Kindle Review – Kindle Fire Review, Kindle 4 Review

The Princeton Kindle DX trial data was released 2 days earlier and it certainly had some interesting feedback from students evaluating the Kindle DX as a textbook reader. Today the University of Washington Kindle DX trial results are out so let’s take a look.  

Kindle DX in Education - Brilliant for Books, Terrible for Textbooks

The recurring theme was that the Kindle is great for leisure reading and long-form reading and terrible for textbooks -

“Comparing it to textbooks, it kind of sucks,” CSE graduate student Ryder Ziola said … “There are a lot of things it is good at, if you are reading a novel, where you consume in a linear fashion. It’s really good at stuff [like] that, but when it comes to actual textbooks, it’s a failure.”

“It’s a fantastic personal pleasure-reading device, but textbook reading is different, ” Lazowska said. “You want to take notes, and Kindle needs some adaptation for that.”

The article basically says Kindle DX can’t replace textbooks -

Overall, the responses of CSE graduate students highlighted just how often students take for granted the layout and effectiveness of regular, physical textbooks.

Kindle DX isn’t a good textbook reader mostly because of a lack of good note-taking

The article has numerous mentions of this -

Most CSE students agreed that taking notes on the Kindle paled in comparison to the effectiveness of laptop Word documents or a basic pen and paper setup.

The Kindle has highlighting capabilities, but the keypad itself has buttons that are less than half a centimeter in diameter, making note-taking difficult and slow.

While the lack of easy note-taking was the main complaint there were also numerous other complaints.

Kindle DX in Education – The Bad

Here’s the long list of complaints -

1. No physical clues what a book is like. 
2. The keyboard has tiny keys and it makes note-taking slow and difficult.
3. Can’t take notes on the side.
4. Painful to copy files since you have to find and use the cable. 
5. No zoom capability for PDFs.
6. A little difficult to move forward and back across pages (think they mean you are forced to go one page at a time).
7. Can’t do anything beyond reading.

This comment from a student reminds us that the Kindle is terrible at text input -

CSE graduate student Andrew Hunter said. “You cannot write code or papers or produce something on the Kindle. I still have to have the ability of doing these things on the computer.”

It also suggests that a Kindle with added writing functionality and a notebook feature might be a huge hit

Overall, it’s quite interesting to see the complaints and contrast them against the complaints Princeton students had.

Kindle DX in Education – The Good

 The article also lists quite a few positive comments from students, including -

“In general, the best thing about it is that it’s a lot easier to look at than a computer screen.” (CSE graduate student Adrian Sampson)

I got it for convenience,” said Andrew McKenna, a student who owns the device for pleasure reading. “The books can be downloaded in 30 seconds. You look up a book, it says if it has a Kindle edition, and you can download it to your computer, e-mail, or download it wirelessly.”

The complete list of pluses -

1. Saves time and money since you don’t have to print pages. 
2. Easy access to all the pages/documents.
3. You can scan or download PDFs for the Kindle. 
4. 60 second downloads.
5. Very convenient. 
6. Easy on the eyes.
7. Portrait and Landscape modes.

It’s nice to see multiple mentions of eInk being easier to read on than a computer screen – especially given that the NY Times would have us believe there’s no difference between eInk and LCD.

Kindle DX in Education – Thoughts

There’s a lot of good feedback from the Kindle DX University Trials (for Amazon and for other eReader makers) -

1. Make a device targeted at students and designed for them.
2. Make a really good note-taking function when targeting students.
3. Add in great PDF support.
4. Stay wary of the National Federation of the Blind and be mindful of various rights groups and their concerns.   
5. Move quickly and be prepared for and bypass the slow pace of Universities.

It’ll be interesting to see what the next few attempts to get eReaders into education will be like. It might be a dedicated eReader based on eInk with a touchscreen and much better note-taking or it might be something like the Entourage Edge which adds on a second color LCD screen. You also have the iPad and Tablets and Netbooks trying to muscle their way in.

The Entourage Edge really does look like a pretty great textbook reader at the moment. The eInk screen looks to have pretty good touch and writing support (from the videos that are out) and there’s the LCD screen for times when eInk just won’t do.

Filed under: kindle dx Tagged: | kindle dx textbook reader