Back in the day, I was what you’d call a voracious reader. Actually, I still am. However, my medium and content selection has massively shifted over the years from print novels to digital non-fiction. And I probably average only half a dozen books a year at this point. So I’m an obvious late adopter to the eBook reader market. At $259, the Kindle didn’t much interest me. Especially since the iPhone Kindle app launched. Yeah, the 3.5″ screen has been a bit tight but it works well enough. But I’m coming from Dell Axim and Microsoft reader (when I used to commute via subway and before the blog existed).
Anyhow, it appears $150ish is my sweet spot. I was prepared to pick up the dual screen WiFi-only Nook when introduced at $150 last week. But Amazon quickly countered by lowering the price of the 3G Kindle to $189. And a day later, their refurbished units showed up even lower. I grabbed the US-only Kindle 2 refurb for a mere $140.
It’s pretty cool how the Kindle comes pre-linked to my Amazon account. In fact, my previous “book” purchases were all available. Although somewhat hidden in an archive folder – until I synced a few over. The “experimental” web browsing experience is pretty weak, but that’s expected and not why I purchased the Kindle. But I do intend to test a bit more, pulling RSS feeds directly and trying some mobile email clients. And as far as initial periodical subscriptions go, I grabbed PC Magazine ($1.49/mo) and of course ZNF (at $.99/mo – not cool). But in the end, I may just end up using Instapaper to send interesting web-sourced content my way.
Some have asked what sort of condition refurb Kindles arrive in. Hence the photo gallery below. Honestly, I can’t tell the difference between this Kindle and a new unit. In fact, as it uses Sprint versus AT&T, it could very well be a new unit that Amazon doesn’t want to sell as new (given the ‘global wireless’ model and potential confusion). The photos aren’t the best – given a power outage last night, the unboxing was shot via iPhone at a dimly lit local grill.
Click to enlarge:
