More on the Kindle 2

Since I’ve gotten the Kindle, I’ve been consumed with two things; 1) reading considerably more, and 2) searching to get more out of the device. Along the way, I’ve been asked a couple of questions.

First, in the original post, it was really hard to tell “just how big is the Kindle 2?” Hopefully these two photos will give a better sense of the size. The first shows a comparison with the iPhone 3G, and a ’standard’ size paperback book.

This one also shows my new clip-on book light I got for $7.99 at Border’s the other day. This certainly solved the problem with reading in the dark, here in Alaska on the long winter nights. It was inexpensive, light weight, clips securely to the Kindle (and has little soft rubber “bumpers” on the inside of the clip to provide a mar-free grip), with a pair of CR2032 batteries powering the two LEDs. I’ll see how this performs, with the only concern being the batteries. At $1.50 – 2.50 each, it may be less expensive in the long run to go with a light that operates on AAA batteries. The downside is the size of the clip, but there is always a trade-off.

Kindle 2 Size Comparison

The second photo shows the profile, again compared to the same paperback. As you can see, it is quite thin; hardly more than the thickness of a standard magazine.

Side view compared with a paperback

On the other front, I’ve been exploring “calibre.” This doesn’t play well with Snow Leopard, but seems to run fine on 10.5.8. That almost makes more sense than running on my MBP anyhow, since that machine is on all the time and can download and process the feeds day or night on schedule and then deliver as appropriate. It’s not perfect, but sure seems to be a way to avoid the ‘high’ cost of the blogs and news feeds from Amazon. More on this will follow…