The problem with the kindle.

One of the main selling points is how easy it is to get a book or magazine. Unlike other e readers you never need to plug into your pc etc.

Another hype is that it is wireless, not wifi which requires a hotspot to work but EV-DO 3g wireless.

So:

1. No need to plug into your pc.
2. No need to find a hotspot for connectivity.

The truth is that the coverage areas are very limited. If you point this out to amazon support, their answer is:

1) you can download to your pc and tranfer it. A direct contradiction of selling point number 1.

or

2) They advise you of the nearest coverage area. When I contacted support they mentioned the town 25 miles away that has coverage. I happen to know that the town they mentioned also has 2 large, well-stocked bookstores.

There advertising is horribly dishonest IMO.

can you read text on a usb flash drive with a kindle ebook reader? cud i download an article, for example, from the washington post to my flash drive and read it later on the kindle? also i wud like to know more about using the kindle on the moon. thankx

So, Mr. John "I've-got-a-pre-release-Bold" Meyer is getting his new gal into electronic gadgets.

The books are saved on your Kindle, so there's no need to have net access once you've downloaded them. Traveling is no problem.

It is obvious you have not followed the Kindle story at all. You do not need to be connected to the internet to read books on the Kindle. You download the books to the the Kindle, you own the book and can read the book on the Kindle even if you are not connected the internet.

I don't own a Kindle, but what I know about it is that the internet connection on the Kindle is used to browse Amazon's Kindle-compatible books, to purchase the books, and to download the books directly to the Kindle. This is really quite convenient since you don't have to use a computer at all to load content into the device.

Seems to be some misinformation about the kindle. You don't need to be connected to sprint at all to use it. Even if you are someplace that has no coverage, if you have a computer with internet access, you can just download the books and then transfer them to the kindle. Once they are on the device, they are in memory and you need no sort of connection at all to read them.

The sprint connection allows wireless delivery and purchase of a book, but again, once it is downloaded, it's in memory and you can shut the wireless off (saves battery power). On a trip this is pretty cool. If you finish reading your book, you can just hop on the kindle e-store (on the kindle), buy another book, and within seconds it's downloaded to your kindle and you can start reading.

It's actually a pretty nice device. Oh, and some things that hardly ever get a mention are that you can use it to play .mp3s and audible.com audio books, and you have some basic web browsing available on it. I don't know why some people seem to have an irrational hatred of the kindle, but all in all, for me, it was well worth the money and I use it almost every day.

Yes, you can.
The connection is only needed to browse the web, browse Amazon store and buy and download your books if you do so from Amazon. But once you have the books from Amazon in your Kindle the connection is not needed any more.

For the rest, you can connect your kindle as an external HDD to your PC and copy to your Kindle any eBook in PRC or Mobipocket format and read them.

You kindle is functional even in the moon. The only thing you wont have is Internet connectivity but again... You don't need that to read the books in your Kindle.

I must admit I was not following "Kindle story" since its first release on Amazon. Perhaps it has changed?

So, my question to Kindle owners: if you go hiking (or go to Europe, Asia, open sea, mountains - any place which is NOT a city center with the U.S. cell phone grid /e.g. no Sprint :)/) - can you still read your those books that you already paid for?

Listen, you should not talk about what you don't know. You don't need be connected to Internet to use your kindle. You can connect it to your PC and download all the ebooks you want in there and just read them.

Even when you have bought a book from Amazon, once it's downloaded you can turn off your wireless connection and just read it. In fact, my wireless connection is always off to save battery.

Imho, Kindle is the truly stupidiest idea out there. Among all insane protected format "ebook-readers", Kindle singles itself as the most pathetically inconvenient (you need to be connected to the internet to read a book for which you already paid!!). I simply cannot imagine how it could get any worse than that...

Oh wait, perhaps a device in which you would have to put coins every 5 minutes would be worse than Kindle... Well, Amazon.com have a free (I mean it: FREE!) business idea from me :)