Product Review: Amazon Kindle Paperwhite (2nd Generation)

No, I am not a professional photographer.

Amazon's Kindle Paperwhite Wifi plus 3G.  With special offers.  That was what I purchased last March from Amazon with their once-a-m0nth payment plan.  It seemed like the safe thing to do as I liked the idea of having mine own dedicated e-reader that I could read at night without having to turn on the nightstand light at potentially disturb Conklederp.  I had also been using Conklederps Kindle Fire so I had some experience using an e-reader and by then I had gotten used to swiping to turn pages and having an entire shelf worth of library books in the palm of my hand.  

I've become a sitting advertisement for Amazon.

But wait, there's more!

There is more, actually.

The other reasons for acquiring said Kindle was that it was the second generation of Paperwhite, which I was holding out for after reading some known issues with dead pixels and the backlight doing things it wasn't supposed to be doing.  Additionally, there was the XKCD comic from god knows how long ago.  Plus, the touted eight week battery life, so I could, hypothetically bring a hand-crank usb charger and have a good number of my books at my disposal come the apocalypse.  Or you know, intergalactic hitchhiking.

So I bought the Kindle Paperwhite with Wifi and free 3G (while 3G signals are still active) and presently I love it, but it took a while before my feelings reached their current level of feelings.  My first hang up was transitioning from the Kindle Fire to the Paperwhite.  I knew, somewhat, what I was getting into technology-wise in that the Paperwhite uses Amazon's "E Ink" technology whereas the Fire uses a standard LCD tablet-type screen.  Turning pages on the Paperwhite looked nothing like the Fire and that took me the longest time to get used to.  I liked seeing pages turn when I swiped the screen and now instead of the screen would do a little flash and the page would change.  I am now perfectly content, but that effect was one of my biggest concerns that I may end up not liking the Paperwhite.

Another feature that I knew about, but was a little disappointing was the "Experimental Browser" that is used to view webpages.  I do not mind the black-and-white and reformatted look of the web pages and I realize that browsing web pages using the Paperwhite is going to be much different than using either my phone or my computer, so those aspects I am fine with.  A couple of times while using the web browser, I have had the program close itself due to "an unexpected error" occurring.   At least one time I had to force close my Kindle because the webpage froze and I could not get back to the home screen.  I only hope that Amazon has occasional firmware updates that fixes the known issues with the program. 

Browsing Wikipedia can be cumbersome at times too.  While I do wish that there was a dedicated button that opened up a Wikipedia browser (similar to the dedicated Goodreads button on the home screen), I am perfectly fine with using the Experimental Browser to look up articles.  The issue I have is when using the search field is that the screen zooms in and the "search" button cannot fit on the screen so unless there is definitely an existing article that opens a search results tab below the topic,  I am unable to search and be directed to a list of Wiki articles that are/might be connected.

The eight week battery life is a bit of a misnomer too.  The requirement for the Paperwhite lasting eight weeks on a single charge is to have the backlight set at 10 (to note, in the dark, I have the light set at 6 and in any other light, at 0), the Wifi set to off (Airplane Mode) and only reading for 30 minutes a day.  I usually read for more than 30 minutes and I usually have the Kindle in Airplane Mode if I am not looking up a book or downloading one and I have never had the light set at more than 6, even in bright sunlight and I am positive that a single charge has not lasted me 8 weeks.  While a bit disappointing, it was not a reason to return the Kindle as a defective product or false advertising.

Let us move onto aspects that I either did not realize or had forgotten about after having purchased this electronic reading device.  Upon purchasing the Kindle, I was given an email address so that I could email format specific documents to read.  I was kind of surprised that that bit about having Amazon convert documents to the MOBI format automatically upon emailing documents to yourself was only listed in that little second-t0-last sentence at the end of the page.  I think this is amazing.  I was able to take a PDF version of I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream that I had acquired through Gog.com, emailed it to my Kindle with "CONVERT" in the subject and received a MOBI formatted copy of the story.  Granted the converted book does not contain a searchable table of contents and is not navigable to the extent that a standard ebook is, but for what it is, I find the service great.

Lastly, once a month, Kindle owners who are also members of Amazon Prime receive a free book, out of a choice of four ebooks that will be published the following month.  Books that I have picked up (and have yet to read) include I Am Livia, Moving Day: A Thriller, Supreme Justice and As Red As Blood.  I do plan on reading these at some point, possibly after I finish the Summer Reading BINGO, but in the meantime, they will be among the many free books that I have acquired because they are either in the public domain or because they simply looked interesting.  Then there is the Humble eBook Bundles which is looking to be a permanent thing, which is both exciting and terrifying, especially for my bank account.

And, if you call within the next 30 minutes, one of our operators will be happy to take your order.  Or something along those lines, you get the picture.

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian

Unclosing an Enthralled Door

Product Review: Geekify Inc.

I recently purchased two products from the good people at Geekify Inc. whom are based over in one of the quadrants of Colorado.  I cannot remember how I first spotted them, be it in an add over in the facebook margin or from Reddit or someone who retweeted something about the company or someone I follow on facebook.  The point is they were founded out.

The people over at Geekify Inc. make products based off of, mainly books from various sources such as Beetlejuice, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Myst, The Neverending Story and Skyrim.  There are a lot more sources that they pull from, but then I would be simply listing nearly everything in their catalogue. 


I initially sent the company a request for a custom job to make an iPad cover for Conklederp for her birthday.  I loved the book covers that they currently had on hand from The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, but Conklederp's character, Magicia, focused more on destructive magic and that option was not available.  I sent the company an message to their Esty account asking for a quote on making the Destruction Spell Book.

Three days later, Mr. John Taylor at Geekify Inc. let me know that in fact they had just put up the destruction spell book in their catalogue.  A day later I went ahead and ordered the iPad cover and patiently waited for its arrival.

The only pseud0-complaint that I have is that it took roughly a month to receive the cover from the time I placed my order.  Both their Etsy page and official webpage say that it can take "7-10 business days to craft and ship," but once I received the cover and was able to hold it in my hands, I knew that the longer processing/creating/shipping/receiving time was well worth the wait.

The cover is made from what feels like a 2mm thick piece of wood covered with faux-leather.  The circles around the border are white paint.  The Destruction Magick emblem is layered wood, brown on white and solidly glued on the cover.  The inside consists of a thick cardboard-type material (I am only guessing) covered with black micro suede on both the front and back covers as well as the spine.  The iPad is held in place by four 1" thick elastic bands, one crossing each of the corners.  Presently, Conkelderps main critique is that the upper right strap would cover up the volume buttons and mute switch, so she leaves that strap off.  The three remaining straps however are securely holding the iPad in place with no slippage or fear of coming loose.

Impressed with the quality of their work with this gadget cover, I knew that I wanted to buy one for my Kindle.  I first checked their Etsy store, but then decided to see if their non-Etsy webpage held any additional offerings.  They do not.  But, their prices on their page run $4-10 cheaper due to Etsy's operating costs.  Plus by ordering from Geekify's page, you have additional options such as name engraving, quote engraving, magnetic cover clasp or a strap for the spine, all for a separate additional cost.  

Ultimately I went with The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy cover for the Kindle Paperwhite.

As with Conklederp's cover, mine took about a month from the date I ordered to the date the package arrived.  

The Hitchhikers Guide is wood covered with faux-leather.  The inside is that hard cardboard-type material covered with a deep red micro-suede.  The "blocks" on the cover and back are additional pieces of wood to give them an industrial appearance.  I could easily have seen bolts or screws in each of the four corners, but it looks equally great without them.  The cover thumb and lettering are all paper with each of the red letters being glued on top of the the yellow letter backing, making the "THE" about a quarter of an inch tall and impressively cut.  The Kindle fits very well with the elastic straps (these being about 1cm wide) and do not cover either the usb charging port at the base or the on/off button right next to the port.

When I placed my order, I asked if I could have The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy text read from the top of the spine to base as opposed to how it looks on their page.  Since 99% of my books and DVDs all have the text reading from top to bottom, I knew that having the text go the other way would bother me, so I put in the request.  Request was fulfilled and at no additional cost.

When I received the cover, I did notice that the upper left corner of the "P" in "DON'T PANIC" was starting to peel back, maybe about a millimeter or two, but enough that I knew if something was not done, the whole word would eventually peel off.  I contacted Geekify the same day and within an hour received a reply from Mr. Taylor as to how to fix the peeling "P."  "A dab of superglue will keep it sticking forever," and it currently is and aside from the very slight crease that I put in the corner of the "P" moving it back to make sure the glue reached back far enough, you would not be able to tell.

Geekify also makes other products such as pendants/necklaces based off of the Imperial symbol from The Elder Scrolls, a wall poster based off of Portal, something I do not recognize from Starcraft or you can do as I thought I was doing an request a quote for a custom order.  They also can do laser cutting and custom 3D printing if you happen to be looking for company that does that sort of thing.  They come across as good people who make a great looking product so give them a look the next time you are looking for something "geeky" that is handmade and that you cannot find on ThinkGeek.com.


~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian
Like The Daybreak In Spring


P.S.  And a very big thank you goes to Heidi at Geekify who made both my Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy cover and Conklederps Destruction Magicka Spell Book.