I'm thinking of buying an Amazon Kindle. Wondering if anyone here has one? Sure would make it easier to snap up impulse book purchases if I didn't have to pop over the US to buy them...ahem. Got one? What do you think? Which one do you have?
Dont have one.. But you might want to consider that many features simply don't work outside of the US, and that licensing restrictions might prevent you from some material if their servers notice that your IP is from Mexico.... http://blogkindle.com/2008/07/kindle-use-outside-the-united-states/ http://mailbox.allthingsd.com/20090617/using-kindle-outside-the-us/
I think that's old...the newest version is supported in Mexico...as long as I can download books for from here I'll be happy. http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0015T963C/?tag=cancuncare-20 It's interesting that they do not have back-lit screens. I thought this would be critical. But people are saying that there's very little eyestrain from the Kindle precisely because it uses reflected and not emitted light. No flicker, no eyestrain, makes sense. Here's what Amazon says about Mexico: --------------- Mexico We are excited to now ship Kindle to Mexico. Customers in Mexico will enjoy: Books in Under 60 Seconds: Think of a book and you could be reading it in under a minute Free Wireless: Free 3G wireless lets you download books right from your Kindle. No monthly fees, service plans, or hunting for Wi-Fi hotspots. For non-U.S. customers, there are also no additional charges for wireless delivery in or outside your home country. See Coverage Map. See Wireless Terms and Conditions Growing Selection: Over 290,000 English-language books to choose from; plus U.S. and international newspapers and magazines are available for your country. Because publishers give us eBook rights on a country by country basis, available titles for your country will vary from our current U.S selection. We are actively working with publishers to get the rights to all titles for every country and adding this selection every day. Check the Kindle Store to see available titles. Low Book Prices: New York Times® Best Sellers and New Releases are $11.99, unless marked otherwise. You'll also find many books for less - over 100,000 titles are priced under $5.99 ---------------
Hum.. well that sounds like you've got nothing to worry about than... be sure to post your opinions once you get one...... FWIW.. I've seen one and the screen reminds my of my old non-backlit palm pilot just with better resolution... adding the light kills the battery time.. and since its gray scale you dont need it so much anyway. You could probably even get one used on ebay for a good price if you look... from people either dont use it or are getting the kindle "2".... Really though.. you can just get a little "netbook" for the same money and read you books on it.. and have a whole computer....
Good points, I'll ponder them. I don't really WANT to read books on a computer screen with emitted light, I already spend far too much time in front of a computer. And I don't see myself reading in bed on my side holding a netbook, but probably would manage that just fine with a Kindle.
I don't live full time in Cancun, but on my last trip in Sept. I brought my Kindle and was surprised to find that my subscriptions to New York Times and New Yorker downloaded automatically as they do in the States. I did not try to buy anything on line, but since the download worked automatically I assume you could purchase also. As far as the reader goes, I like it. For newspapers and magazines it is a change because of the smaller format, but the screen is clear and navigation is pretty easy. For books I prefer it over a print edition. You can turn the page with one finger, reading outside the wind does not blow the pages, the screen does not tire your eyes, you can return where you left off with no problem, and there is no clutter around the house from books and magazines. Obviously for books or magazines where the picture and color and even advertisements are important it won't work, but for newspapers and weekly magazines and strictly reading books I think it is great. Barnes & Noble is coming out with a reader in November with access to their online bookstore. Don't know how it will work in Mexico. Seems like if you have an account you could at least download to your computer and then to the reader. I have done that a few times with the Kindle and it is not difficult. As a aside, I notice on the i-tunes site that you can't download from a computer outside the US. Is this just with a US account. If I bring my laptop to Mexico and go to i-tunes does it recognize that the computer is in Mexico and block the download? I don't understand this, but am going to try and see what happens next trip in November.
I'm not 100% sure on iTunes, but a lot of my favorite sites that promote or sell licensed material like Pandora, Hulu and Steam are blocked here in Mexico. On some sites, I've been able to successfully proxy my IP through an IP obfuscater based in the US, but many sites are more clever. For a lot of my online purchases here I've had to call to verify my identity as the card's address is US based and my current IP is in Mexico. Even though it's a pain, I'm actually thankful they have some sort of fraud prevention in place.
Thanks for the great info on the Kindle. Amazon's coverage map shows that Cancun and Riviera Maya have the 3G coverage, so everything *should* work fine here. Glad to hear that your subscriptions worked here. This is not true, fortunately. Right this moment I'm listening to a Pearl Jam album (the newest one, Backspacer) on I-Tunes. I bought it from Mexico just a couple of weeks ago. I did have issues with the purchase though. First they didn't like something about my credit card having a US billing address...but I was able to resolve that pretty easily. I think it was detecting that I was in Mexico and pushing me to have Mexican billing address, but I got around it so easily that I now don't really remember what the problem was. The other problem I had was that I clicked to Buy the album I wanted, but it didn't work. So I pushed it again. Then it did work. Then I went to look at the files that were downloading and they had sold me not only the album I wanted but also ANOTHER album, one I NEVER clicked the Buy button for. Fuckers. I really should bitch and moan to them because what happened was completely unacceptable. The problem is that I had decided to buy that other album if I liked how I-Tunes worked....which I don't, at all. But now I have two albums that I want. So I haven't bothered to tell the I-Tunes idiots what total garbage their stupid program is. Truly I-Tunes is crap, the developers clearly never did any user testing. Bunch of idiots they are. But I do like my music...
I have an iPod Touch and have no problem dowloading from iTunes for music and apps using my US account. This seems to be a recent change that coincided with the arrival of my iPod last month. Prior to that I was locked out of the US store, probably based on my IP address. When I received the Touch 32 GB I decommissioned my old original iPod 10 MB (still playing and still accepting battery charge) and also installed the newest iteration of iTunes. From that moment I had access to the US store.
Don't have a Kindle, but I do have an Ipod Touch and got the free Kindle app...so I can buy Kindle books without investing in the Kindle. I use my computer to buy any Kindle book and then have it automatically downloaded onto my Ipod. Downside to that...it's a small IPod screen (but I can make the typesize as large as I need). Upside, I don't have to invest in a pricey ebook reader...a gizmo that I think is still in its infancy. AND I get the full functionality and color screen of the Ipod Touch. I also have other free ereader apps that allow me free downloads of books in the public domain. Before I invest in an ebook reader, I'm going to wait to see how things shake out between the different brands and models...Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Sony and most likely Apple with their tablet. For now, the Ipod Touch does the job just fine...plus I get a lot of other free, fun apps, music player, wi-fi internet browser, etc. It's not an IPhone, I don't have to pay monthly usage fees, and I can even use it as a wi-fi phone with the free Skype app.
