Now that I’ve owned a Kindle for a few weeks, here are my complaints about the device:

• The Instapaper integration is not that good. Although this is more of a fault of Instapaper itself rather than the Kindle, I think there can be better improvement in sending the articles and abstracts to the Kindle. They could make it look like a magazine rather than what appears to be a big file folder marked “Instapaper”
• There is a browser based on webkit, and while it works, it is very trying to use. It’s better than the one on my phone because the screen is bigger, but the e-ink is not suited for displays that refresh often. I don’t think there is a way to fix this.
• The Kindle is not that snappy. When you’re changing books or navigating through menus, there is a delay. I don’t know if this is a function of the e-ink or the device itself, but it is annoying.
• There are Kindle apps for other devices (Android, PC, etc) that sync up. But it only syncs up books that you’ve bought from Amazon and not other books that you’ve added to the device. It’s probably not in Amazon’s best interest to support third-party books, but it is the user’s preference
• The list of books doesn’t scale. The Kindle3 has 3GB of storage, but it’s very difficult to scroll through more than say 20 books. You could arrange your books into collections and navigate that way, but it is very tedious to organize your books on the device. I can’t imagine having to do that for 500 books – that would take 8 hours!
• Similar to the last point, I’ve loaded enough stuff on my Kindle that it takes a long time to find what I’m looking for. It’s very easy to find the last thing you’ve read, unless it’s a periodical where a new issue has appeared; or if it’s something that you loaded on but haven’t looked at in a while. There is a search, maybe I should try it out…
• Want to read newspapers, magazines, or blogs? You’ll have to pay for it. I have a physical subscription to the Atlantic, why can’t I convert that to a Kindle subscription and receive the magazine electronically? Why do I have to buy a new subscription?

Posted by Kevin in Blogs Tags: complaining, instapaper, kindle