Amazon Kindles

Lighter than many paperbacks, the Amazon Kindle can hold a small library of books.

In 2007, the Internet commerce company Amazon introduced a $399 (now priced at $359) electronic book (e-book) reader called the Kindle. The Kindle was not the first dedicated e-book reader device, but it didn't really have much competition -- there wasn't a huge demand in the market for e-book readers before the Kindle's launch.

Amazon has two distinct advantages over earlier e-book manufacturers. The first is that the company designed the Kindle so that it interfaces seamlessly with Amazon's online store. Amazon.com hosts hundreds of thousands of titles, many of which you can order in electronic format. And because the Kindle is wireless, you can access the store without connecting the device to a computer. You can buy a book or subscribe to an electronic version of a newspaper on Amazon and download it directly to the Kindle. The second advantage is that Amazon has a large customer base. Both of these factors give the Kindle a leg up on the competition.

Why would you want to use an e-book reader in the first place? One reason is that a single e-book reader can hold many titles. The Amazon Kindle can hold up to 200 titles (books, newspapers, magazines and blogs) in its memory. It also has a port that allows users to save titles to a memory card, extending the Kindle's capacity. Some people like the idea of having an electronic library that takes up very little physical space.

­The Kindle's memory capacity also makes it very convenient for travelers. With a Kindle, you don't have to worry about packing heavy books in your luggage to last for the whole trip. A single Kindle can hold more than enough titles to tide you over. And if you decide you want something completely different midway through the trip (as long as you're traveling in the United States), you can always use the Kindle to access Amazon's store and buy a new book.

The Kindle also has several functions that you may find helpful while reading. You can bookmark a page, highlight a selection of text or even type notes as you read. With these features, the Kindle has the potential to replace hardcopy textbooks in the future, something many students would probably welcome. While they would no longer be able to sell a used copy of a textbook at the end of a term, they wouldn't have to tote around a backpack filled with hefty books.

Amazon Kindle Layout

A rubberized surface on the back of the Kindle covers the SD card slot and removable battery.

­The Kindle has an off-white plastic casing and an asymmetric, beveled shape, like a closed three-ring binder. It has a rubberized back that makes it easier for users to hold the device. It's 7.5 inches (19 centimeters) long and 5.3 inches (13.5 centimeters) wide. It's only .7 inches (1.8 centimeters) thick and weighs a mere 10.3 ounces.

The central feature on the Kindle is its electronic paper screen. It measures six inches (15.2 centimeters) along the diagonal and has a 167 dots per inch (DPI) resolution. The screen can only display images in black and white. Unlike LCD screens, it's not backlit. That means you'll need a reading light if you want to skim a novel in a setting with little ambient light.

On either side of the screen are sets of two large buttons. On the left you'll find buttons for "next page" and "previous page." The right side features buttons for "next page" and "back." Some reviewers have commented that the "back" and "previous page" buttons sometimes function identically and sometimes do different things, which can cause confusion. Several critics have also pointed out that the placement of the buttons makes it easy for users to accidentally turn a page just by picking up the Kindle.

Beneath the screen you'll find a scroll wheel, a full keypad and an array of function buttons. The scroll wheel acts as a navigation interface -- like a mouse -- allowing the user to select options or specific lines of text. Pressing down on the wheel is like clicking a button on the mouse -- it lets you activate options. The keypad allows you to type notes while reading text or use the search feature. The function keys map to search and menu shortcuts.

On the base of the Kindle you'll find a headphone jack (the Kindle can play mp3 files), a USB port and a power adapter plug. You'll also find a pair of volume buttons. The power button is on the back of the Kindle along with a switch that activates the Kindle's wireless receiver. Underneath the removable rubberized pad is a slot that can accept a standard SD Flash memory card. You'll also find the Kindle's removable battery pack there.

The Kindle comes with a USB cable and a power adapter. It also comes with a protective book cover. The cover has a padded section that protects the screen and an elastic band that holds the cover closed. Amazon also has a selection of accessories for the Kindle, including leather covers and adapters for non-U.S. electrical systems.

Inside the Amazon Kindle

Warranty Warning You may be tempted to crack open your Kindle and take a look at what makes it tick, but keep in mind that doing so will violate the warranty for the device.

At its most basic level, the Kindle is just a specialized portable computer. It has many of the bits and pieces you'd expect to find in any computing system. It also has a couple of elements that set it apart from your average computer.

Most of the Kindle's components attach directly to a circuit board. The circuit board acts as the foundation for electronic circuits in the Kindle. Most of the components are inseparable from the board. The various chips on the board are microcontrollers for the keyboard, scroll wheel, USB port and other interfaces.

The brain of the Kindle is an Intel PXA255 processor. The PXA255 is a 32-bit processor that handles all the commands and applications on the Kindle. The processor is an example of Advanced RISC Machine (ARM) architecture. The ARM series of chips have power-saving features that make them ideal for mobile electronics.

Rapid Repair has opened up a Kindle so you don't have to.

­The Kindle has an EVDO wireless modem. The acronym EVDO stands for Evolution Data Only or Evolution Data Optimized, depending upon whom you ask. Unlike a Wi-Fi card, the EVDO modem taps into cell phone networks to transmit and receive wireless signals. The Kindle uses Sprint's cellular wireless data system.

A 256 megabit Flash memory chip provides storage memory for the Kindle. Of the 256 megabytes, 180 are available as storage. A smart card port allows users to insert an SD card for additional storage capacity. The Kindle also has two Infineon 256 megabit Mobile-RAM chips and a Spansion 512 megabit chip. The 512 megabit chip stores the Kindle's firmware boot-sector information

The Kindle draws its power from a rechargeable lithium-polymer battery. Unlike most of the Kindle's components, you can access the battery without taking the case apart. The rubberized grip on the back of the Kindle covers up the battery. According to Amazon, the battery will provide power to the Kindle for up to a week without the need for recharging as long as the wireless function is switched off. Amazon made the battery accessible so that users can replace the battery if it fails.

The Kindle uses a Linux-based operating system. According to hardware hacker Igor Skochinsky, it uses the Das U-Boot bootloader to initialize its OS. Skochinsky experimented with a Kindle and discovered several interesting commands, shortcuts and hidden applications within the Kindle's OS. For example, he discovered that if you press the Alt key, Shift key and M key while in the Home menu, the Kindle will open up a game of Minesweeper

Beneath the circuit board you'll find the Kindle's electronic paper screen.

The E-book Reader Display

One complaint some people had about early e-book readers was that it can be difficult to read words on an LCD display. Some users complained that longer reading sessions put too much strain on their eyes. Amazon's solution to this problem was to use electronic ink technology. The Kindle's electronic ink screen looks more like paper than an LCD screen. It reflects light in much the same way that paper does. The screen lacks a backlight, so you'll need an external light source in order to read anything.

A company called E Ink in Cambridge, Mass. developed the technology the Kindle relies upon to display text and images. Rather than use the liquid crystals you'd find in an LCD or the ionized gas you'd find in a plasma display, electronic ink actually uses millions of microcapsules, only a few microns wide. Each microcapsule contains a clear fluid and thousands of white and black particles. The white particles carry a positive magnetic charge and the black particles have a negative charge.

It's these positively- and negatively-charged particles inside the microcapsules that make electronic ink displays possible. An array of thousands of tiny electrodes lies beneath the electronic ink display. When an electrode emits a negative charge, it repels the negatively-charged black balls, pushing them to the top of the microcapsule. At the same time, the charge attracts the positively-charged white particles to the bottom of the microcapsule. When the electrode emits a positive charge, the white and black particles switch places and the screen appears to be blank.

Although the shape of the Kindle is unusual, many reviewers praise the device's ergonomic design.

­But if the electrode emits a positive charge, then it will attract the balls, pulling them down through the ink. The display then reveals the ink to the viewer. Working together, thousands of electrodes and millions of microcapsules generate the text and images you can see on an electronic ink display. Through precise charges the Kindle can display a range of grays to provide shading in images. You can even adjust the Kindle's font settings to display text in a larger or smaller font size.

The Kindle uses less energy to generate a page view than a comparable LCD or plasma screen. The company's Web site states that the Kindle pulls power from its battery only during the initial page generation. It doesn't require more power until the user changes the page view. Because of this feature, the Kindle's battery can provide power for up to a week on a single charge (assuming the user doesn't have the wireless feature turned on).

The Kindle is a monochromatic display, which means it can only display images in black and white; however, companies like E Ink are working on color electronic ink displays. It's possible that a future version of the Kindle will be full-color. But for now, users will have to settle for images and text in black, white and shades of gray.

The electronic ink display is one of the Amazon Kindle's top selling points. Another is the way it interfaces with Amazon's inventory of electronic books.

Amazon's E-book Store

To get the most out of your Amazon Kindle, you'll need to create an account with Amazon.com. It's a free process -- all you'll need is a valid e-mail address. Once you have an account, you can register your Kindle with Amazon. This gives you access to the Kindle Store through Amazon's wireless network called Whispernet.

The Amazon Kindle's EVDO modem gives you wireless access to an electronic store that includes more than 190,000 books, newspapers and magazines. Amazon provides the wireless service for free -- you won't have to pay a subscription to access it. The Kindle allows you to buy books directly from the device. Alternatively, you can browse books in the Kindle store using your computer's Web browser and purchase them from your computer. Amazon will send the electronic books directly to your device. You can also browse several blogs online.

You don't need to own a computer to use the Kindle. That's one feature that sets Kindle apart from its competitors. Unlike most e-book readers, you don't have to sync the Kindle to another machine to transfer files. You can browse, sample, purchase and download titles from the Kindle itself.

The Kindle comes with a USB cord, power adapter and a cover.

The files you access ­with a Kindle are in a proprietary format with the extension AZW. The AZW files include digital rights management (DRM) that prevents you from sharing your files with other users. The Kindle can handle Audible files (.aa) and MP3 files, two popular formats for audio books. Amazon also can convert several other types of files into the AZW format so that the Kindle can read them. These file types include:

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• Text (.txt) files
• Unprotected MOBI files (.mobi o­r .prc)
• Word documents (.doc)
• HTML files
• Image files, including JPEG, GIF, BMP and PNG formats
• PDF files -- the Kindle's PDF conversion capabilities are still in the experimental phase and may not work with every file

Each Kindle has a unique e-mail address. You can send compatible files to your Kindle by e-mailing them directly to the device. Amazon charges $0.10 for each file. If you want to avoid the fee, you can e-mail the files to a special address at the free.kindle.com domain for free conversion. Amazon will convert the files and send them to the e-mail address associated with your Amazon account. To transfer files from your Amazon account to your Kindle, you'll need to connect the device to a computer using the USB cable. This is one of the few times you'll have to connect your device to another machine.

Every purchase you make from Amazon goes into a special folder called Your Media Library. Amazon uses a ­cloud storage model where the file lives on one of Amazon's computer servers. That means even if you delete a book from your Kindle to conserve space, the record of your purchase will still exist on Amazon's servers. You can choose to download the book again to your Kindle for no additional charge.

Popularity of the Kindle

Upon its debut, the Amazon Kindle cost $399. While some critics said the nearly $400 price tag was too high, the demand for the Kindle soon depleted Amazon's stock of the device. Amazon's CEO Jeff Bezos offered an apology to customers. He claimed that the company sold out of its stock in less than six hours. Some Web journalists and bloggers suggested that Bezos' goal wasn't to offer a sincere apology -- it was to drive up more interest for the device [source: WebProNews].

Define "Kindle" One of the Kindle's many neat features is access to an online dictionary. If you encounter an unfamiliar word in a text, you can use the scroll wheel to select the line in question and look up the word's meaning.

When the Kindle returned, the price dropped to $359. Amazon didn't release sales numbers to the general public, leaving many to question exactly how popular the device was. Netcasts such as CNET's "Buzz Out Loud" would occasionally report on Kindles listeners had spotted "in the wild." It seemed like the Kindle belonged to the realm of folklore -- you didn't own one, but a friend of a friend did.

Amazon got a huge publicity boost in October 2008. That's when Oprah Winfrey, named the Kindle as her favorite gadget. Oprah devoted most of an episode of her show to promoting the Kindle. She invited Jeff Bezos to the show to talk about the device, explaining its features to her audience. Oprah also announced an electronic coupon for the device. Viewers could enter the code "OprahWinfrey" when purchasing the Kindle and receive a $50 discount.

The Kindle in profile

­Will the Kindle and other e-book readers completely revolutionize the publishing industry? Perhaps that will happen eventually. But so far, adoption rates appear to be on the low end. Part of that might be due to a reluctance to give up the visceral experience of reading a physical book. Another factor might be the price of electronic books -- despite the fact that there's no physical media involved, the books cost about the same amount as a hard copy.

Maybe you're a college student and you're hoping a Kindle will replace the ­need to lug around a pile of heavy textbooks. While a Kindle could hold an entire year's worth of college books (with room to spare), there are a couple of problems. The first problem is that if the book has color illustrations or graphs, the Kindle won't be able to display them accurately. The second problem is that the page numbers on the Kindle and the hard copy won't necessarily correlate, making it difficult to coordinate with professors.

Even so, the Kindle and other e-book readers seem to be gaining momentum. Rumors of a new version of the Kindle started to show up in the summer of 2008. This new version may have even more features and could address some of the criticisms reviewers have of the original device. Who knows? Perhaps the days of the mega bookstore are numbered.