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Book Nook provides readers with insights into the world of books. Vick Mickunas takes you into the center of the publishing world with the latest book buzz, book reviews, and exclusive chats with authors..Home > Blogs > Book Nook > Archives > 2011 > August > 17 > Entry
“How did I wait this long to get a Kindle?”
Someone who I know in book publishing recently posted this update on her Facebook page: “How did I wait this long to get a Kindle?” This person isn’t some flunkie publicity intern, she’s a significant fromage for a major book publisher.
One of her friends responded to her post by saying that she waited this long because she is in publishing. Aye, there’s the rub.
The lines are blurring. A few of you might be wondering; what the heck is a Kindle? The Kindle is Amazon.com’s proprietary eBook reader and it is still dominating the market due to Amazon’s brilliant marketing. There are millions of Kindle users.
I don’t personally own a Kindle or any other eBook reader. I keep thinking that some savvy manufacturer might ask me to test one for them but I suppose that is too much to wish for.
I know a lot of people who have eBook readers and many of them are Kindle users, There is a side industry producing custom protective gear for eReaders, tablet computers like the iPad, and smart phones. A company called Otterbox made their initial reputation selling very nice iPhone covers.
I tracked down one of my friends who has two different Kindles and we did a little product testing of our own. Otterbox now produces protective covers for eReaders, too.
They have designed covers for Kindles my friend owns; the Otterbox Commuter Series covers for the Kindle 3G and the Kindle DX. I sat down with my buddy the Kindle 3 user to evaluate these protective Kindle covers. He was an early adopter. He has been buying the latest Kindle models from the original through the various upgrades to date and I respect his opinion. Here are some of his observations:
He has an Otterbox iPhone cover and he likes it a lot. We all know how easy it is to drop our phones. His phone cover has protected his phone from several potentially disastrous and expensive phone drop incidents.
That being said, he points out that we treat phones differently than we treat eReaders. An example: how often do you see people driving down the highway talking on the phone? All the time, right? How often do you see motorists reading their eReaders? Never, right? Why is that? Lots of reasons but mainly because we are a lot looser in our phone use. That’s why we drop our phones so much. And eReaders are a more recent technology so we baby them. We handle them with more care. All the more reason to have protective covers for them.
My friend says the main thing that matters with his Kindles is that they function well. We tried out these Otterbox Kindle covers. Here’s what he noticed. First of all they seemed to provide good protection except he felt they needed hard covers over the screens like you have on iPad covers. He didn’t think they protected the screens very well and the screen protector seemed to cause more glare than usual.
In regard to the all important functionality issue: he noticed that the page turn buttons don’t seem to work very well through the cover. They are more difficult to press down. These cases are magnets for dust and they don’t seem to fit very snugly. Perhaps they need to be taken on and off several times to develop more flexibility for a smoother fit? The backs of the cases were most troublesome to get them to fit right. And one of the best things about the Kindles is their light weight. These covers seem to make them feel a lot heavier.
Other than that, my friend thinks these Otterbox covers offer good protection but they are works in progress and hopefully they can be improved.
Vick Mickunas
p.s. And you can follow me now on Twitter: @BookNookVick
Permalink | Comments (4) | Post your comment | Categories: in the Amazone
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By truth in advertising
August 18, 2011 1:06 PM | Link to this
Where’s the comma Bob?
By Mark from St Paul
August 18, 2011 11:46 AM | Link to this
Steven Baker, who wrote a book about IBM’s Watson, just admitted that he finds reading real books a pain. He can’t adjust the size or style of the type and it’s harder to adjust the light he reads by. For myself, I read maybe ten books from 2000-2010, and I’m on track for reading 100 books in my first year with a Kindle (80 so far, and the first Kindleversary is November 17).
By vick
August 18, 2011 10:09 AM | Link to this
Well, Bob. That is a verbatim quote of what she posted on Facebook. Are you familiar with Facebook? The Grammar Police are not actively involved with it… :)
By Bob
August 18, 2011 4:16 AM | Link to this
If I would have written “How did I wait this long to get a Kindle?” I would go back to school to learn proper grammar.