AppleInsider have just received their Amazon Kindle device and have uploaded an in-depth review of the Kindle along with some very high quality images of the unboxing process.
AppleInsider have done a good job with the unboxing process, unlike most unboxing pictures out there, AppleInsider have taken very high quality images, which are well lit. Good job from the guys at AppleInsider!
When I said earlier that the review was in-depth, I wasn’t kidding, the review is spread out over 5 pages and covers just about everything you can think of! here is an expert of the review where they are talking about the interface and navigation:
The biggest problem for E Ink is that it can’t redraw rapidly enough to support animation such as a mouse cursor or smooth page scrolling. Kindle attempts to work around this limitation using a scroll wheel to navigate between options on the page
Dialing a small roller up and down animates a silvery block cursor in an independent track that uses its own display that can update rapidly (above). This navigation track allows the user to select between options presented on a page, or to select a line of text which might include multiple hyperlinks within it. Once selected, a push down on the roller brings up a menu, typically including options to:
- select from one of the hyperlinks in the selected line.
- lookup a word in the selected line.
- jump to the Home page.
- visit the Kindle Store shopping page.
- navigate within the existing document to its front page, table of contents, a specific location, a sections listing, or user specified bookmarks.
- add notes to a document, highlight a selection, and access earlier notes.
- create bookmarks.
- save a selected page as a digital text clipping that can be output to a computer.
The right and left edges of the unit each have two large buttons: next and previous page buttons on the left, and next page and “back” buttons on the right. It seems logical that “back” and “previous page” would do the same thing, but that is not always the case. Sometimes back returns to a previous section, for example. It isn’t consistent enough to really be intuitive or predictable, however.
There is also a full keypad below the screen for entering text, along with alt, symbol, and search function keys and a button that brings up a menu to change the text display size used when reading a document. Between the E Ink display and the roller wheel cursor track, it’s quite easy and usually intuitive to figure out how to navigate around, but the slow page refresh is a significant problem that severely taxes navigation speed, as every menu presented involves a flash and a pause.
If your thinking of purchasing a Kindle, but are still unsure then you might want to check this review out, the review answers many questions about the Kindle device, Kindle accessories, the service and what Kindle is like to use every day.
Source: AppleInsider Unboxing Pictures
Source: Review: Page 1, Page 2, Page 3, Page 4, Page 5
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