Digital books are different from printed books, but then digital books aren’t all the same… Recently we bought our second generation Kindle e-reader.
A broken display
The display of the Kindle breaks easily. Admittedly, it wasn’t a good idea to sit on it, but then a paperback doesn’t mind if you lower your bum accidently on it. When we called the Amazon customer service it turned out that this happens quite often, and had it been within the warranty time Amazon would have exchanged it for free, but we were just a little bit over it (isn’t it always like that?). Nevertheless we got a 25% Discount on our new Kindle.
Advantages
Because the Kindle Keyboard is not on sale anymore, we are now happy owners of a Kindle Touch. It does have some advantages compared to the Kindle Keyboard version:
- Selecting a book or text from the main text is quicker and more intuitive
- Highlighting a text passage is easier as you don’t have to move the cursor around – but you do need some practice to know just how long you have to leave your finger on the same spot to start the highlighting (rather than just turning a page).
..and minor problems
- The screen is so sensitive that even with practice one wrong movement, like incidentally touching the screen, can suddenly flick you through to the beginning of the next chapter. Then you have to look for the page you had been reading…Sometimes a fly walking over the display is enough to switch onto next page.
- It was also not that easy to download the books we have already bought for the old Kindle on our new Kindle touch.
- Another nuisance of the Kindle books is that they are bought for one specific Kindle appliance, so even partners with their own Kindle can’t read the same e-book on their respective Kindle, you have to switch. Not to mention lending your e-book to a Kindle-owning friend…
That said, overall we read more during our trips since we have the Kindle. It is great to have the possibility to download books we are interested in, rather than picking the one from a second hand book shelf in a hostel that we can muster some interest in. Also, but this is a very tour-guide specific advantage: Being able to enlarge the script helps reading stories to the guests on a bumpy coach ride.
For a report of our first generation kindle have a look at this post: The Kindle test – slow reading in fast times
