E Ink's Russ Wilcox on why the Kindle 2's e-paper screen took 12 years, $150 million

KB · on Feb 26, 2009

Wow, I work next door to E Ink and never had a clue what type of products they made. Its interesting to find out they are involved in making the Kindle a success.

Has anyone here purchased a Kindle 2 yet? Anyone willing to offer their personal experience with it so far? (I trust HN reviews more than reviews elsewhere)

fortes · on Feb 26, 2009

I've had the Kindle since it first came out in late 2007. Here's my take (warning, probably won't be that new / insightful):

Good:

* Excellent for traveling. I have a 2GB SD card and more books then I'll ever read on any single trip.

* Fairly straightforward to convert into Kindle format. About half of the books I read are from Project Gutenberg and therefore free :)

* Book/Magazine purchasing is fast and efficient (instant gratification is nice)

* Battery Life: Not as amazing as people say it is, but still quite impressive

* Text resizing: Reading at the Gym / on a bus is much easier when you can bump up the font size

* Carrying case: Leather, makes it look like a moleskine

Meh:

* Internet access: Nice, although the screen refresh is slow enough to make it a little painful

* Audio support: Never tried it, so can't say

* Page turn speed: Takes a little to get used to, but then it's fine and doesn't really interrupt reading

* UI: A little counterintuitive at first, but easy to adjust to. Occasionally slow, and you do accidentally press buttons a bit

* Price: The device is expensive, and occasionally books are more than you might want to pay (I'm used to the library :) ).

Bad:

* Selection is wanting. There are many books that aren't available.

* Graphics: Illustrations don't translate well to 4 colors. This rules out a bunch of books

* My first kindle died within the first month, it was a pain to replace, but at least done for free

* Really bad for skimming / flipping through pages quickly.

mrkurt · on Feb 26, 2009

Yes, it's fantastic. It's not, however, a money saver or anything like that. You pay for the convenience. That's the same thing I said about the Kindle 1, tho. Kindle 2 is just better, smarter, faster, etc. :)