Amazon Kindle with Whispernet

Amazon Kindle is one of my favourite new gadget devices to come out last year. I've long been an e-bookworm on my iPAQ Pocket PC and am really excited to follow Kindle's progress, and eventually hope to buy one. The device has been a sold-out already (as of today, January 1st, 2008) on Amazon, so it means the initial response has been great.

One of the best things about Kindle is not so much the concept of electronic book reading (which is really old) but the great proprietary Whispernet method of delivering content to the device, without any need of having a computer.

Amazon Whispernet is a cool cellphone carrier-like network (an EV-DO service) that has primarily been deployed for the delivery of Amazon.com's Kindle e-book content - wirelessly. Whispernet can also convert and deliver your PC documents to your Kindle device. According to the Kindle video, all you need is just to email your documents to Amazon and they will do the conversion and delivery to your device automatically. Whispernet does not require any subscription from Kindle owners, as the device itself comes with a lifetime subscription. As I said, Whispernet is like a cellphone network: you don't need a computer to use Kindle on it. You can use Whispernet without having to look for any hotspots, as you would do for WiFi. Though I am not sure what is the penetration of this network, and how widely available it is.

If you're an avid reader like myself, and have bought a Kindle, do share your experience using the comments. If you've ever used a Pocket PC to read books and have switched to Kindle, I'd be most interested!

Labels: gadgets