GADGET REVIEWS Just another GADGET NEWS

The feel of a print book in your hand is largely a function of its cover; it turns out, Kindle cases are exactly the same. Two new third-party cases do their best to imitate the look and feel of a hardcover book, but take very different approaches in doing so.

The first is by DodoCase, makers of a popular iPad case who’ve brought the same traditional bookbinding aesthetic to a Kindle 3 case, just announced today.

From a distance, the Kindle DodoCase looks almost exactly like a Moleskine notebook, but the exterior is a stiff black faux leather. If you knock on it, it feels and sounds like a hollow-core door — less like a Moleskine and more like a sturdy old Bible.

The Kindle’s enclosure is also deceptively simple. It’s carved of wood, and the exterior has a vertical grain that simulates yellowed or lightly gilded pages. My wife joked that it looked like it was made of popsicle sticks, but it’s sturdy, too, carved down from bamboo. Sloped gaps on the left and right edges allow access to the page turn buttons; a larger opening at the bottom lets you control the sleep/wake switch, volume control, and headphone and USB jacks.

The access to the jacks at the bottom is great, better than I’ve seen in many cases. The side buttons, though, are pretty constricted. You can’t really come

Rubber grips on each of the four corners hold the Kindle in place. I had my doubts about these, too (Kindle cases are notorious for not keeping the devices secure, but once my Kindle was squeezed in, it was definitely stuck. In fact, it’s a little tricky getting the Kindle out.

Just like with the iPad, each DodoCase comes with a different interior lining (see photo above): the original red-lined case costs $50, and $5 more gets you green, sky blue, dark blue, pink or charcoal. The linings are not exactly plush. The color is good, and I’d guess it’s made of linen — traditional in bookbinding, but a little slim for gadget cases, where everything’s been sueded up.

M-Edge’s Cambridge Jacket for Kindle 3

For a different take on the Kindle-cover-as-hardcover-book, I like M-Edge’s Cambridge Jacket ($45). It has more of an “Everyman’s Library” feel to it: canvas with leather trim around the spine and the interior, which has a place to store cards and notes.

The Kindle’s held in place with leather straps, too; not quite as snug as the DodoCase, but a little more managable to slide in and out. The main complaint I have about the leather straps, though, is that they make it a little trickier to get at the sliding sleep/wake switch. The access to the page turn buttons, however, is perfect.

To be honest, I prefer the Cambridge jacket. It really comes down to feel. It’s softer, it has more texture; the spine’s just as stiff without feeling hard. Readers with a more austere aesthetic might prefer the DodoCase. I prefer either of them to the floppy leather-and-vinyl covers that feel like repurposed purses. Maybe that’s a gendered thing, but I don’t think those work well on bookshelves either.

And if you’re left-handed, or have gotten used to using your left hand to toggle back and forth on the Kindle, you’re essentially out of luck. No case I’ve tried gives uncramped access to the Kindle’s left-hand navigation buttons. You could probably use the DodoCase upside down or a protective sleeve on the go. Not many good solutions here.

What makes shopping for all of these cases difficult is that it’s nearly impossible to know how one will function until you get a chance to try it out. Really, it’s the same with phone cases: with most of them shipping online or in store displays behind cardboard or plastic, it’s tougher than it ought to be to get the things in your hands to find one that fits.

Traditional readers complain that e-reading can’t simulate the look and feel of a quality book. With cases, short of actually turning the pages, it can. It’s just harder for each reader to get a chance to find just one cover that feels right.

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Amazon’s newly overhauled Kindle application for Mac offers notes, search, two-column reading and a much-improved UI. It might even make me read e-books on my computer again.

It’s funny: I used to read a lot of e-books in client apps on my MacBook and iPhone. Since I got my Kindle 3, I hadn’t read any.

Amazon was frankly slow to bring its e-book software to Macs. The PC desktop client came first, and a pared-down Mac application only eventually followed in March. Meanwhile, Barnes & Noble had already released a Nook desktop app for Mac simultaneously with PC.

B&N’s Mac client offered every feature you could ask for: copy-and-paste, two-column reading, notes and highlighting, text search, built-in dictionary, multiple viewing themes, use of every font on your computer. I still think it might be the most powerful e-reading application available on the desktop.

Even generic readers beat Kindle’s UI. Amazon just didn’t seem serious about Mac support, or desktop readers at all.

A few days ago, I noticed that even though I’d been buying Kindle books again, I didn’t even have the Kindle app on my Mac. I hadn’t bothered to transfer it over from my old machine.

So I go to Amazon’s site and download the application, open it up — and I’m astonished. The Kindle desktop app is so much better than I remember — not quite the equal of Barnes & Noble’s app, but infinitely closer.

I thought I was hallucinating, or my memory was faulty. Actually, I’d just downloaded the brand new app a day before it had been officially announced.

Improved WhisperSync support means that I can read a book on my Kindle, open it on my Mac, and it will open to the last page read on the Kindle. When I open the same book on the Kindle again, I have the option to pick up where I left off either on the Kindle or the Mac. I actually like that it’s a prompt on the Kindle, rather than an automatic sync; on the desktop too, I can toggle between last page read on Kindle or last page read on Mac, but it’s a menu option rather than a prompt.

Just because Amazon’s finally getting serious about the Mac doesn’t mean it’s neglecting software updates for the Kindle; only a week after the 3.02 firmware update graduated from beta, Amazon’s offering the 3.03 version for download as a preview release.

As you might guess from its version number, it’s a minor release, offering some performance improvements (moderately faster page syncing and page turns, mostly) and reportedly plugging some security gaps. 3.02 seemed to improve the Kindle’s performance in direct sunlight. 3.03 is download-only for now, but will be available as an over-the-air update soon, probably in a few weeks.

Kindle for Mac — Read Kindle eBooks on your Mac [Amazon.com]

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Photo credit/permission courtesy Marco Arment at Marco.org

The Kindle 3 is a deceptively capable device, but Amazon doesn’t, by default, give you access to a lot of what’s going on under the hood. (The “Settings” menu only has three choices.) This is why some users pop that hood using jailbreaking tools — tools that work on the Kindle 3.

I haven’t taken this step with my new Kindle, but I have read in detail the MobileRead forum posts announcing that the Kindle 3 has been jailbroken and describing how (and why) to do it. Here is a short list of why Kindle users jailbreak their device:

• Installing custom fonts, including support for Asian-language scripts;
• Installing custom screensavers;
• USB networking, or tethering.

All of these hacks risk bricking your Kindle and violating Amazon’s terms of service, but only the last might really cause you problems. Amazon’s free 3G networking (assuming you’ve got a 3G-capable device) is intended to be used for Amazon’s services only, i.e., the Kindle store and the built-in web browser.

Again, read the forums carefully, and do some deep soul-searching and gut-checking before you try any of this out. For now, I’m still pretty happy that I’ve got an easier way to enter in numbers using the built-in keyboard: Press “Alt,” then a key on the top row (Q=1, W=2, etc.). See also this great list of Kindle tips and keyboard shortcuts, again courtesy A Kindle World’s Andrys Basten.

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Cole Haan Leather Cover for Kindle 3. Photo from Amazon.com

Q: I love my new Kindle 3, but I’m always worried that I’m going to knock a cup of coffee on it, or that my son will use it as a Frisbee. Are there any good cases you would recommend? — Anxious in Akron

A: Akron, I’m in much the same situation with my own Kindle. The device itself seems sturdy enough, but I always have this irrational fear that the beautiful but curiously-static screensavers of famous authors are staring at me, or through me, with their cold, dead E Ink eyes, beckoning me to read their books. Unfortunately, all of the Kindle cases I’ve seen and tried have some serious drawbacks.

Let’s start with the cases available from the Amazon Store. Most of the cases they sell are still for the second-generation Kindle, which won’t fit your device; you just have to ignore those entirely. In the left-hand sidebar you can pick your Kindle model, and you’ll only see relevant results.

Amazon Lighted Leather Cover, from Amazon.com

Amazon itself makes two cases for the Kindle that are basically identical: they’re both leather and come in a range of colors, with a microsuede interior and straps and hinges to keep your reader from sliding around or worse, out. The basic model is $35; add an on-board light, and the whole package costs $60.

Now, when the Kindle cost $400, springing $35-$60 for a decent-quality case and $50 for a two-year warranty had a kind of logic to it. But I don’t remember the woman from the new Kindle poolside ad leaning over and saying: “It’s a Kindle. $139. I paid about as much for the case and the warranty on it.” That would be a really stupid commercial.

Even my friends who love their Kindle cases and want to wrap their beloved e-readers in the best have problems with Amazon’s cases. Everyone agrees that the light on the $60 case can be useful, especially outdoors at dusk and occasionally in bed at nighttime. Everyone also agrees that it adds a lot of weight to the overall package, turning the light-as-a-feather e-reader into a clumsy hardcover.

That leaves you with two options: go for broke with a high-end case, or actually be broke and find something cheap and easy. The Cole Haan Hand-Stained Pebble-Grained Leather Kindle Case costs $99, and has a great rep carried over from its much-loved Kindle 2 cases. But Amazon reviewers complain that Cole Haan skimped on strength and quality to get its case out in time for the Kindle 3 launch.

Apparently the Kindle 2 case had an extra patch of leather strengthening the spine, that added extra protection and made the Kindle in the Cole Haan case feel like a high-quality book. The company’s Kindle 3 case is just one-ply, making the spine less stiff and more likely to wear with use. At other price points, that might be forgivable, but $100 is enough to nudge loyal users into the angry zone.

The longer the Kindle 3 is out, the more manufacturers begin releasing cases for it. Belkin has a line of sleeves available on the Amazon store now that I don’t think were there when I started researching this last week. In particular, many companies are starting to sell sleeves, not cases, that cost around $20.

However, if you’re plan to go this route, the best tip of all comes from Instpaper’s Marco Arment. In his first look at the Kindle 3, he notes how the Kindle 3’s rubberized back (as opposed to the earlier version’s slick aluminum) and slightly-smaller size makes it the first iteration to be comfortably used without a case. As for a sleeve, his solution is ingenious:

Photo credit/permission courtesy Marco Arment at Marco.org

A standard 6×10 bubble envelope the size youd use for shipping a DVD in a case actually makes a decent low-budget Kindle 3 slipcase. And if your goal is to just throw it in a bag and have basic scratch protection until you remove it for use, its a pretty good solution.

Not bad at all. Next thing you know, those envelopes will be available in nano-patterned Naugahyde for $19.95.

In time, the marketplace will catch up, prices will (I have to believe) start to come down, and we’ll get more variety and usability out of our Kindle 3 cases. In the meantime, give one of these a whirl, preferably without putting down hard money first. If they don’t work for you, you can always go back to barebacking it.

P.S.: If you’ve hacked together your own Kindle/e-Reader/tablet case solution. I’d love to read about it in the comments. Share the love!

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"Happy Christmas Everybody!" by allerleirau/flickr. Used gratefully via a Creative Commons license

New e-readers, new tablets, and new game console accessories are all wonderful, but even in a down economy, just keeping up with demand will be a serious challenge for many gadget retailers — especially as we get closer to the holidays.

Over at Teleread, Chris Meadows looks at order-to-ship times for two hot gadgets, the Kindle 3 and the iPad. The new Kindle is being staggered out to customers according to when they were ordered (dates from Amazon’s Kindle Community Forum via KindleWorld):

• Orders placed before 8 p.m. Pacific Time on August 1st will still ship by the August 27th release date.
• Orders placed before 10 p.m. Pacific Time on August 5th will ship on or before September 4th.
• Orders placed before 12 p.m. Pacific Time on August 12th will ship on or before September 8th.
• Orders placed after 12 p.m. Pacific Time on August 12th will ship on or before September 12th.

Apparently it’s the new “Pearl” E Ink screens that are the problem; PVI can’t make enough of them for Amazon to ship its Kindles out the door, especially since other companies are clamoring for the screens too.

The iPad, however, which had crazy wait times for months after launch, is finally meeting demand. “Apple basically ran out of product the first weekend and didn’t catch up for months,” Fortune reports: “The iPad 3G launch had to be pushed back, the international roll-out postponed by a month, and shipping delays at Apple’s online store reached as much as three weeks (15 business days).”

But now Apple can ship iPads within 24 hours. iPhone 4? Not so much. Will they be able to keep it up through December? Can Amazon catch up? If demand remains high, it’s not a bad problem to have.

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Amazon’s Kindle 2 e-reader is listed as “temporarily out of stock” on the company’s website in what could be a sign that a new Kindle model may be on its way.

“Order now and we’ll deliver (the Kindle) when available. We’ll e-mail you with an estimated delivery date as soon as we have more information,” says Amazon on its page listing the Kindle 2.

The shortage may be because of a surge in demand for Kindle but more likely is that Amazon is preparing to introduce an improved version of the device. So far, Amazon hasn’t commented on the reasons for the Kindle shortage.

In June, Amazon cut price on the Kindle to $190 from $260 earlier. A few days later it launched the new Kindle DX, featuring an updated version of the E Ink screen known as Pearl. The black-and-white Pearl display offers a contrast ratio 50 per cent better than the earlier model of the DX screen.

One of the hottest consumer electronics products of last year, the e-reader market is in turmoil this year. Smaller e-reader makers such as Audiovox, iRex, Plastic Logic and Cool-er have found themselves squeezed out by the competition, especially Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

Despite the launch of Apple iPad, which comes with its own iBooks bookstore, Amazon has continued to see strong demand for the Kindle. Since it lowered the price of the Kindle to $190, sales of the Kindle have tripled, says Amazon. Amazon hasn’t disclosed till date how many Kindles it has sold.

The latest shortage of the device coincides with rumors that Amazon planned to introduce a new Kindle model in August. An e-reader with a color screen is not likely but the new Kindle could sport a better black-and-white display, updated hardware, improved user interface and new apps.

Photo: (kairin/Flickr)

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