
I looked at both the Kindle and the Nook. My daughters bought me a Nook because its technology is compatible with the library and I can download books for a 2 week period, just like borrowing a book from the library. So far I have only installed free ebooks from B&N and 1 fee book. I also bought the cover with light, because the Nook is not backlit like the Kindle.
Posted By Sandi Kreplin on October 18, 2010, 2:33 PM
I am on my 2nd Kindle. It is the 3rd gen, matte black smaller version. I loved my original one and would not have replaced it but for the fact that I dropped it on the corner and broke it. (One of the FEW disadvantage to the electronic version.) I took my first one to Europe for 22 days- read all the time and only had to recharge once. The commentators are correct, the screen DOES NOT refresh every 40 seconds- once on a picture, it stays there until you wake the Kindle back up or turn it off. The flight attendants let me keep mine turned on as long as the 3G was turned off. (I did not not have the WiFi version at that time.) The covers are not that expensive unless you are going for leather ones. I bought a good nylon one for my new Kindle to protect it in case I drop it again. The Kindle is not back lit- so you do need some sort of light, but I have read by a campfire and was able to see just fine. I have over 700 books on mine- most of them I got for free off of Amazon's site- they have exposed me to a lot of authors I never would have had the money to try reading. I have compared the Kindle to 17 other e-readers available at the time I got my first Kindle. I am so happy with my choice that I got one for my husband at Christmas. The only bad thing is now when I have time to kill in the big city, I have to find some other place to go hang out instead of the bookstores.
Posted By Gina on October 18, 2010, 4:51 PM
Thanks for all of the great comments! I'd especially like to call out Janel's helpful tips:
We brought guide books and novels and I also had French lessons on mine. You didn't mention that music and other audio can be listened to on the Kindle. I also sent myself a list of my hotel and train reservations and important numbers as a backup to my paper and Blackberry versions
As for the shifting screen, I've just stared at my Kindle for two minutes and it has changed its image 3 times. Maybe earlier editions were different? Or if you put a password protection on it it freezes the screen image? Not sure...
--Sean O'
Posted By Sean O' on October 20, 2010, 7:48 AM