Comments on: Quick test drive: Kindle for PC looks promising—but is no match for Mobipocket in flexibility. And how about ePub?

By: Shania

Shania — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 21:00:53 +0000

1. There is a Kindle Store link on the application.
2. Currently, you cannot add notes, only read the ones you’ve made with the Kindle. However, in the future improvements section of the menu, Amazon indicates that they are working on this.

By: Steve Jordan

Steve Jordan — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 14:00:57 +0000

I notice that the app resets Windows to identify any MobiPocket content on your PC as “Kindle content,” and changes the icon. Not a real big… but pushy, IMO.

Still, it works on my XP laptop very nicely. My own MobiPocket books display on it well. It may not have all the bells and whistles of Mobi Reader on PC, but it does a good job of just providing a reading app.

I downloaded Crime and Punishment (a free book) from the store, and noticed that I can also open it in my Mobi reader for PC… so you don’t even need to use the Kindle reader if you don’t want to. (How this works for paid content, which is certainly DRM’d, I haven’t tested yet.)

By: Blue Tyson

Blue Tyson — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 01:29:14 +0000

Works on Windows 2000, but was slow to register – tried a few times with a couple of crashes.

By: Devini

Devini — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 16:10:43 +0000

Even the software. Same for the iPhone app.

By: David Rothman

David Rothman — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 15:54:00 +0000

Devini: You mean even the SOFTWARE? I wonder if territoriality–publishers’ agreements–is the villain. My sympathy! David

By: Devini

Devini — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 15:04:36 +0000

Still unavailable in Canada.

By: GJN

GJN — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 14:52:12 +0000

Yes it can read non-Amazon books. When downloading public-domain books from MobileRead or Feedbooks (via IE or Firefox), one’s given an option to open the book in the Kindle for PC program. The books are then stored in the My Kindle Content folder in My Documents in unaltered .mobi or .prc format. One can also move .mobi or .prc books to the My Kindle Content folder and they show up in your library. I like it much more now. If it could read .pdf file (haven’t tried that yet) and vary fonts, I’d be happy with it. BTW it counts as one of the six Kindles you can have registered to your account.

By: pond

pond — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 14:50:30 +0000

Thanks for the review, this is exactly what I wanted to learn about the software.

I like the idea of this, and await the Mac version with some excitement. Here’s why:

I don’t want to pay for a Kindle and lock myself into Amazon’s garden. At the same time, I’d like to make sure that my own kindle-editions will look right.

I would love to read the free previews that Amazon’s Kindle store offers for many new books. Many of those previews might be available on authors’ or publishers’ sites, but the Kindle store would give me one central repository through which I could search.

If I ever DID want to buy a Kindle book, I’d look forward to seeing bigger pages (with color? with full-sized tables! with big diagrams and illustrations even if they are in grayscale!) than are available on the Kindle2.

…

For current Kindle2 owners, I could see this as helpful in reading books that are designed for the DX model. It would also give them one more place and option for reading the current page-turner that is keeping them up late at night. Say, you drag yourself into work, yawning, having read until 4 am, but you STILL don’t know who the killer is! Fire up your PC on your cubicle desk, and surreptitiously read on, in your ‘breaks’ *uh-hm* during work hours…

This is only the 1.0 version, it will get better. I hope they will offer double-page views, but since neither Kindle does, I expect that is very low priority for Amazon. Font switching is another problem, actually: the font Amazon uses for the Kindles doesn’t have the full utf-8 set of characters (which is a shame; Kindle edition books really should be in unicode rather than having to resort to html entities) — if the KPC version let users switch to a font that did support full unicode, incompatibilities might arise.

By: Luqman

Luqman — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 14:25:56 +0000

It apparently will display non-Kindle mobipocket books if you download them using the Kindle program, according to a report on Mobileread.

By: Don Lloyd

Don Lloyd — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 13:45:14 +0000

That’s very disappointing. Without a font/background color adjustment, I’m not likely even to download it.

Regards, Don

By: Steve Jordan

Steve Jordan — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 13:40:17 +0000

I agree: It sounds like this SW is only good for those who want Kindle books without buying a Kindle, so they can hack the DRM out of them and move them to their device of choice. (Not a bad thought, actually.) And frankly, I’m amazed (to put it kindly) that it won’t display non-Kindle books. That’s just lame.

By: Kuyper

Kuyper — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 12:18:17 +0000

Shorter version: sucks hot rocks from Hell.