Amazon Kindle

I just read about this new reading device from Amazon called the Kindle.

I found quite a few interesting technical aspects to it:
1. It uses cellphone technology for data, thus you dont need to be at a wifi hotspot for it to work and all of this does not cost you what a data plan does.
2. The device it self seems to be very small and carryable, atleast in the video.
3. You can read not only books, but also newspaper, mags and blogs. Though it does look like the number of blogs are pre-selected from the information avbl now. You also get some newspapers and mags delivered for free by Amazon.
4. You can read some of the common doc formats like Word etc. But you will have to mail it to the device and Amazon seems to be charging some fee to convert it to a Kindle compatible format.

Some areas that I would like more improvement
1. Make it possible to setup a list of blogs you are interested in and get those on the device
2. Somehow allow the device to connect to a PC via USB so that I can also download documents into it without having to pay Amazon everytime
3. It currently looks to be a BW screen. Now sure if this is a good way to read books that may have a lot of images etc.
4. It is very pricey for what it does. I would be willing to look at this device at a round a $100 price point.

Comments

[Pradeep]

Read Charles Petzold's comments on Kindle:
http://www.charlespetzold.com/blog/2007/11/201225.html

The Amazon reviews are blistering. Read the 1 star reviews to get a feel of the negative aspects.

[Ankur Bhatnagar]

Hi Anand,

Just to let you know, Kindle does allow you to sync over USB and you can move documents from PC to kindle through this method also (I think there is no conversion charge in this case).

As far as Blogs are concerned, Amazon is charging to access blogs from Kindle. Charges range from 0.99 to 1.99 a month (Scobleizer is for 1.99)

[chandrakumar]

Hi Anand,

I am in receipt of a Kindle, as gift from my son. I can transfer my blogs from Desktop to the Kindle through the USB. But the transfer as such is not readable in Kindle, because the transferred files are not in Kindle readable format.
The user manual says that I have to sent those files as *.htm or *.txt document files to the Kindle and they will reconvert them into kindle readable format and sent to our email account free of charge. This is the system to be adopted in an area where Kindle wireless service is not in existance.

My Malayalam blogs in UTF-8 formats are not readily readable in Kindle. Would you please help me how to save the malayalam blogs in to files of .htm or txt format so that I an send them as attachments to kindle for re conversion?

my mail: [email protected]

thank you

Chandrakumar.

http://www.sarkkaarkaryam.blogspot.com

[Preethi]

Hi Can anyone let me know...if Kindle is available in India..particularly in Bangalore