Sheldon the Kindle Fire - First Impressions

[seperis]

I love Sheldon the Kindle. So much.

Size

It's almost the exact same size as the kindle keyboard. Screen has a black margin all around at one half the size of my fingertip for easy grabbing without smudging the readable area.

Sensitivity

Touch speed I have no complaints so far. The onscreen keyboard is pretty easy to use and the keys are not impossibly small for my fingers, and my hands are not tiny, so YMMV.

Screen orientation

It flips about as fast as you turn it.

Weight

Easy to carry in one hand without effort, pretty much falling into the weight sweet spot that Kindle occupies on the higher end. The back is slightly rubbery for a pretty good grip bare, but I have to admit a naked Kindle freaks me out badly. My case doesn't arrive until tomorrow, but current estimates say this is going to be pretty much as easy as carrying my Kindle around.

Sound

Not terrible, not epic. Headphones work just fine.

Browser

Currently I'm in my home network and to clarify, this house is etherneted and wirelessed for both g and n, so given Time Warner Cable having issues, my speeds are usually decent. Speed on this browser is definitely above teh average I can get when I unplug the ethernet on my laptop and use wireless g. Load time for a previously viewed page when timed against my laptop is almost the same speed and possibly slightly faster and my laptop has good cache and a solid state drive and is fast. Therefore, I tentatively state the silk browser is really goddamn fast.

Home screen

The home screen is three separate sections; the top is teh search bar, below it are links to your stuff in teh following categories:

Newsstand, Books, Music, Video, Docs, Apps, Web.

All have two options at the top, Cloud and Device you can switch between. With my books, a touch downloaded them fast. Video has a link to your library at the very top left and then three sections, one for Prime movies/tv that includes--thank you God--all of Farscape for free viewing for Prime members. My God, my life is good. Amazon Prime videos cannot be downloaded and watched offline on the Kindle fire, but given a wireless connection, its', um, actually pretty fast. I took a break just now to watch the first ten minutes of Farscape ep 1.

Next down is a carousel--it really is. It basically shows what you were jsut doing (a cute pic of teh archive appeared and of the help menu and of farscape and of all my books. The third row is alll the apps you favorited.

Youtube

HD Youtube loads...really fast. I mean, that was kind of disturbing. I couldn't access some vids including Tanglewood Tree for Fingersmith, Fascination for Billy Elliot and several X-Men vids and SGA vids since they aren't enabled for mobile, but any that were enabled loaded fast and all looked much better in HD than non-HD. I mean, seriously, beyond the obvious, the HD's were nice.

Tested successfully with the following:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VkHwavK_urE&list=PLA742652EAF2F3634&index=31&feature=plpp_video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ch3cOa7jy-A&list=PLA742652EAF2F3634&index=63&feature=plpp_video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cq06MkQjAEU&list=PLA742652EAF2F3634&index=78&feature=plpp_video

Other

I wish it had a 3G option, but 3G is fucking slow, and I use broadband at home, so not having it when I don't have access to my home network might lead to homicide when nothing will load, so. The browser is ungodly fast.

Archive

The screen and size are fine but a little cramped when the Fire is vertical; flip to horizontal on dashboard and it's magic. Reading fic vertical is of course fine. But if someone wants to write a skin for the Fire, pretty much everything can be solved with a quick margin and tab reduction and possibly a function to hide the dashboard or turn it into a hover menu or reduce it to less than a quarter of available space. For me, the Mobile skin wasn't quite right for the Kindle screen area, but the regular archive is perfect when I flip the screen, so I'm happy. Recent bookmark list requires no orientation adjustment, so it's basically anything with the div columns.

Most websites do slightly better in horizontal mode, but none so far are unreadable in vertical; this is like, about a thousand times better than my phone.

Problem
So far, and I have no idea why, I cant' get the download functoin working. It downloads but does not add to library and this is annoying.

Note
To fix name, and whoo this is embarrassing, click on Synch in settings after changing it on Amazon. That does the trick.

Please
If anyone figures out how to download fic to library--and if it is obvious, pretend it is not--then please to be dropping a line?

Sheldon and I are getting along fine, thank you. How is everyone else with their Fires? And more importantly, what are their names?????

ETA

Okay, for those, like me, who can't figure out how to get the entire fic from AO3 to Kindle, it's kind of weird. Download the book. It is now in the Download folder.

Download ES File Manager from the appstore. It's free. When downloaded, open it. You will see a list of folders, one of which is called Download. Open it and select the book by pressing down on it. If you have only books in there in multiple, on the menu, select Select All, then Cut. Or do it one at a time, IDK.

Using the top menu fourth icon, go up a level, then click on Books. When Books is open, you will see a strip of white and a tiny knob at the bottom of your screen that is where your book(s) are that you slide up to open. Hold down on the book(s) and then choose Paste.

Your AO3 books are perfectly functional and happy in the Docs folder. I am a hundred percent sure there is a stupidly easy way to do this, but its' like, 10:47 and I just want to read some fic. Calibre will automatically download your mobi files into Kindle Books folder that will appear in Docs. Yeah, no idea what is going on.

Sheldon and I are learning each other.

Comments

[mercurydraconix.livejournal.com]

SO UM. Your old Kindle. I have a few questions! I'm not in the market for a tablet, but I do think the e-ink is cool and looking on amazon, those prices are right:

a) Regular? Touch? Keyboard? and do you have an argument in favor of any of those?

b) "special offers" - offensively irritating or unobtrusive? also, do they ever go away or are they there for eternity?

I've read cnet, obviously, but it's always nice to get a personal opinion!

[wynddancer.livejournal.com]

E-ink is awesome imo. I love it so much. I love that the Kindle family bar Fire (I'm assuming) is not backlight so that I can read it when I have a headache w/o making it worse and w/o it interfering w/sleep the way backlight devices do (the blue light/backlighting makes your brain assume it's not time for bed yet and thus doesn't manufacture the appropriate hormones). You can't watch videos but you can also listen to audiobooks, play music, and have your Kindle read books that have the option enabled for text reading to you. You can also password protect it so that your fic reading habits are protected. :-) You can also surf the Internet, like on other mobile devices. I can read AO3 fic on the site on the Kindle after enlarging the font, not ff.net so much though--if you can read tiny type it's usable there too. I love the fact that it's light and fits easily into my purse.

I have the K3, what I'm presuming is now the Kindle Keyboard. It's the only Kindle I've owned. I think the battery life avg. about 8 hours and you can use it while it's recharging. The K3 I bought has 3g, which you don't have to pay monthly charges for; it's included in the buy price. It's kinda slow but you can check email and buy books even in areas w/o wireless to connect to and go to other websites too like AO3.

I'm not familiar with the special offers Kindle as I don't have one but I've seen people talk about the special offers that they receive via it, including special deals on Amazon ebooks that aren't available to you if you're not a owner of the special offer Kindle.

B/c it's not backlight, if you want to read it in dark places you'll need to buy a light for it and a cover is recommended to help prevent scratches--it doesn't come with one. You'll also want a screen protector for it to prevent scratches on the screen. It's awesome to read outside in, esp. on sunny days since no backlight means your screen is see-able, not washed out. You can also buy waterproof bags/covers to read it in the bathtub or on a beach. You can now download Kindle ebooks from your local library's website if they offer ebooks.

You may want to ask your question about comparing the various Kindles here: http://www.kindleboards.com/ They talk about everything Kindle there. And they may already have a FAQ covering the differences, IDK. I bought my K3 in Feb before they came out with the special touch Kindles, etc.

I'm in love with the readability app. It's on my browser and I just tell it to email the webpage to my Kindle and I read it there. http://www.readability.com/ It's awesome esp. for LJ fics that you can't find elsewhere like on AO3, which lets you download fic for your Kindle/ereader of choice. Unless you just want to copy and paste them into Word, save as pdf, use Calibre to convert to mobi (pdf text/font isn't really scalable on the Kindle ime--I prefer to convert pdf to mobi).

I love fanfiction downloader: http://fanfictiondownloader.net/index.php It lets you download fic from ff.net and other archives easily and converts them for reading on your Kindle.

Calibre is fun too.

[wynddancer.livejournal.com]

As far as names, I named my K3 Eames. If I had money for a K. Fire, I'd name it Arthur. My laptop's name is Inception. I sense a theme. :D

[mercurydraconix.livejournal.com]

I... huh. the rest of your comment is gone compared to what i have in my email notification, but.. okay. :) That vanished comment was helpful! full confession: i actually have an iPad, i just like the e-ink and therefore I am very, very tempted by the $80 basic kindle. probably my real waffling decisions are offers / no offers and touch / standard.

it's the holiday season aren't i supposed to buy myself presents?

[wynddancer.livejournal.com]

I'm glad it was helpful. :) I know I go overboard. I just tend to over explain and squee too much b/c there's so much misinformation about it out there--people say you can't email with it but you can, etc.; and I found it hard to find out what I wanted to know (can I read it in the bathtub?, can I make the font bigger/smaller, etc.) I just always include the fanfic converter info b/c it seems like that is the next question for the people I know. I love to read on it; it seems like I'm reading a book or a newspaper (you can subscribe to them on the Kindle).

If this part of my comment vanished, I'll quote it again for you: You may want to ask your question about comparing the various Kindles here: http://www.kindleboards.com/ They talk about everything Kindle there. And they may already have a FAQ covering the differences, IDK. I bought my K3 in Feb before they came out with the special touch Kindles, etc.

[goingferal.livejournal.com]

I have the keyboard Kindle--got it earlier this year, pre-Fire announcement.

How do you check your email and read from websites using the e-ink Kindle? I didn't realize this was possible and haven't figured it out on my own yet!

[wynddancer.livejournal.com]

Click on menu, arrow down to Experimental and click on it, next screen select Web Browser, click on it, and ime it'll either pull up Amazon or the list of your bookmarked websites, maybe the last website you visited (some websites are pre-bookmarked for you like Amazon--you can probably delete them; I just haven't.). If you have wireless turned off, it'll ask you if you want to turn it on.

Hit menu again, and you'll get various options including enter url (takes you directly to the url bar); bookmarks (you can bookmark the websites you visit); bookmark this page; etc.

I just enter the website address (archiveofourown.org for example) and use bookmark this page for an easy shortcut to avoid typing that each time. AO3 is great for reading fanfic online on the Kindle w/o downloading it as when you play w/the font, it'll resize the margins for you so it's all on the screen; when I tried w/ff.net it wouldn't re-size the font and the type is tiny; LJ if you enlarge the type makes you scroll sideways at the bottom.

You can log-in to your accounts on AO3 and email. It's like a regular browser that way and will let you delete your history/cookies/etc.

Did you know you can email documents to your Kindle? You'll need to go to Amazon and enter the email address you'll be sending them from. Just send the docs to your username@free.kindle.com. If it's a pdf, put Convert in the subject line and it'll convert pdf to mobi for you.

[wynddancer.livejournal.com]

Uh, re-reading that, it sounds confusing, so: bookmark this page adds that website page to the list of bookmarks that you can then go to and select from (and bookmarks has the list of websites; not bookmark this page. Duh.). Sorry for any confusion! :-)

[goingferal.livejournal.com]

Thank you. Much <3!

[wynddancer.livejournal.com]

Annnnnnnnnnnndddddddd, I thought I added this part but I didn't: Those problems of tiny type with ff.net, LJ's scrolling, can be solved by hitting Menu, then Article Mode, and then if you still want, you can still increase the font. You just don't have to do this extra step w/AO3. You can go back to surfing the web by hitting menu, then web mode. I'm assuming you can do this with email too; I've not played with Article mode on my email.

[redhedlvr.livejournal.com]

Thank you, thank you!! for posting this. I had no idea there were resources out there to convert fanfic into eReader formats. I've always just done the cut/paste/edit to suite me thing with Word. This is wonderful and I can't wait to go home and try it out.

[wynddancer.livejournal.com]

I'm happy it helped! Oh, me too, I did that too for ages for just saving it on my laptop. I'm still doing that for certain authors who are LJ/DW only when I want it in ebook form.

I was so happy to discover these fanfic helpers. There's also fanfic ebook archives like this multifandom one: http://amalthia.mediawood.net/ebooks/ where the fanfic's already in ebook form for e-readers. Also, there's other fanfic e-book archives: http://www.lmgtfy.com/?q=fanfic+ebook+archives

[redhedlvr.livejournal.com]

Thanks again! These look great and I can't wait to explore them all.

[seperis.livejournal.com]

a.) I have a keyboard one I'm perfect content with for regular reading. I haven't tried the Touch yet, but unless there's a radical lack of quality control, I think it'll be a personal preference thing on which you get.

b.) everyone I've seen who had special offers says it's not intrusive and actually fairly useful since they get notified of book deals earlier and sometimes (maybe?) are the only ones notified of special deals occurring. To give that context, I'm getting my sister for Christmas the Touch 3G with offers because of the reviews of how useful the offers were and it's something she'd take advantage of since she loves to read as much as I do. More convenient than getting them over email, I will say that.

The e-ink is fantastic for reading; even with my Fire, my regular Kindle is still going to be my primary reader. The battery life for the keyboard is long enough that when I'm using the cover with light, I only recharge every two or three days (I read a lot). When I'm not using the light cover (I almost always do, but it's happened that I didn't) it's about a week before i need to do a recharge, and it recharges fairly fast.

But yes, you will want a cover of some kind and you will want a reading light. I use this one pretty religiously: Lighted cover (http://www.amazon.com/Kindle-Lighted-Leather-Burgundy-Keyboard/dp/B003DZ166Q/ref=sr_1_3?s=fiona-hardware&ie=UTF8&qid=1321461137&sr=1-3) and I'm on my third one (my nephew broke the first and second when my Kindle was left out by accident). It's perfect.

[goingferal.livejournal.com]

I have the keyboard Kindle with "offers" and hesitated long before ordering it, but I have to say I am not all annoyed by the offers and have actually found a few of the offers useful or interesting enough to investigate further--so there's another datapoint in support.

[redhedlvr.livejournal.com]

I have the blue one. I so love my Kindle!

Re: Special Offers and Touch

[mremre.livejournal.com]

One thing I didn't notice others mentioning. If you get the special offers Kindle, then later on decide you can't stand the offers, you can go to your Manage Kindle page and pay the amount you were discounted in the original price ($30-40, I think). The offers go away and you then have a normal Kindle--this is the only way to get rid of the offers, BTW. At least the offers appear only in the screensaver or on the index pages of the Kindle and NEVER while you're reading a book.

If you can afford it, go for the Touch. The $80 Regular is super tempting, but remember that you can surf the internet (more or less) on the Kindle Experimental Brower. Imagine typing a URL using a 5-direction button to scroll through the keyboard. It. Will. Take. FOREVER. Even if you never browse, imagine tapping out notes, or searching for a new book... Touch. Definitely Touch.