Okay so it's been a few months now that I've had my kindle, and the shiny has aaaalmost worn off it.
I've really enjoyed using it at the gym when doing cardio etc it's nice to lose m'self in the story or whatnot I'm reading and thus not obsess over my breathing, pace, etc but let my body figure that shit out itself (usually works better that way too). It's great for the gym because it's so darn small and light. Even with the dayplanner style case I keep it in it it's still nicely portable and I don't have to worry about propping a heavy paperback or turning pages. Win.
Unfortunately the clip on light I've been using proved itself to be a neurotic unreliable battery eater. It may've just been my experience but yeah. It has a button on the back of the lamp section, when I first got it pressing it once turned on one of two LED lights pressing it again turned a second on and a third time turned them all off. Now it's basically completely useless. I suspect a lose connection or bad bulb but since I can't take it apart to repair it without basically destroying it (something I'll probably do now that the warranty is useless) it's hard to say. Until it stopped working though, it worked great. Which is a bit like saying until he died he was fine.
As far as syncing reading material between my laptop, Iphone, and the kindle itself that's been a mixed bag as well. If I read something on my laptop then go to the kindle itself and open the same file the kindle is excellent about asking if I'd like to sync to the furthest point and doing so. However, kindle to iphone is not as rapid or accurate and I haven't tried laptop to Iphone yet. I will say that I appreciate the kindle to personal computer app as with my wonky reading light I can now still read at night without screwing with an awkwardly angled bedside lamp.
Converting .pdfs to .mobi files has been mixed as well. All the freeware/shareware I've come across is not as successful or accurate as the amazon conversion process offered for a small fee but both tend to have some weird artifact issues, particular with heavily columned material like a document with a newspaper type layout, particularly if there are photos or advertisements separating the columns. Ideally as software and the popularity of e-books increases more documents will be made available in .mobi from the get-go and conversion software will improve. It's still very possible to read a .pdf on the Kindle either way.
The one thing I have yet to investigate is using E-books from my local library. I've read that many libraries offer this service but as I am Princess Fail and no longer have a library card (the one I did have expired gods only know how long ago) I'll have to investigate further and report back, and again, there may be limits and exceptions unique to my library system rather than the Kindle.
I've really enjoyed using it at the gym when doing cardio etc it's nice to lose m'self in the story or whatnot I'm reading and thus not obsess over my breathing, pace, etc but let my body figure that shit out itself (usually works better that way too). It's great for the gym because it's so darn small and light. Even with the dayplanner style case I keep it in it it's still nicely portable and I don't have to worry about propping a heavy paperback or turning pages. Win.
As far as syncing reading material between my laptop, Iphone, and the kindle itself that's been a mixed bag as well. If I read something on my laptop then go to the kindle itself and open the same file the kindle is excellent about asking if I'd like to sync to the furthest point and doing so. However, kindle to iphone is not as rapid or accurate and I haven't tried laptop to Iphone yet. I will say that I appreciate the kindle to personal computer app as with my wonky reading light I can now still read at night without screwing with an awkwardly angled bedside lamp.
Converting .pdfs to .mobi files has been mixed as well. All the freeware/shareware I've come across is not as successful or accurate as the amazon conversion process offered for a small fee but both tend to have some weird artifact issues, particular with heavily columned material like a document with a newspaper type layout, particularly if there are photos or advertisements separating the columns. Ideally as software and the popularity of e-books increases more documents will be made available in .mobi from the get-go and conversion software will improve. It's still very possible to read a .pdf on the Kindle either way.
