In the shifting world of electronics, no one's staying neatly in their allotted corner these days. Witness the annual Consumer Electronics Show. Once strictly a hardware showcase, it's promoting the participation of movie studios and TV networks in this January's event.
So it's almost unsurprising that the newest e-book reader, the Amazon Kindle (click on images for a closer look), bears the name of a retailer rather than an equipment manufacturer. The branding actually makes sense, since a seamless link between the Kindle and Amazon.com is the most interesting aspect of the device, which Amazon began selling last week for $399. I tried it out over the Thanksgiving weekend.
The Kindle comes preloaded with your Amazon account information and with software that links, automatically and at no ongoing cost, to Sprint's high-speed cellphone data network. If all goes well, Amazon says, you simply turn it on and start browsing and ordering. Even when your account doesn't appear, as mine didn't, signing on took only seconds.
[Nov. 28, 2007 Update: We corrected the reference to the network Kindle uses; as a reader noted, it's Sprint's data network not its cellphone network. —Ed.]
(While I had no problems with the service when using my Kindle these past few days, Sprint was among the worst providers of cell phone service in our survey of Consumer Reports readers in 20 cities. If you're a ConsumerReports.org subscriber, you can check our Ratings of cell service providers to see the details.)
Then I was off and "kindling" (yes, Amazon really does "verb" the name of the device), using the Kindle's unique rolling wheel navigation device and next- and last-page bars on each side of the 6-inch screen. Orders bill seamlessly to your Amazon account—maybe too seamlessly, depending on your self-control; there isn’t even a checkout to slow you down. Downloading a book to the device took me less than a minute, as Amazon promises. There’s no ongoing monthly fee to use the Kindle.
The Kindle doesn't offer all of Amazon's features; there are no extras like author's videos or search capability. But it offers free sample chapters, which download in a matter of seconds. And it's more natural to read book pages on the Kindle than on a computer, where you must scroll through them using a cursor and read them on a screen that isn’t designed for prolonged reading.
In a fantasy world where books were read mostly on computers, the Kindle would be a must-buy. In the real world, where books remain stubbornly analog, using the device falls well short of the pleasures of holding and reading a book. The type, charcoal-colored on a light-gray background, lacks the contrast of typical book pages. The screen briefly turns black during page turns. And the display is monochrome only, and lacks the grayscale variation even to render, say, black and white photos as accurately as in print. (The Kindle shares the use of patented eInk technology with its main competitor, the Sony Reader, $299, which has been updated since we tested it last year on ConsumerReports.org.)
So is the Kindle worth $400 to you, or anyone on your gift list? An obvious pre-qualifier is a willingness to try new technology that's almost bound to drop in cost, improve in performance, or both in subsequent iterations. Then there's mobility; a book reader probably makes sense only if you often read on the move. Beyond that, here's my initial take on prime candidates for the Kindle:
Heavy hardcover buyers. It costs $9.99 to load a hardcover best-seller to the Kindle—an all-but-unbeatable price, in any format (most older titles cost more, though some venerable classics go for as little as a dollar or two). So, if you buy more than 40 hard-covers, you'll more than make up the cost of the device. But, the Kindle is also significantly smaller and lighter (at 10 ounces or so) than a single hardcover book (see image). And it holds up to 200 books, Amazon says, and so would free up some serious luggage space for a serious reader on a long trip.
News junkies. The Kindle offers subscriptions to 11 newspapers, including the New York Times and Wall Street Journal, and a number of magazines. And there's free access to a host of bookmarked websites, including those of BBC Radio, MSNBC, and ESPN.
Kindle critics have bashed the cost of the subscriptions—$5.99 to $13.99 a month for each newspaper, for example—when the publications are mostly available for free online. But the Kindle allows you to view news on a screen, albeit a black-and-white one, that's bigger than any smart phone and on a network that's faster than the sluggish AT&T network the iPhone uses. And there's no requirement to pay for a monthly high-speed data plan.
[Nov. 29, 2007 UPDATE: As a reader pointed out, some newspaper subscriptions are available to Kindle owners for $5.99 per month. —Ed.]
A caveat for the free sites: They're part of the "Basic Web" functionality, including a rudimentary browser, that Amazon lists under a link titled "Experimental." Translation: Web browsing, and access to the news sites, may not be a permanent feature of the Kindle, and so is a risky reason to buy one.
A final note on gifting: As of today, the Kindle is "temporarily sold out" on Amazon (the device’s only vendor, unsurprisingly).
We'll have more on the Kindle, probably next week on Consumer Reports' Electronics section, as our testing continues.
—Paul Reynolds
Today's entry-level, point-and-shoot digital cameras do much of the "grunt work" you used to have to do
yourself. Almost all include autofocus, auto exposure, and auto modes. A few can even set the camera in the appropriate scene mode for the subject you're shooting. Sony recently included a model that detects when your subject is smiling before snapping the shot. At the same time, many new cameras have fewer external dials, buttons and controls on their body, which further enhances this zeitgeist of relinquishing control. 
